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...and Kelland. Among the visitors, whose presence was recorded in the local newspapers, were the Rev. Andrew Gardiner and Messrs Duncan Wright, the well-known Kincardine shipbuilder, and James’s brother Robert who had a drapery business in Kincardine. It must have been a proud occasion for the Kincardine trio, for by far and away the most outstanding pupil in the school was James Dewar. The catalogue of the awards he won is impressive. Here they are: Mechanical drawing – 3rd Prize; geometry (senior) – 1st Prize; algebra – 2nd Prize; experimental philosophy – 1st Prize; chemistry – 1st Prize; mineralogy and geology – 1st Prize; physical geography – 3rd Prize; human physiology, laws of health and zoology – 2nd Prize. The mathematical medal – 1st equal James Dewar and Playford Reynolds. In a statement at the prizegiving Principal Milne said that “James Dewar was by his scholarship entitled to the medal and would have got it but for a law of the Institution which declares that no one can receive it unless he has attended the Academy for two sessions, and as he had attended but one, it was awarded to the other boy”. Commenting on the examinees in the mathematical classes Professor Kelland spoke of the exceedingly creditable performance of all the boys, “more especially as regarded one lad who had scarcely any knowledge of mathematics, yet, through only one session at school he showed abilities which might well have been the labour of three years (note 8). James Dewar was not only a lad of quite exceptional ability but a dedicated student, as he was to prove to be also at the university where a fellow student said of him that “he used to sit up half the night in pursuit of his studies”.
With the completion of his short but distinguished career at Dollar in August 1859 he did not cease to be interested in his old school, nor did it forget him. With justifiable pride there was duly chronicled in the Dollar Magazine the plethora of honours, which came to their former pupil as year succeeded year and in 1907 the magazine carried this intimation: “We are glad to learn that Sir James Dewar promised to be present at the academy exhibition on 27th June and to give a lecture on his great discovery, liquefied air, accomplished with the nadir of temperature – 443 Farenheit of frost.” Let the Rector, Mr Dugall, report the occasion: “The big hall was packed, as it never was packed before, to hear him describe the wonderful properties of liquid air and to see him actually reduce the air of Dollar to a liquid state. In the course of the lecture Sir James seized an India rubber ball. Suddenly turning to the wall he threw it forcibly and to the delight of everyone he brought off a low catch. Then, once more resuming a serious attitude, he dipped the ball into the liquid and again threw it; and to everyone’s astonishment it smashed on the wall to atoms.” The magazine article which describes the event, ends with these sentences: “To the uninitiated the lecture was fascinating in the extreme. Even to those deeply versed in scientific matters it seemed to open up a fairy world, the genius of which had taken up residence in a liquid, BOILING at a temperature far beyond zero. Truly he was no uncertain genius under the control of such a magician as a successor of Michael Faraday.” After the lecture Lady Dewar presented to the Academy an attractive statuette, about twelve inches high, of Sir James in his London laboratory holding aloft a vessel of liquid air, which was accepted by Mr Dougall and which is still today one of the school’s treasured possessions. Thereafter, Sir James and Lady Dewar went to the Library Hall for lunch where he had an opportunity of meeting and conversing with some who were his contemporaries at school. But more important and of much more enduring value to the school was the conversation which he had with the mangers in which he urged them in the strongest terms to provide laboratory accommodation for the teaching of science. A genius like Dr Lindsay might be able to teach chemistry from a book and inspire a few of his listeners to pursue their study of the subject at a university but without a laboratory, Sir James insisted, that was well nigh impossible. The seed fell on good ground and to their credit the managers gave to his advice the weight it merited. New laboratories, toward the building of which Sir James gave £110, were erected at a cost of £5,000 and were in use two years later. In 1912 he gave a donation, the most generous in the list of contributions, of £20 to The Tennis Court Fund, and in 1919, when the school was celebrating its centenary, he added to his message of congratulations a cheque for £100, all of which verifies the remark he made in a letter accompanying the photograph, taken in 1902 by Dr A. Scott in the laboratory of The Royal Institution and sent in response to a request from the school, in which he said, “anything I could do to show my appreciation of my Academy career would be a real pleasure”, adding with his usual modesty, “all the same I think you are making too much... NEXT PAGE
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