Charles Maclaren, customs official, writer, journalist, duellist, co-founder and editor of the Scotsman newspaper, was born on the 7th of October, 1782.
‘The Scotsman’ was Scotland’s first, truly independent newspaper and, fittingly, it was launched on Robert Burns’ anniversary, Saturday the 25th of January, 1817. It began as a weekly newspaper that had been born out of the frustrations of two determined and opinionated men; Edinburgh solicitor William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren. These two men had felt that there was no public platform for independent, outspoken views and resolved to make their words speak louder through their actions. Their conviction was that something was needed in response to existing newspapers’ “unblushing subservience” to the Edinburgh ‘establishment’. The grand idea was triggered in the minds of Ritchie and Maclaren when City newspapers refused to print, even as an advertisement, a story penned by Ritchie about the mismanagement of the new Royal Infirmary. Their ‘poke in the eye’ response to the good Burghers of Edinburgh was to publish for themselves. And so began ‘The Scotsman’ as a weekly paper, which appeared on Saturdays at a cost of 10d (ten old pence) – including stamp duty of 4d. The paper was formally entitled ‘The Scotsman or Edinburgh Political and Literary Journal’, and it took a Liberal or Whig standpoint and aimed to offer “impartiality, firmness and independence”. It included the following, stirring motto, attributed to Junius, the anonymous contributor to the ‘Public Advertiser’, under its masthead: “This is not the cause of faction, or of party, or of any individual, but the common cause of every man in Britain.”
The opening lines in the first issue ran thus:
“Before proceeding to the ordinary business of our paper, we beg to observe, that we have not chosen the name of Scotsman to preserve an invidious distinction, but with the view of rescuing it from the odium of servility. With that stain removed, a Scotsman may well claim brotherhood with an Englishman, and there ought now to be no rivalry between them, but in the cause of regulated freedom. In that cause it is our ambition to labour; but we must remind our more sanguine friends, that it is impossible in a first number to develop all our principles. Time and change of circumstances afford the only sure tests of human conduct. And it is of much more consequence that we redeem our pledge, as occasions offer, for firmness, impartiality, and independence, than that we should surprise by temporary brilliancy.”
Today, the Scotsman newspaper is a quality broadsheet newspaper that, like its rival, the Glasgow-based Herald, has contributed much to the culture of Scotland. However, back in the 19th Century, it had a few enemies, such as one Scottish lord, who described it as “that incendiary newspaper”. In fact, it had so upset the Edinburgh ‘establishment’ and in particular the indignant members of the Edinburgh Town Council that copies had to be smuggled to certain readers who dared not be seen buying it. ‘The Scotsman’ was the self-declared enemy of privilege and corruption, which it attacked unmercifully and without deviation, and the Councillors, who were described by Lord Cockburn as “omnipotent, corrupt and impenetrable”, were ruthlessly exposed. Maclaren further strengthened the paper's editorial viewpoint by supporting parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation and other national controversies such as the 1843 Disruption over the right of Church of Scotland congregations to choose their Ministers.
The revolutionary newspaper began life as an eight-page, quarto, Saturday journal with a weekly circulation of three hundred copies, but soon interest grew and a Wednesday edition was published. Sales escalated in 1855, when advertisement and newspaper stamp duty were abolished. ‘The Daily Scotsman’ was then published at a price of 1d, with front-page advertisements and a circulation of 6,000 copies. At first, it ‘did the rounds’ only in Edinburgh, but then stagecoaches took copies further afield. Because of high freight charges, few newspapers used railways in those days, but in 1865 the proprietors produced a bold plan. They agreed to guarantee the railway companies greater revenue from carrying The Scotsman alone than they earned from all other newspapers combined. In effect, the paper agreed to pay the carriage so that agents, no matter how remote, could sell it at the published price and make a farthing per copy profit. The ‘Daily’ was dropped from its title when the Scotsman was received throughout Scotland and sales increased to 17,000 a day. Its circulation rose to 40,000 in 1873 and it became, in both spirit and clout, what it remains today; Scotland's national newspaper.
Charles Maclaren was born at Ormiston in Haddingtonshire (East Lothian) on the 7th of October, 1782. He was almost entirely self-educated, but was able to earn himself a job as a clerk in Edinburgh. By 1817, he was a clerk in the custom house and friends with William Ritchie, the solicitor with whom he conceived and launched ‘The Scotsman’. Maclaren acted as the paper’s political editor and later, from 1820 as its full-time, controlling editor. He contributed greatly to the embryonic paper and shaped its policies, supporting reform at home and liberalism abroad. Maclaren resigned in 1845, but during his tenure at ‘The Scotsman’ he also ‘doubled up’ as the editor of the sixth edition (1820–23) of ‘The Encyclopædia Britannica’. Some biographies suggest he also performed editorial services for the 4th, 5th and 7th editions of the ‘Britannica’. Maclaren was the author of the ‘Genealogy of Fife and the Lothians’ and, from 1864 -1866, he was President of the Geological Society of Edinburgh. His services to science were recognised by his election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Maclaren was not only a courageous man when it came to printing his forthright views, he had the balls to fight a duel. The gunfight at Ravelston involved Maclaren and Dr. James Browne, the editor of the ‘Caledonian Mercury’, whose journalistic attacks had offended Maclaren. The protagonists agreed to meet and exchanged shots, but they both missed and that was that. They parted un-reconciled and without shaking hands. Charles Maclaren thereafter hung up his guns and died peacefully at home in Edinburgh on the 10th of September, 1866.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
The Reverend Ebenezer Henderson
The Reverend Ebenezer Henderson, missionary, formed the first Congregational Church in Sweden on the 6th of October, 1811.
The Reverend Ebenezer Henderson never intended going to Sweden, let alone Scandinavia, but in 1805 circumstances and fate perhaps played a hand and thereafter he spent many years travelling throughout Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Russia, preaching and giving out bibles and translations of the New Testament. Henderson was a gifted linguistic scholar who achieved remarkable results in his chosen field. As well as the ‘classic’ scholarly languages, he learned those of the various Scandinavian countries he visited. In addition, he was considered to be one of the most accomplished oriental and biblical scholars in Britain and was familiar with Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Manchu, Mongolian, Tatar, Persian, Turkish, Russian, Arabic and Coptic. He wrote a number of books on theology, biblical criticism and new translations of biblical works from the original Hebrew, including in 1813, the first translation of the New Testament into Icelandic. In 1822, he was invited by Prince Alexander (Galitzin) to assist the Russian Bible Society in translating the Scriptures into various languages spoken in the Russian empire. Additionally, he edited a new edition of Buck’s Theological Dictionary and he was one of the first promoters of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. He also wrote about the countries that he visited. One particular book about his travels in Iceland was a valuable contribution to knowledge of that island in the early 19th Century. In another book, he wrote about his extensive travels in Russia. His last work was a translation of the Book of Ezekiel, which was not made into a film starring Denzil Washington.
Ebenezer Henderson was born at Linn, near Redcraigs in the parish of Saline, on the 17th of November, 1784. His nephew, known as Ebenezer Henderson the Younger, was a scientist of some renown and the author of the ‘Annals of Dunfermline’. Ebenezer the Elder was probably educated in the Saline parish school and afterwards, he spent some time as a watchmaker, a cowherd, and apprentice cobbler. However, his true calling was to be a Missionary and in 1803, he joined Robert Haldane’s theological seminary in Edinburgh. His aptitude for that vocation was obvious and, in 1805 on completion of his studies, he was selected to accompany the Reverend John Paterson to India. Getting to India was easier said than done as between 1805 and 1813, a bitter debate raged over the right of Christian missionaries to operate in British India. It was considered by the ‘establishment’ that their actions would disrupt the Imperial order and thus affect profits. Therefore, the East Company wouldn’t allow British vessels to carry missionaries to India. The proposed solution involved Henderson and Paterson making their way to Denmark to await a passage to Serampur in West Bengal, which was then a Danish port. Fatefully, they were delayed and so they began preaching in Copenhagen, before finally deciding to settle in Denmark. The next year, Henderson became the pastor at Elsinore.
After that time until around 1817, Henderson was engaged in the distribution of bibles in the Scandinavian countries. As an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he visited Sweden, Lapland, Iceland, the mainland of Denmark, and part of Germany. Returning to Sweden after having first been there in 1807-8, he formed the first Congregational Church, on the 6th of October, 1811. Later, in 1818, after a brief visit to England, he travelled throughout Russia as far south as Tiflis. However, instead of settling at Astrakhan as was proposed, he resigned his connection with the Bible Society. That was because of his disapproval of the Turkish New Testament, which had been printed in Paris, in 1819. Later, in 1824, Henderson published the pamphlet with the long name, entitled ‘Appeal to the members of the British and Foreign Bible Society, on the subject of Containing a view of its history, an exposure of its errors, and palpable proofs of the necessity of its suppression’. Finally, after twenty years of foreign service, Henderson returned to Britain, where in 1825, he became Tutor of the Mission College in Gosport. In 1830, he was appointed Theological Lecturer and Professor of Oriental Languages in Highbury Congregational College. In 1850, he retired on a pension, but from 1852 to1853 he was Pastor of Sheen Vale chapel at Mortlake.
Ebenezer Henderson was one of the earliest foreign travellers to Iceland, where he stayed in for two years. His two-volume work of his travels was called ‘Iceland: Or The Journal Of A Residence In That Island, During The Years 1814 And 1815’. He was also a keen observer who acquired and presented a large amount of information, as exemplified by the sub-title of the book, ‘Observations on the Natural Phenomena, History, Literature, and Antiquities of the Island; And the Religion, Character, Manners, and Customs of Its Inhabitants’. Amusingly, on the 21st of April, 1818, in the preface to that book, which was published that year, he wrote apologetically, “For any inaccuracies, in point of language, the author claims the indulgence of his readers; which he feels assured they will not deny him, when he informs them, that, during an absence of thirteen years from his native country, his attention has been more directed to the study of other languages, than to the cultivation of his own.”
The Reverend Ebenezer Henderson died at Mortlake on the 17th of May, 1858.
The Reverend Ebenezer Henderson never intended going to Sweden, let alone Scandinavia, but in 1805 circumstances and fate perhaps played a hand and thereafter he spent many years travelling throughout Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Russia, preaching and giving out bibles and translations of the New Testament. Henderson was a gifted linguistic scholar who achieved remarkable results in his chosen field. As well as the ‘classic’ scholarly languages, he learned those of the various Scandinavian countries he visited. In addition, he was considered to be one of the most accomplished oriental and biblical scholars in Britain and was familiar with Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Manchu, Mongolian, Tatar, Persian, Turkish, Russian, Arabic and Coptic. He wrote a number of books on theology, biblical criticism and new translations of biblical works from the original Hebrew, including in 1813, the first translation of the New Testament into Icelandic. In 1822, he was invited by Prince Alexander (Galitzin) to assist the Russian Bible Society in translating the Scriptures into various languages spoken in the Russian empire. Additionally, he edited a new edition of Buck’s Theological Dictionary and he was one of the first promoters of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. He also wrote about the countries that he visited. One particular book about his travels in Iceland was a valuable contribution to knowledge of that island in the early 19th Century. In another book, he wrote about his extensive travels in Russia. His last work was a translation of the Book of Ezekiel, which was not made into a film starring Denzil Washington.
Ebenezer Henderson was born at Linn, near Redcraigs in the parish of Saline, on the 17th of November, 1784. His nephew, known as Ebenezer Henderson the Younger, was a scientist of some renown and the author of the ‘Annals of Dunfermline’. Ebenezer the Elder was probably educated in the Saline parish school and afterwards, he spent some time as a watchmaker, a cowherd, and apprentice cobbler. However, his true calling was to be a Missionary and in 1803, he joined Robert Haldane’s theological seminary in Edinburgh. His aptitude for that vocation was obvious and, in 1805 on completion of his studies, he was selected to accompany the Reverend John Paterson to India. Getting to India was easier said than done as between 1805 and 1813, a bitter debate raged over the right of Christian missionaries to operate in British India. It was considered by the ‘establishment’ that their actions would disrupt the Imperial order and thus affect profits. Therefore, the East Company wouldn’t allow British vessels to carry missionaries to India. The proposed solution involved Henderson and Paterson making their way to Denmark to await a passage to Serampur in West Bengal, which was then a Danish port. Fatefully, they were delayed and so they began preaching in Copenhagen, before finally deciding to settle in Denmark. The next year, Henderson became the pastor at Elsinore.
After that time until around 1817, Henderson was engaged in the distribution of bibles in the Scandinavian countries. As an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he visited Sweden, Lapland, Iceland, the mainland of Denmark, and part of Germany. Returning to Sweden after having first been there in 1807-8, he formed the first Congregational Church, on the 6th of October, 1811. Later, in 1818, after a brief visit to England, he travelled throughout Russia as far south as Tiflis. However, instead of settling at Astrakhan as was proposed, he resigned his connection with the Bible Society. That was because of his disapproval of the Turkish New Testament, which had been printed in Paris, in 1819. Later, in 1824, Henderson published the pamphlet with the long name, entitled ‘Appeal to the members of the British and Foreign Bible Society, on the subject of Containing a view of its history, an exposure of its errors, and palpable proofs of the necessity of its suppression’. Finally, after twenty years of foreign service, Henderson returned to Britain, where in 1825, he became Tutor of the Mission College in Gosport. In 1830, he was appointed Theological Lecturer and Professor of Oriental Languages in Highbury Congregational College. In 1850, he retired on a pension, but from 1852 to1853 he was Pastor of Sheen Vale chapel at Mortlake.
Ebenezer Henderson was one of the earliest foreign travellers to Iceland, where he stayed in for two years. His two-volume work of his travels was called ‘Iceland: Or The Journal Of A Residence In That Island, During The Years 1814 And 1815’. He was also a keen observer who acquired and presented a large amount of information, as exemplified by the sub-title of the book, ‘Observations on the Natural Phenomena, History, Literature, and Antiquities of the Island; And the Religion, Character, Manners, and Customs of Its Inhabitants’. Amusingly, on the 21st of April, 1818, in the preface to that book, which was published that year, he wrote apologetically, “For any inaccuracies, in point of language, the author claims the indulgence of his readers; which he feels assured they will not deny him, when he informs them, that, during an absence of thirteen years from his native country, his attention has been more directed to the study of other languages, than to the cultivation of his own.”
The Reverend Ebenezer Henderson died at Mortlake on the 17th of May, 1858.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Jock Stein, CBE
Jock Stein, CBE, miner, footballer, manager and legend, was born on the 5th of October, 1922.
Jock Stein was a legend of the game of Association Football. There is can be no doubt about it, because that’s what another one of that long line of great, Scottish football managers, Bill Shankly, once said. Stein didn’t achieve a great deal of distinction as a player, but as a manager, he had few equals. The scandalously un-knighted Jock Stein ranks alongside Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and the trophy laden Rangers manager, Bill Struth, as one of the most successful of Scottish football managers. In a recent poll by the Sunday Herald to find the fifty greatest managers in Scottish football history, it’s fair to say that Stein rightly beat Ferguson into second place. It’s fair, because as far as comparisons go, evaluating Stein’s era in contrast to the monetary excesses of today is unfair – to the candidates of either period. The astonishing contribution Stein made to the game of football was achieved with local talent and without a large chequebook. His success and his reputation are primarily down to his association with Glasgow Celtic, the club he managed for the thirteen years from 1965 until 1978. Yet, it’s a case of Jock Stein having made Celtic the club it is, rather than the other way round. Quite simply, Jock Stein was Celtic and his legacy shall surely forever remain. Strangely enough, Stein was a supporter of Rangers and when he joined that club’s ‘Old Firm’ rivals, his father refused to speak of it, and many of his friends and acquaintances in Burnbank turned their backs on the ‘turn coat’.
Of course, his greatest achievement was in guiding Celtic to its European Cup triumph in the Estádio Nacional, in Lisbon. Famously, on the 25th of May, 1967, the underdogs of Celtic beat the overwhelming favourites and previously two-time cup winners, Inter Milan, managed by the legendary Helenio Herrera. That 2-1 victory was gained in only Stein’s second season at the club and the feat served to place both Celtic and Stein firmly upon the World football map. Never mind BC, BS as in ‘before Stein’, Celtic weren’t recognised beyond the UK and barely caused a ripple outside the borders of Scotland. It’s a fact that the Celtic team was comprised of players who were all born within thirty miles of the centre of Glasgow. Somehow, Stein had transformed those players into a major force in European football – at the first attempt. They played attractive, attacking football, which won universal admiration and earned the team its nickname; the 'Lisbon Lions'. As Stein said after the game, “We did it by playing football; pure, beautiful, inventive football. There was not a negative thought in our heads.” And the humbled Herrera admitted, “Celtic deserved their victory. Although we lost, the match was a victory for sport.”
John 'Jock' Stein was born in the Lanarkshire mining village of Burnbank on the 5th of October, 1922, and entered football following a brief career in a carpet factory and later as a coal miner. He made his first professional appearance on the 14th of November, 1942, as centre half for Albion Rovers and over the next eight seasons, whilst still working as a miner, he played 236 games and scored nine goals for the ‘Wee Rovers’. In 1950, he left Cliftonhill for non-league Llanelly Town, but that was a complex and acrimonious, not to say illegal, affair that ultimately resulted in Stein returning to Scotland with the intention of giving up football and returning to a life down the pits. Thankfully for Celtic and Scotland, Jimmy Gribben ensured Celtic's chairman, Robert Kelly, invited Stein to come home. Jock became club captain when Sean Fallon broke his arm during the 1952-53 season and by the time he retired on the 29th of January, 1957, Stein had played 147 games. His crowning glory in Celtic’s ‘hoops’ as a player was the League Championship and Scottish Cup double of 1954.
In 1960, Stein’s first management job was that of rescuing Dunfermline from relegation. He was such a resounding success that he guided the club to its first Scottish Cup trophy. Ironically, Dunfermline beat Celtic 2-0 in a midweek replay after a goalless draw at Hampden. Then, in probably his most unheralded success, Stein’s team sent a shockwave around Europe in 1962-63, when it clawed back a four goal deficit from the first leg of an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup encounter with Spanish giants Valencia. Spectacularly, the ‘Pars’ notched up an incredible 6-2 scoreline at East End Park to take the match to a play-off, prophetically, in Lisbon. Stein then spent a year at Hibernian, before returning to Celtic, and his destiny, in 1965. During Stein’s reign, Celtic's dominance of Scottish football became supreme. He first guided his team to the 1965 Scottish Cup, giving Celtic its first major win since 1958. Under his management, the club then went on to win its first ever domestic treble and together, they set a phenomenal Scottish football record of nine successive league championship titles in a row from 1966 to 1974. Celtic won ten League Championships in total under Stein, eight Scottish Cups and six Scottish League Cups. In terms of European football, Celtic reached the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1966, when it was eliminated on away goals by Liverpool. Then, following up its 1967 win, the club reached the final once again in 1970, only losing after extra time to Feyenoord. And along the way was that unforgettable two-leg semi final against Leeds United, a team Stein later managed for a mere forty-five days before leaving to take up the Scotland job.
Jock Stein took Scotland to the World Cup Finals in Spain in 1982 and his record as Scotland head coach is second only to Craig Brown's: played 68; won 30; drew 13; and lost 25. He certainly left his mark on the game and many of today's top managers owe something to Stein's tactical genius. Perhaps Sir Alex Ferguson, in particular, took something from Jock’s fiery temper, which could silence a dressing-room full of cocky, young stars in an instant. Stein was a gregarious character, with presence and unique man-management skills. Stories abound also of his network of spies, dedicated to keeping tabs on the likes of Jimmy Johnstone in order to curtail his more unruly escapades.
Jock Stein died on the 10th of September, 1985, at Ninian Park in Cardiff. His death came after Scotland had drawn 1-1 with Wales to secure a play-off against Australia, which would lead to qualification for the 1986 World Cup. There had been signs before and during the game that Stein was unwell and at the end of the match, the 44,000 crowd and a million or so television viewers witnessed the distressing image of Stein being assisted from the bench. It transpired that he hadn't taken his diuretic pills that day and had succumbed to a build-up of fluid in his lungs. What more fitting tribute can there be than the words of Bill Shankly, when he told Stein after Celtic's historic win in Lisbon, “Jock, you're immortal now.”
Jock Stein was a legend of the game of Association Football. There is can be no doubt about it, because that’s what another one of that long line of great, Scottish football managers, Bill Shankly, once said. Stein didn’t achieve a great deal of distinction as a player, but as a manager, he had few equals. The scandalously un-knighted Jock Stein ranks alongside Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and the trophy laden Rangers manager, Bill Struth, as one of the most successful of Scottish football managers. In a recent poll by the Sunday Herald to find the fifty greatest managers in Scottish football history, it’s fair to say that Stein rightly beat Ferguson into second place. It’s fair, because as far as comparisons go, evaluating Stein’s era in contrast to the monetary excesses of today is unfair – to the candidates of either period. The astonishing contribution Stein made to the game of football was achieved with local talent and without a large chequebook. His success and his reputation are primarily down to his association with Glasgow Celtic, the club he managed for the thirteen years from 1965 until 1978. Yet, it’s a case of Jock Stein having made Celtic the club it is, rather than the other way round. Quite simply, Jock Stein was Celtic and his legacy shall surely forever remain. Strangely enough, Stein was a supporter of Rangers and when he joined that club’s ‘Old Firm’ rivals, his father refused to speak of it, and many of his friends and acquaintances in Burnbank turned their backs on the ‘turn coat’.
Of course, his greatest achievement was in guiding Celtic to its European Cup triumph in the Estádio Nacional, in Lisbon. Famously, on the 25th of May, 1967, the underdogs of Celtic beat the overwhelming favourites and previously two-time cup winners, Inter Milan, managed by the legendary Helenio Herrera. That 2-1 victory was gained in only Stein’s second season at the club and the feat served to place both Celtic and Stein firmly upon the World football map. Never mind BC, BS as in ‘before Stein’, Celtic weren’t recognised beyond the UK and barely caused a ripple outside the borders of Scotland. It’s a fact that the Celtic team was comprised of players who were all born within thirty miles of the centre of Glasgow. Somehow, Stein had transformed those players into a major force in European football – at the first attempt. They played attractive, attacking football, which won universal admiration and earned the team its nickname; the 'Lisbon Lions'. As Stein said after the game, “We did it by playing football; pure, beautiful, inventive football. There was not a negative thought in our heads.” And the humbled Herrera admitted, “Celtic deserved their victory. Although we lost, the match was a victory for sport.”
John 'Jock' Stein was born in the Lanarkshire mining village of Burnbank on the 5th of October, 1922, and entered football following a brief career in a carpet factory and later as a coal miner. He made his first professional appearance on the 14th of November, 1942, as centre half for Albion Rovers and over the next eight seasons, whilst still working as a miner, he played 236 games and scored nine goals for the ‘Wee Rovers’. In 1950, he left Cliftonhill for non-league Llanelly Town, but that was a complex and acrimonious, not to say illegal, affair that ultimately resulted in Stein returning to Scotland with the intention of giving up football and returning to a life down the pits. Thankfully for Celtic and Scotland, Jimmy Gribben ensured Celtic's chairman, Robert Kelly, invited Stein to come home. Jock became club captain when Sean Fallon broke his arm during the 1952-53 season and by the time he retired on the 29th of January, 1957, Stein had played 147 games. His crowning glory in Celtic’s ‘hoops’ as a player was the League Championship and Scottish Cup double of 1954.
In 1960, Stein’s first management job was that of rescuing Dunfermline from relegation. He was such a resounding success that he guided the club to its first Scottish Cup trophy. Ironically, Dunfermline beat Celtic 2-0 in a midweek replay after a goalless draw at Hampden. Then, in probably his most unheralded success, Stein’s team sent a shockwave around Europe in 1962-63, when it clawed back a four goal deficit from the first leg of an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup encounter with Spanish giants Valencia. Spectacularly, the ‘Pars’ notched up an incredible 6-2 scoreline at East End Park to take the match to a play-off, prophetically, in Lisbon. Stein then spent a year at Hibernian, before returning to Celtic, and his destiny, in 1965. During Stein’s reign, Celtic's dominance of Scottish football became supreme. He first guided his team to the 1965 Scottish Cup, giving Celtic its first major win since 1958. Under his management, the club then went on to win its first ever domestic treble and together, they set a phenomenal Scottish football record of nine successive league championship titles in a row from 1966 to 1974. Celtic won ten League Championships in total under Stein, eight Scottish Cups and six Scottish League Cups. In terms of European football, Celtic reached the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1966, when it was eliminated on away goals by Liverpool. Then, following up its 1967 win, the club reached the final once again in 1970, only losing after extra time to Feyenoord. And along the way was that unforgettable two-leg semi final against Leeds United, a team Stein later managed for a mere forty-five days before leaving to take up the Scotland job.
Jock Stein took Scotland to the World Cup Finals in Spain in 1982 and his record as Scotland head coach is second only to Craig Brown's: played 68; won 30; drew 13; and lost 25. He certainly left his mark on the game and many of today's top managers owe something to Stein's tactical genius. Perhaps Sir Alex Ferguson, in particular, took something from Jock’s fiery temper, which could silence a dressing-room full of cocky, young stars in an instant. Stein was a gregarious character, with presence and unique man-management skills. Stories abound also of his network of spies, dedicated to keeping tabs on the likes of Jimmy Johnstone in order to curtail his more unruly escapades.
Jock Stein died on the 10th of September, 1985, at Ninian Park in Cardiff. His death came after Scotland had drawn 1-1 with Wales to secure a play-off against Australia, which would lead to qualification for the 1986 World Cup. There had been signs before and during the game that Stein was unwell and at the end of the match, the 44,000 crowd and a million or so television viewers witnessed the distressing image of Stein being assisted from the bench. It transpired that he hadn't taken his diuretic pills that day and had succumbed to a build-up of fluid in his lungs. What more fitting tribute can there be than the words of Bill Shankly, when he told Stein after Celtic's historic win in Lisbon, “Jock, you're immortal now.”
John Rennie
John Rennie, mechanic, millwright, civil engineer, architect, and builder of aqueducts, bridges, canals, docks and harbours, died on the 4th of October, 1821.
In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, if there was any civil engineering job worth doing in Britain, it’s likely that John Rennie had a hand in building it. Along with Thomas Telford and John Stevenson, Rennie was surely one of the greatest civil engineers of his era. The list of his achievements and pioneering use of materials is long and distinguished and evidence of his great works can be seen from Leith and Musselburgh in Lothian all he way down and across through England and across the Irish Sea to Dublin. Like many of his ilk, he grew up to achieve widespread fame and recognition despite having emerged from unremarkable circumstances. He rubbed shoulders with other great Scots; men like Andrew Meikle, the inventor of the thrashing machine, and James Watt, the man who improved the steam engine out of sight. From those men, he gained invaluable experience and undoubted respect and recommendation and set about carving out his own reputation as an engineer, probably without peer at the time. The quality and diversity of his endeavours was incredible and the extraordinary genius of his legacy lingers to this day around the waterways and shores of Britain. No greater accolade can be paid him than the comments of a farmer making the crossing of the new bridge at Musselburgh, which had replaced its decidedly shaky predecessor. “Brig,” answered the man in response to the query of a Magistrate in the company of Rennie, “it’s nae brig ava; ye neither ken whan ye’re on’t, nor whan ye’re aff’t.”
John Rennie was born on the 7th of June, 1761, on the Phantassie Estate near the village of East Linton in East Lothian. His father died when Rennie was five, but he was looked after by relatives and ‘gained a rudimentary education’ at the Parish School of Prestonkirk. Rennie showed a taste for mechanics at a very early age and there are stories that he played truant from school in order to spend time in the workshop of Andrew Meikle, the millwright and celebrated inventor. By the age of ten, Rennie had built working models of a windmill, a steam engine and a pile engine, and from the age of twelve, he spent less time at school and more working for Meikle at Houston Mill. He then attended the Burgh School at Dunbar and, when just sixteen, he was recommended as successor to the Schoolmaster. However, the academic life was not to John Rennie’s liking and instead, he went back to working for Meikle. He erected two or three corn mills for Rennie and by the time he was eighteen, had undertaken his first solo project; the rebuilding of the flour mills at Invergowrie. In the autumn of 1780, he began studying at Edinburgh University and between then and 1783, spent the summers working for Meikle and the rest of the year at the University. He attended the Chemistry lectures of Dr Black and the Natural Philosophy lectures of Professor Robison.
In 1783, Rennie went south with a recommendation from Robinson to James Watt, of Boulton & Watt fame, at the Soho Foundry in Smethwick. Watt gave Rennie a job and it wasn’t long before his extraordinary talents became obvious. Within a year, Rennie was in London, to take charge of the construction of two steam engines and twenty pairs of millstones at the Albion Flour Mills in Blackfriars. The work, which really established Rennie’s fame was finished in 1789, by which time he had designed many improvements to the machinery. He introduced cast iron instead of wooden wheels and also used iron for the shafting and framing. Not content with that, he increased the produce of the mills by clever use of water power, rather than simply using the impetus of the current, and was the inventor of significant advances such as the rigid bride-tree. The hitherto common practice of placing the vertical axis of the running mill stone in the middle of the bridge-tree meant that it yielded according to the quantity of grain admitted. Rennie’s invention freed the machinery from such irregular play and avoided the kind of movement that sooner or later proves fatal to any mechanism.
In about 1791, Rennie took advantage of his newly enhanced reputation and started his own mechanical and civil engineering business in Holland Street, Blackfriars. His first projects were the construction of canals and his list of achievements in the category of ‘canals’ includes: the Kennet and Avon, the Crinan Canal, the Rochdale Canal, the Lancaster Canal, the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, the Royal Military Canal, the Aberdeen, the Great Western, the Portsmouth, the Birmingham, and the Worcester. In 1802, he provided revised plans for the Royal Canal of Ireland and in an associated category of ‘drainage’, he came up with schemes for improving the drainage of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk fens. Rennie also gained an exemplary reputation in the category of ‘bridges’ as he was responsible for some wonderful structures. He built the Lune Aqueduct and bridges at Kelso, Leeds and at Musselburgh, the latter of which presented a remarkable innovation in the flatness of its roadway, instead of the usual rise in the centre. He proved to be a skilful architect as a look at the cast iron Southwark Bridge will testify and he was noted for building bridges with flat and wide arches and unprecedented flat roadways. Two bridges deserve special mention; London Bridge was built from his design, although it wasn’t completed until after his death, and Waterloo Bridge. The magnificent public work at Waterloo, which was completed in 1817 at a cost of over £1M, has been described as “…one of the noblest structures of the kind in the world, whether we regard the …impression of indestructibility, …or its adaptation to the useful purpose for which it was intended.”
Amongst Rennie’s other amazing achievement are his work in the category of ‘docks and harbours’ in which can be listed the docks of Leith, Queensferry, Greenock, Liverpool, Hull, Grimsby, Blackwall, and the East and West India docks, and the harbours of Holyhead, Ramsgate, Berwick, Dunleary, Howth, and Newhaven, and the naval dockyards at Sheerness, Portsmouth, Chatham and Devonport. The naval arsenal at Pembroke was also constructed from his designs, but his greatest naval work was the celebrated breakwater at Plymouth. It consisted of a wall a mile in length across the Sound, in deep water, and containing 3,670,444 tons of rough stone and 22,149 cubic yards of masonry. His inventiveness new no bounds and we can list the diving bell, which he used at Ramsgate, and the bucket-chain steam powered dredging machine, which he developed at Hull, quite independent of Sir Samuel Bentham, amongst his achievements.
John Rennie died, of inflammation in the liver, at his house in Stamford Street, London, on the 4th of October, 1821. He was buried with great funeral honours in St Paul's Cathedral. At the time of his death London Bridge was still unfinished, but the work was taken up by one of his sons, who became Sir John Rennie and President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, if there was any civil engineering job worth doing in Britain, it’s likely that John Rennie had a hand in building it. Along with Thomas Telford and John Stevenson, Rennie was surely one of the greatest civil engineers of his era. The list of his achievements and pioneering use of materials is long and distinguished and evidence of his great works can be seen from Leith and Musselburgh in Lothian all he way down and across through England and across the Irish Sea to Dublin. Like many of his ilk, he grew up to achieve widespread fame and recognition despite having emerged from unremarkable circumstances. He rubbed shoulders with other great Scots; men like Andrew Meikle, the inventor of the thrashing machine, and James Watt, the man who improved the steam engine out of sight. From those men, he gained invaluable experience and undoubted respect and recommendation and set about carving out his own reputation as an engineer, probably without peer at the time. The quality and diversity of his endeavours was incredible and the extraordinary genius of his legacy lingers to this day around the waterways and shores of Britain. No greater accolade can be paid him than the comments of a farmer making the crossing of the new bridge at Musselburgh, which had replaced its decidedly shaky predecessor. “Brig,” answered the man in response to the query of a Magistrate in the company of Rennie, “it’s nae brig ava; ye neither ken whan ye’re on’t, nor whan ye’re aff’t.”
John Rennie was born on the 7th of June, 1761, on the Phantassie Estate near the village of East Linton in East Lothian. His father died when Rennie was five, but he was looked after by relatives and ‘gained a rudimentary education’ at the Parish School of Prestonkirk. Rennie showed a taste for mechanics at a very early age and there are stories that he played truant from school in order to spend time in the workshop of Andrew Meikle, the millwright and celebrated inventor. By the age of ten, Rennie had built working models of a windmill, a steam engine and a pile engine, and from the age of twelve, he spent less time at school and more working for Meikle at Houston Mill. He then attended the Burgh School at Dunbar and, when just sixteen, he was recommended as successor to the Schoolmaster. However, the academic life was not to John Rennie’s liking and instead, he went back to working for Meikle. He erected two or three corn mills for Rennie and by the time he was eighteen, had undertaken his first solo project; the rebuilding of the flour mills at Invergowrie. In the autumn of 1780, he began studying at Edinburgh University and between then and 1783, spent the summers working for Meikle and the rest of the year at the University. He attended the Chemistry lectures of Dr Black and the Natural Philosophy lectures of Professor Robison.
In 1783, Rennie went south with a recommendation from Robinson to James Watt, of Boulton & Watt fame, at the Soho Foundry in Smethwick. Watt gave Rennie a job and it wasn’t long before his extraordinary talents became obvious. Within a year, Rennie was in London, to take charge of the construction of two steam engines and twenty pairs of millstones at the Albion Flour Mills in Blackfriars. The work, which really established Rennie’s fame was finished in 1789, by which time he had designed many improvements to the machinery. He introduced cast iron instead of wooden wheels and also used iron for the shafting and framing. Not content with that, he increased the produce of the mills by clever use of water power, rather than simply using the impetus of the current, and was the inventor of significant advances such as the rigid bride-tree. The hitherto common practice of placing the vertical axis of the running mill stone in the middle of the bridge-tree meant that it yielded according to the quantity of grain admitted. Rennie’s invention freed the machinery from such irregular play and avoided the kind of movement that sooner or later proves fatal to any mechanism.
In about 1791, Rennie took advantage of his newly enhanced reputation and started his own mechanical and civil engineering business in Holland Street, Blackfriars. His first projects were the construction of canals and his list of achievements in the category of ‘canals’ includes: the Kennet and Avon, the Crinan Canal, the Rochdale Canal, the Lancaster Canal, the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, the Royal Military Canal, the Aberdeen, the Great Western, the Portsmouth, the Birmingham, and the Worcester. In 1802, he provided revised plans for the Royal Canal of Ireland and in an associated category of ‘drainage’, he came up with schemes for improving the drainage of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk fens. Rennie also gained an exemplary reputation in the category of ‘bridges’ as he was responsible for some wonderful structures. He built the Lune Aqueduct and bridges at Kelso, Leeds and at Musselburgh, the latter of which presented a remarkable innovation in the flatness of its roadway, instead of the usual rise in the centre. He proved to be a skilful architect as a look at the cast iron Southwark Bridge will testify and he was noted for building bridges with flat and wide arches and unprecedented flat roadways. Two bridges deserve special mention; London Bridge was built from his design, although it wasn’t completed until after his death, and Waterloo Bridge. The magnificent public work at Waterloo, which was completed in 1817 at a cost of over £1M, has been described as “…one of the noblest structures of the kind in the world, whether we regard the …impression of indestructibility, …or its adaptation to the useful purpose for which it was intended.”
Amongst Rennie’s other amazing achievement are his work in the category of ‘docks and harbours’ in which can be listed the docks of Leith, Queensferry, Greenock, Liverpool, Hull, Grimsby, Blackwall, and the East and West India docks, and the harbours of Holyhead, Ramsgate, Berwick, Dunleary, Howth, and Newhaven, and the naval dockyards at Sheerness, Portsmouth, Chatham and Devonport. The naval arsenal at Pembroke was also constructed from his designs, but his greatest naval work was the celebrated breakwater at Plymouth. It consisted of a wall a mile in length across the Sound, in deep water, and containing 3,670,444 tons of rough stone and 22,149 cubic yards of masonry. His inventiveness new no bounds and we can list the diving bell, which he used at Ramsgate, and the bucket-chain steam powered dredging machine, which he developed at Hull, quite independent of Sir Samuel Bentham, amongst his achievements.
John Rennie died, of inflammation in the liver, at his house in Stamford Street, London, on the 4th of October, 1821. He was buried with great funeral honours in St Paul's Cathedral. At the time of his death London Bridge was still unfinished, but the work was taken up by one of his sons, who became Sir John Rennie and President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson ended his 'Travels with a Donkey' from Le Monastier Sur Gazeille to St Jean Du Gard in the Cevennes on the 3rd of October, 1878.
Robert Lewis ‘Louis’ Balfour Stevenson was a renowned essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books who surely has a special place in the hearts of many readers. He is best known for his adventure novels such as ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Kidnapped’, and of course, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. His passionate ambition was to become a writer and although he studied engineering briefly in 1867, and became an advocate in 1875, he couldn’t set his heart on a formal career. That was despite his father and grandfather both being members of the ‘Lighthouse Stevensons’, who between them were responsible for building most of Scotland's lighthouses. Another factor, which was not inconsequential in his choice of career, was that Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis as a child and simply wasn’t capable of making a living as an engineer. As an adult, there were times when Stevenson could not wear a jacket for fear of bringing on a lung haemorrhage. He was born in Edinburgh on the 3rd of November, 1850, and at the age of eighteen, he dropped the ‘Balfour’ from his name, changed the spelling of ‘Lewis’ to ‘Louis’, and began to refer to himself as ‘RLS’. He produced his first story, a short historical tale, at the age of sixteen and by the time he was called to the bar, he had already started to write travel sketches, essays, and short stories for magazines. His first articles were published in ‘The Edinburgh University Magazine’ and ‘The Portofolio’.
His was a free and restless spirit who enjoyed travelling, adventure and the outdoors. He became a great traveller despite chronic ill health and in fact, he travelled extensively around the World in an effort to find a climate that would help his lungs. He famously wrote up his experiences in books such as ‘Inland Voyage’, which was an account of a journey through Belguim and France in a canoe, and ‘Travels on a Donkey in the Cévennes’. Stevenson's tone in his travelogues is often jovial or satirical and his trips provided him with many insights and inspiration for his writing. His ‘Travels with a Donkey’ was based on a walking trip in France with a stubborn donkey. “I travel for travel's sake,” and “The great affair is to move” wrote Stevenson. Here is a piece of ‘Songs of Travel’ to give you a sense of his inspiration:
“Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.”
In the summer of 1878, Stevenson was living in France as a struggling author and had yet to write the books that would make him famous. Notwithstanding his first book, about the canoe trip in Belgium, his future career as a writer was far from assured. He led an unconventional, bohemian lifestyle, matched by his daringly long hair and eccentric appearance and he had fallen in love with a married American woman, called Fanny Osbourne, ten years his elder. When she returned to California, Stevenson needed to sort himself out financially, become independent of his parents, and be able to chase after Fanny. Why should he be any different? So, he headed into the hills to reflect on the cross-roads in his life, contemplate his future, and write a book about it.
The result of his trip is considered to be the pioneering classic of the outdoor and travel genre of literature. The book, ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes’, recounts Stevenson's twelve day, one hundred and twenty mile solo hiking journey through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France. Not only is it one of the earliest portrayals of travelling for pleasure as a recreational activity, it also describes the commissioning of one of the World’s first sleeping bags. Stevenson designed the bag himself and got the local villagers to make it by sewing together sheep skins, with the wool side in to form what he termed his ‘sleeping sack’. It was much larger and heavier than modern sleeping bags and so he needed a means of carrying it. The solution proved to be a stubborn, manipulative donkey called Modestine, of whom Stevenson could never quite get the better.
The book is highly ornamental and contains passages of French prose and references to historical people, places and events. It also contains allusions to literary and biblical passages and Stevenson’s famous ‘mottoes’; a technique also used by Sir Walter Scott. Those are the short poems that appear between various chapters and which are attributed to fictional authors. However, Stevenson wrote them himself as he explained in a letter to his friend and collaborator (on the play ‘Deacon Brodie’), William Henley, saying, “I can't get mottoes for some of my sections and took to making them [myself]; for I wish rather to have the precise sense than very elegant verses.” Stevenson used a number of sources in writing the book, for which he simply made notes during his travels. Later, he spent time at the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh and his favourite amongst the books he drew upon was the English editions of Jean Cavalier's ‘Memoirs of the War of the Cévennes’. He marked the library copy of that story of the legendary folk hero and rebel leader of the Protestant Camisards of France by commenting, “I fear [the memoirs] are to be taken with a very large allowance.”
The chapter, ‘A Night Among The Pines’, contains some wonderful descriptions of the out of doors. Here’s a taster:
“The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black between the stars.”
Robert Lewis ‘Louis’ Balfour Stevenson was a renowned essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books who surely has a special place in the hearts of many readers. He is best known for his adventure novels such as ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Kidnapped’, and of course, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. His passionate ambition was to become a writer and although he studied engineering briefly in 1867, and became an advocate in 1875, he couldn’t set his heart on a formal career. That was despite his father and grandfather both being members of the ‘Lighthouse Stevensons’, who between them were responsible for building most of Scotland's lighthouses. Another factor, which was not inconsequential in his choice of career, was that Stevenson suffered from tuberculosis as a child and simply wasn’t capable of making a living as an engineer. As an adult, there were times when Stevenson could not wear a jacket for fear of bringing on a lung haemorrhage. He was born in Edinburgh on the 3rd of November, 1850, and at the age of eighteen, he dropped the ‘Balfour’ from his name, changed the spelling of ‘Lewis’ to ‘Louis’, and began to refer to himself as ‘RLS’. He produced his first story, a short historical tale, at the age of sixteen and by the time he was called to the bar, he had already started to write travel sketches, essays, and short stories for magazines. His first articles were published in ‘The Edinburgh University Magazine’ and ‘The Portofolio’.
His was a free and restless spirit who enjoyed travelling, adventure and the outdoors. He became a great traveller despite chronic ill health and in fact, he travelled extensively around the World in an effort to find a climate that would help his lungs. He famously wrote up his experiences in books such as ‘Inland Voyage’, which was an account of a journey through Belguim and France in a canoe, and ‘Travels on a Donkey in the Cévennes’. Stevenson's tone in his travelogues is often jovial or satirical and his trips provided him with many insights and inspiration for his writing. His ‘Travels with a Donkey’ was based on a walking trip in France with a stubborn donkey. “I travel for travel's sake,” and “The great affair is to move” wrote Stevenson. Here is a piece of ‘Songs of Travel’ to give you a sense of his inspiration:
“Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.”
In the summer of 1878, Stevenson was living in France as a struggling author and had yet to write the books that would make him famous. Notwithstanding his first book, about the canoe trip in Belgium, his future career as a writer was far from assured. He led an unconventional, bohemian lifestyle, matched by his daringly long hair and eccentric appearance and he had fallen in love with a married American woman, called Fanny Osbourne, ten years his elder. When she returned to California, Stevenson needed to sort himself out financially, become independent of his parents, and be able to chase after Fanny. Why should he be any different? So, he headed into the hills to reflect on the cross-roads in his life, contemplate his future, and write a book about it.
The result of his trip is considered to be the pioneering classic of the outdoor and travel genre of literature. The book, ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes’, recounts Stevenson's twelve day, one hundred and twenty mile solo hiking journey through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France. Not only is it one of the earliest portrayals of travelling for pleasure as a recreational activity, it also describes the commissioning of one of the World’s first sleeping bags. Stevenson designed the bag himself and got the local villagers to make it by sewing together sheep skins, with the wool side in to form what he termed his ‘sleeping sack’. It was much larger and heavier than modern sleeping bags and so he needed a means of carrying it. The solution proved to be a stubborn, manipulative donkey called Modestine, of whom Stevenson could never quite get the better.
The book is highly ornamental and contains passages of French prose and references to historical people, places and events. It also contains allusions to literary and biblical passages and Stevenson’s famous ‘mottoes’; a technique also used by Sir Walter Scott. Those are the short poems that appear between various chapters and which are attributed to fictional authors. However, Stevenson wrote them himself as he explained in a letter to his friend and collaborator (on the play ‘Deacon Brodie’), William Henley, saying, “I can't get mottoes for some of my sections and took to making them [myself]; for I wish rather to have the precise sense than very elegant verses.” Stevenson used a number of sources in writing the book, for which he simply made notes during his travels. Later, he spent time at the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh and his favourite amongst the books he drew upon was the English editions of Jean Cavalier's ‘Memoirs of the War of the Cévennes’. He marked the library copy of that story of the legendary folk hero and rebel leader of the Protestant Camisards of France by commenting, “I fear [the memoirs] are to be taken with a very large allowance.”
The chapter, ‘A Night Among The Pines’, contains some wonderful descriptions of the out of doors. Here’s a taster:
“The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black between the stars.”
Friday, 1 October 2010
Professor Sir William Ramsey
Professor Sir William Ramsey, Glasgow born chemist, distinguished Victorian scientist, and discoverer of inert gases, was born on the 2nd of October, 1852.
Professor Sir William Ramsay was the Bunsen burner who invented Radox, proved that Aragorn was a gas, and that Kryptonite existed even if Superman didn’t. Not quite. In the 1880s, Ramsay was active in physical chemistry, with his many contributions being primarily on stoichiometry and thermodynamics. However, Ramsay’s greatest achievements – his most celebrated discoveries – were in inorganic chemistry during the 1890s, for which he won the Nobel Prize. He discovered a previously unknown class of what are variously known as inert, rare, or noble gases. Ramsay predicted that dense (as in heavy) gasses were invisible in the Earth's atmosphere. Then in 1894, he experimented to remove oxygen and nitrogen from the air, and in doing so discovered a previously unknown element, which he named ‘argon’. In 1895, while investigating for the presence of argon in a uranium-bearing mineral, he isolated and spectroscopically confirmed the existence of helium, which had first been observed only in the spectrum of the sun by Pierre Janssen, in 1868. Based on those two discoveries, Ramsay theorised that more unknown gases must exist and in 1898, he isolated neon, krypton and xenon from the earth's atmosphere. As a consequence, he was able to add a whole new group of elements to Mendeleev's periodic table. The benefit to society of these remarkable, inert elements comes, for example, from using helium instead of highly flammable hydrogen for lighter-than-air craft and the use of argon to conserve light bulbs filaments. A further consequence of Ramsay’s discovery of helium came from his work with Frederick Soddy in 1903, when they showed that the radioactive decay of radium produces helium, which laid the groundwork for the subsequent development of nuclear physics. Later, in 1910, he also isolated and characterized radon, not Radox.
Another of Ramsay’s claims to fame was that as somewhat of a scientific celebrity, he was cartooned by ‘Spy’ in ‘Vanity Fair’. He was also quite modest, but with a sense of humour as he ascribed his success in isolating those rare gases to his large flat thumb, which he used to close the end of eudiometer tubes full of mercury. In scientific circles, he became known for the inventiveness and scrupulousness of his experimental techniques. He was also famous for rolling his own cigarettes and claimed that machine-made cigarettes were “unworthy of an experimentalist”. One of his innovations was to encourage glassblowing and to prove it, there are some wonderfully Heath-Robinson diagrams in Morris Travers' biography of Ramsay. Unlike his distinguished countryman, James Clerk Maxwell, Ramsay had a flair for lecturing and he was a progressive university teacher who welcomed the integration of women students. Nicknamed ‘the Chief’ by his students, Ramsay was keen on the ‘continental Seminar’ and, interestingly, distrustful of examinations. His 1904 Nobel Prize for Chemistry came “in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system.” Ramsay was also one of the first scientists to appreciate the possibility of radiotherapy and studied the “curative action of radioactive substances in malignant disease.”
William Ramsay, yet another eminent Scot and a nephew of the geologist, Sir Andrew Ramsay, was born in Glasgow on the 2nd of October, 1852. As he explained in his Nobel Lecture, his family had a strong in the sciences, his paternal grandfather was a “chemical manufacturer in Glasgow” and his maternal grandfather was a medical man who practised in Edinburgh and “was the author of a series of textbooks for medical students.” Hence, he added, “I inherited the taste for chemistry from my ancestors on both sides of the family.” Ramsay attended Glasgow Academy, before studying the classics, chemistry and physics at Glasgow University between 1866 and 1870. He became interested in chemistry on reading about the manufacture of gunpowder in a textbook and beginning in 1869, he worked for eighteen months as an apprentice for Glasgow City Analyst Robert Tatlock. Ramsay was a talented linguist and that certainly helped when he studied under Professor Rudolf Fittig in Germany, between 1870 and 1872. Focusing on organic chemistry, his thesis on the toluic and nitrotoluic acids gained him a Ph.D. from the Universität Tübingen, whilst not yet twenty. Back in Glasgow in 1872, Ramsay became Assistant to the Professor of Applied Chemistry at Anderson’s College (now the Royal Technical College), and two years later secured a similar position at the University.
In 1880, Ramsay was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the University College of Bristol, where in 1881, he became its Principle, while continuing his researches in organic chemistry and gases. By 1887, when he was appointed Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London (UCL), he was already established as one of the foremost chemists of his day. He set up a private laboratory at UCL and held his post there until his retirement in 1913, when he became the University’s first Emeritus Professor. During his lifetime, in addition to being the first Briton to receive the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, in 1904, Ramsay won a host of awards and honorary degrees. He was knighted in 1902 and was also made a Knight of the Prussian order ‘Pour le mérite’, Commander of the Crown of Italy, and Officer of the Legion d'Honneur of France.
Ramsay was an academic to whom work was also the most fascinating of his many hobbies. Once in 1895, when on a holiday in Iceland with his literary colleague, Professor W. P. Ker, Ramsay begged a bottle from a woman, which he used to ‘capture’ some gas from a spring. Ker and the woman must have thought him crazy, but Ramsay did get some argon and on the same trip, he surreptitiously took samples of some rock near a mine, “lest perchance it might contain helium.”
Possibly as a result of his exposure to radioactive substances, Professor Sir William Ramsey died from nasal cancer at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on the 23rd of July, 1916, and was buried at Hazelmere Parish church. Amongst many memorials to Ramsay, there is a plaque in Westminster Abbey, a Ramsay Memorial Fellowship at University College, and a plaque to commemorate the site of his laboratory, which is now occupied by the Slade School of Art.
Professor Sir William Ramsay was the Bunsen burner who invented Radox, proved that Aragorn was a gas, and that Kryptonite existed even if Superman didn’t. Not quite. In the 1880s, Ramsay was active in physical chemistry, with his many contributions being primarily on stoichiometry and thermodynamics. However, Ramsay’s greatest achievements – his most celebrated discoveries – were in inorganic chemistry during the 1890s, for which he won the Nobel Prize. He discovered a previously unknown class of what are variously known as inert, rare, or noble gases. Ramsay predicted that dense (as in heavy) gasses were invisible in the Earth's atmosphere. Then in 1894, he experimented to remove oxygen and nitrogen from the air, and in doing so discovered a previously unknown element, which he named ‘argon’. In 1895, while investigating for the presence of argon in a uranium-bearing mineral, he isolated and spectroscopically confirmed the existence of helium, which had first been observed only in the spectrum of the sun by Pierre Janssen, in 1868. Based on those two discoveries, Ramsay theorised that more unknown gases must exist and in 1898, he isolated neon, krypton and xenon from the earth's atmosphere. As a consequence, he was able to add a whole new group of elements to Mendeleev's periodic table. The benefit to society of these remarkable, inert elements comes, for example, from using helium instead of highly flammable hydrogen for lighter-than-air craft and the use of argon to conserve light bulbs filaments. A further consequence of Ramsay’s discovery of helium came from his work with Frederick Soddy in 1903, when they showed that the radioactive decay of radium produces helium, which laid the groundwork for the subsequent development of nuclear physics. Later, in 1910, he also isolated and characterized radon, not Radox.
Another of Ramsay’s claims to fame was that as somewhat of a scientific celebrity, he was cartooned by ‘Spy’ in ‘Vanity Fair’. He was also quite modest, but with a sense of humour as he ascribed his success in isolating those rare gases to his large flat thumb, which he used to close the end of eudiometer tubes full of mercury. In scientific circles, he became known for the inventiveness and scrupulousness of his experimental techniques. He was also famous for rolling his own cigarettes and claimed that machine-made cigarettes were “unworthy of an experimentalist”. One of his innovations was to encourage glassblowing and to prove it, there are some wonderfully Heath-Robinson diagrams in Morris Travers' biography of Ramsay. Unlike his distinguished countryman, James Clerk Maxwell, Ramsay had a flair for lecturing and he was a progressive university teacher who welcomed the integration of women students. Nicknamed ‘the Chief’ by his students, Ramsay was keen on the ‘continental Seminar’ and, interestingly, distrustful of examinations. His 1904 Nobel Prize for Chemistry came “in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system.” Ramsay was also one of the first scientists to appreciate the possibility of radiotherapy and studied the “curative action of radioactive substances in malignant disease.”
William Ramsay, yet another eminent Scot and a nephew of the geologist, Sir Andrew Ramsay, was born in Glasgow on the 2nd of October, 1852. As he explained in his Nobel Lecture, his family had a strong in the sciences, his paternal grandfather was a “chemical manufacturer in Glasgow” and his maternal grandfather was a medical man who practised in Edinburgh and “was the author of a series of textbooks for medical students.” Hence, he added, “I inherited the taste for chemistry from my ancestors on both sides of the family.” Ramsay attended Glasgow Academy, before studying the classics, chemistry and physics at Glasgow University between 1866 and 1870. He became interested in chemistry on reading about the manufacture of gunpowder in a textbook and beginning in 1869, he worked for eighteen months as an apprentice for Glasgow City Analyst Robert Tatlock. Ramsay was a talented linguist and that certainly helped when he studied under Professor Rudolf Fittig in Germany, between 1870 and 1872. Focusing on organic chemistry, his thesis on the toluic and nitrotoluic acids gained him a Ph.D. from the Universität Tübingen, whilst not yet twenty. Back in Glasgow in 1872, Ramsay became Assistant to the Professor of Applied Chemistry at Anderson’s College (now the Royal Technical College), and two years later secured a similar position at the University.
In 1880, Ramsay was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the University College of Bristol, where in 1881, he became its Principle, while continuing his researches in organic chemistry and gases. By 1887, when he was appointed Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at University College London (UCL), he was already established as one of the foremost chemists of his day. He set up a private laboratory at UCL and held his post there until his retirement in 1913, when he became the University’s first Emeritus Professor. During his lifetime, in addition to being the first Briton to receive the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, in 1904, Ramsay won a host of awards and honorary degrees. He was knighted in 1902 and was also made a Knight of the Prussian order ‘Pour le mérite’, Commander of the Crown of Italy, and Officer of the Legion d'Honneur of France.
Ramsay was an academic to whom work was also the most fascinating of his many hobbies. Once in 1895, when on a holiday in Iceland with his literary colleague, Professor W. P. Ker, Ramsay begged a bottle from a woman, which he used to ‘capture’ some gas from a spring. Ker and the woman must have thought him crazy, but Ramsay did get some argon and on the same trip, he surreptitiously took samples of some rock near a mine, “lest perchance it might contain helium.”
Possibly as a result of his exposure to radioactive substances, Professor Sir William Ramsey died from nasal cancer at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on the 23rd of July, 1916, and was buried at Hazelmere Parish church. Amongst many memorials to Ramsay, there is a plaque in Westminster Abbey, a Ramsay Memorial Fellowship at University College, and a plaque to commemorate the site of his laboratory, which is now occupied by the Slade School of Art.
Deacon William Brodie
William Brodie, cabinetmaker, Deacon of the Guild of Wrights and Masons, Edinburgh City Councillor, gambler and thief, was hanged on the 1st of October, 1788.
Deacon William Brodie stands out as one of the most interesting and colourful characters of Edinburgh in the 18th Century – a city famous for more than its fair share of scoundrels. The outwardly respectable Brodie was an esteemed member of Edinburgh's society; indeed he was a pillar of the community. In addition to being a qualified and skilful tradesman at the top of his inherited profession as a cabinetmaker, he was a member of the Town Council, Deacon of the Guild of Wrights and Masons, and served on a jury. Brodie enjoyed the public life of a dissolute and licentious playboy who spent his evenings drinking and gambling in the dens of Anchor's Close and Fleshmarket Close. He was a member of Edinburgh's 'in-crowd', belonging to ‘The Cape Club’, which met at the Isle of Man Arms at the bottom of Craig’s Close. That was where he hobnobbed with the gentry; the likes of the painter, Sir Henry Raeburn, and even Robert Burns. However, it was his secret, duplicitous lifestyle that makes the story of Deacon William Brodie a fascinating tale. Unknown to all but his closest associates, Brodie led an ingenious and prolific, criminal lifestyle by night. His professional and social acceptance and the fact that he continued undiscovered for years contributed to his downfall, because in the end he became just too cocky.
William Brodie was born in 1741 and served an apprenticeship in Edinburgh's Lawnmarket under his cabinetmaker father and consequently became a qualified tradesman. In fact, his work was regarded as some of the best in the City and he became a supplier of furniture to the rich and famous. Indeed, Robert Louis Stephenson’s father had at one time commissioned Brodie to make some furniture. When his father died in 1780, William inherited the Lawnmarket business and a great deal of money, said to have been as much as £10,000, which should have been enough to have set him up for life. He also inherited the family home at No. 304 Brodie’s Close, named after his father, Francis. The lower floor of the building was Brodie's workshop and is now ‘The Deacon's House Café’, where much of the original features can still be seen. According to Oliver and Boyd’s Scottish Tourist Hand Book, 20th Edition of 1860, in addition to “the notorious Deacon William Brodie”, No 304 Brodie’s Close “contained the residences of a Mr Clement Little [and] Robert Cullen, raised to the bench in 1709.”
Deacon Brodie’s extra-curricular activity began as a result of his extravagant lifestyle. For one thing, his reckless gambling habit meant that he inevitably ran short of cash as he ran up huge debts. In addition, Brodie had acquired two mistresses, whom he had to support in addition to the five illegitimate children that between them they had borne. His lifestyle became increasingly expensive and as he could neither afford his vices nor the attendant expenses, he became desperate. Now, as it happened, a lot of Brodie’s work was legitimately undertaken in customers' houses or business premises, where he used to install furniture or fit and repair locks. Also, in those days, it was common for people to keep their keys on a latch on the back of the door and, in those circumstances, it was not hard for him to see a solution to his problem. The temptation obviously proved to be irresistible as Brodie could simply wait until the coast was clear and, using wax or putty, take an impression of the keys and return later to steal what he had targeted. Reputedly, his criminal career began in such fashion around 1768, when he copied keys to a bank and got away with the huge sum, for the time, of £800. Late night robberies then became common in the Old Town as Brodie, with an inside knowledge of the comings and goings of his patrons, struck time and again at house after house. He pilfered cash, valuables and such property as he could readily carry, and of course, no one suspected the Deacon.
Brodie soon teamed up with an English locksmith and grocer called George Smith, and the two became increasingly bold. In their highly successful crime wave, they even stole the silver mace from Edinburgh University. By 1786, as his ambitions grew, Brodie had enlisted two more burglars, John Brown and Andrew Ainslie. He then conceived an audacious plan to raid the Excise Office in Chessel's Court, off the Canongate. It was an ambitious plan, which promised to net Brodie and his men an enormous sum, but it was seemingly poorly conceived. Unsurprisingly, the authorities had become increasingly alarmed at the escalating series of break-ins and had increased the presence of the guard. Brodie was on borrowed time and suspicions were being raised as there began to be over many coincidences. The bungled raid on the 5th of March, 1788, was to be the midnight rambler’s last crime. Things went disastrously wrong as Brodie, who was supposed to act as lookout, fell asleep and the ‘Black Banditti’, alerted to the robbery in progress, came very close to capturing the whole gang red handed. Ainslie was caught and quickly turned King's Evidence, whereupon Brown and Smith were soon apprehended.
At the arrest of his men, Brodie fled to Amsterdam, but unfortunately for him, the long arm of the law was quite long enough in 1788. He was captured on the point of boarding a ship to North America and instead put on board a ship back to Edinburgh. In Scotland, Brodie's capture and impending trial became the talk of the town. The trial began on the 27th of August and in the end, the Janus-faced criminal was betrayed by incriminating evidence found at his house. Amongst those items, which included a disguise and pistols, were the Dark Lantern he used when breaking into the Excise Office and a stock of duplicate keys used in sundry housebreakings. The latter two items were donated to the ‘Archaeologia Scotica’ (the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland) between 1830 and 1851. Brodie was sentenced to be hanged and, together with his accomplice, George Smith, was turned off in front of the Tolbooth before a huge crowd, on the 1st of October, 1788. According to William Roughead’s ‘Classic Crimes’, although Brodie may have contributed ironically to the ‘drop’ or trapdoor design of the new gallows, he did not – as per popular myth – construct his own gallows.
Brodie’s hanging should have been the end of the story, but the legend of his ‘escape’ has ensured its persistence and his notoriety. Brodie had been buried in an unmarked grave in the kirkyard of the former Buccleuch Parish Church, but rumours soon circulated that he had been seen in Paris. Had the master of deceit managed to pull off one final scam and cheat the hangman? The story goes that Brodie wore a steel collar, which he bribed the hangman to ignore, and/or had a silver tube inserted in his throat to prevent the hanging from being fatal. His friends had arranged for his body to be removed quickly, in the hope that he could be spirited away, but sadly for Brodie, he could not be revived. Nevertheless, folks still insist that “no one knows for sure” and there are even claims that, when his grave was opened some time later, the coffin was empty. Perhaps he did escape?
Deacon William Brodie stands out as one of the most interesting and colourful characters of Edinburgh in the 18th Century – a city famous for more than its fair share of scoundrels. The outwardly respectable Brodie was an esteemed member of Edinburgh's society; indeed he was a pillar of the community. In addition to being a qualified and skilful tradesman at the top of his inherited profession as a cabinetmaker, he was a member of the Town Council, Deacon of the Guild of Wrights and Masons, and served on a jury. Brodie enjoyed the public life of a dissolute and licentious playboy who spent his evenings drinking and gambling in the dens of Anchor's Close and Fleshmarket Close. He was a member of Edinburgh's 'in-crowd', belonging to ‘The Cape Club’, which met at the Isle of Man Arms at the bottom of Craig’s Close. That was where he hobnobbed with the gentry; the likes of the painter, Sir Henry Raeburn, and even Robert Burns. However, it was his secret, duplicitous lifestyle that makes the story of Deacon William Brodie a fascinating tale. Unknown to all but his closest associates, Brodie led an ingenious and prolific, criminal lifestyle by night. His professional and social acceptance and the fact that he continued undiscovered for years contributed to his downfall, because in the end he became just too cocky.
William Brodie was born in 1741 and served an apprenticeship in Edinburgh's Lawnmarket under his cabinetmaker father and consequently became a qualified tradesman. In fact, his work was regarded as some of the best in the City and he became a supplier of furniture to the rich and famous. Indeed, Robert Louis Stephenson’s father had at one time commissioned Brodie to make some furniture. When his father died in 1780, William inherited the Lawnmarket business and a great deal of money, said to have been as much as £10,000, which should have been enough to have set him up for life. He also inherited the family home at No. 304 Brodie’s Close, named after his father, Francis. The lower floor of the building was Brodie's workshop and is now ‘The Deacon's House Café’, where much of the original features can still be seen. According to Oliver and Boyd’s Scottish Tourist Hand Book, 20th Edition of 1860, in addition to “the notorious Deacon William Brodie”, No 304 Brodie’s Close “contained the residences of a Mr Clement Little [and] Robert Cullen, raised to the bench in 1709.”
Deacon Brodie’s extra-curricular activity began as a result of his extravagant lifestyle. For one thing, his reckless gambling habit meant that he inevitably ran short of cash as he ran up huge debts. In addition, Brodie had acquired two mistresses, whom he had to support in addition to the five illegitimate children that between them they had borne. His lifestyle became increasingly expensive and as he could neither afford his vices nor the attendant expenses, he became desperate. Now, as it happened, a lot of Brodie’s work was legitimately undertaken in customers' houses or business premises, where he used to install furniture or fit and repair locks. Also, in those days, it was common for people to keep their keys on a latch on the back of the door and, in those circumstances, it was not hard for him to see a solution to his problem. The temptation obviously proved to be irresistible as Brodie could simply wait until the coast was clear and, using wax or putty, take an impression of the keys and return later to steal what he had targeted. Reputedly, his criminal career began in such fashion around 1768, when he copied keys to a bank and got away with the huge sum, for the time, of £800. Late night robberies then became common in the Old Town as Brodie, with an inside knowledge of the comings and goings of his patrons, struck time and again at house after house. He pilfered cash, valuables and such property as he could readily carry, and of course, no one suspected the Deacon.
Brodie soon teamed up with an English locksmith and grocer called George Smith, and the two became increasingly bold. In their highly successful crime wave, they even stole the silver mace from Edinburgh University. By 1786, as his ambitions grew, Brodie had enlisted two more burglars, John Brown and Andrew Ainslie. He then conceived an audacious plan to raid the Excise Office in Chessel's Court, off the Canongate. It was an ambitious plan, which promised to net Brodie and his men an enormous sum, but it was seemingly poorly conceived. Unsurprisingly, the authorities had become increasingly alarmed at the escalating series of break-ins and had increased the presence of the guard. Brodie was on borrowed time and suspicions were being raised as there began to be over many coincidences. The bungled raid on the 5th of March, 1788, was to be the midnight rambler’s last crime. Things went disastrously wrong as Brodie, who was supposed to act as lookout, fell asleep and the ‘Black Banditti’, alerted to the robbery in progress, came very close to capturing the whole gang red handed. Ainslie was caught and quickly turned King's Evidence, whereupon Brown and Smith were soon apprehended.
At the arrest of his men, Brodie fled to Amsterdam, but unfortunately for him, the long arm of the law was quite long enough in 1788. He was captured on the point of boarding a ship to North America and instead put on board a ship back to Edinburgh. In Scotland, Brodie's capture and impending trial became the talk of the town. The trial began on the 27th of August and in the end, the Janus-faced criminal was betrayed by incriminating evidence found at his house. Amongst those items, which included a disguise and pistols, were the Dark Lantern he used when breaking into the Excise Office and a stock of duplicate keys used in sundry housebreakings. The latter two items were donated to the ‘Archaeologia Scotica’ (the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland) between 1830 and 1851. Brodie was sentenced to be hanged and, together with his accomplice, George Smith, was turned off in front of the Tolbooth before a huge crowd, on the 1st of October, 1788. According to William Roughead’s ‘Classic Crimes’, although Brodie may have contributed ironically to the ‘drop’ or trapdoor design of the new gallows, he did not – as per popular myth – construct his own gallows.
Brodie’s hanging should have been the end of the story, but the legend of his ‘escape’ has ensured its persistence and his notoriety. Brodie had been buried in an unmarked grave in the kirkyard of the former Buccleuch Parish Church, but rumours soon circulated that he had been seen in Paris. Had the master of deceit managed to pull off one final scam and cheat the hangman? The story goes that Brodie wore a steel collar, which he bribed the hangman to ignore, and/or had a silver tube inserted in his throat to prevent the hanging from being fatal. His friends had arranged for his body to be removed quickly, in the hope that he could be spirited away, but sadly for Brodie, he could not be revived. Nevertheless, folks still insist that “no one knows for sure” and there are even claims that, when his grave was opened some time later, the coffin was empty. Perhaps he did escape?
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