Page 14
to the general public. This dual aim has continued to be its principal objective throughout its long history. To discharge the latter purpose two parallel courses of lectures have been organised each year – the Friday night lectures geared to the small group of professional, well informed scientists whose advanced knowledge enabled them to understand the niceties of the current advances in research; and a series of popular lectures pitched in a key more suitable to the requirements of the intelligentsia who had the layman’s interest in science. The average number of Friday evening lectures ran to about twenty per annum and the number of popular lectures was considerably more. There was also a series of Christmas lectures inaugurated by Faraday for senior school children who had a special interest in science. Besides having to arrange for the participation of suitable lecturers for each series James Dewar undertook a generous share in lecturing. Referring to this in 1921, on the occasion of the professor’s golden wedding, the President of The Royal Institution, The Duke of Northumberland, said: “In the last forty-four years he has delivered more than fifty Friday evening lectures, thirty-six sets of lectures covering the whole range of chemistry and chemico-physics, nine sets of Christmas lectures to juveniles firmly establishing in the minds of the rising generation a foundation of scientific study.” His lectures were eagerly awaited and they always ensured a full house, the audience being attracted not only by the substance of the lecture itself but even more by the truly astonishing experiments he made during its course. Each lecture, to which he gave intense thought, was a meticulously prepared work of art. He took immense pains with his experiments to ensure that every detail was right. Nothing was ever left to chance. His lecture was like a Paris model sometimes appearing very simple but let anyone less skilful try to copy it and he would quickly find himself in trouble. Like Turner, James Dewar ‘painted’ for the sheer joy of doing it. “He set a standard” says Professor Armstrong, “which made The Royal Institution lectures famous, especially on account of his daring experiments. I can never forget the impression I received when I first saw him burn diamond under liquid air – the gradual accretion of the carbon dioxide snow shower and the blueing of the fluid by ozone, also demonstrated by the iodine test: then the rapid uprush of the mercury in a barometer tube full of air when the tube was cooled by liquid hydrogen: it all but knocked the top off: or again the production of ozone at the surface of solid oxygen by the impact of ultra violet radiations. At such moments – and there were many such – the heart beat with joy at the significance of his feats of inspiration.” Such was the impact of one of James Dewar’s Friday evening lectures on an eminent contemporary man of science. Professor McKendrick, who, on several occasions, lectured at the Friday sessions during his tenure of the Chair of Physiology in Glasgow University has this to say about them: “They were for men who had done original work on their subject which they brought before the audience. The lecture hour was nine to ten p.m. and punctuality at both ends was a firm condition. On the stroke of the hour – after a time for conversazione – the Director and Lecturer who took his place at the horse shoe table where Faraday and other great men have stood, entered. The chairman made no remarks by way of introduction or vote of thanks. And before the stroke of the bell in the entrance hall I felt like the man who had taken his place on the drop.” The lecture concluded, the lecturer and others adjourned to enjoy the generous hospitality of the lady of the house and to continue their learned discussion in the comfort of the Director’s flat. Ralph Cory who was in the service of The Royal Institution for fifty years recalls an amusing incident, of which there were few at the Friday evening lectures. In 1904 Korea was much in the news. On one occasion the lecture was given by a distinguished ecclesiastical dignitary The Rt. Hon. And Rt. Rev. the Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod who created a sensation by appearing in all the splendour of his gorgeous Episcopal robes of scarlet and purple. “I can still remember,” writes Cory, “Dewar’s face when he first beheld the vision splendid and for once – and once only – James Dewar was at a loss for words.” In the other lectures the net was cast to attract a wider audience. They were intended for the intelligent layman and such was the skill of the guest lecturers and of James Dewar himself that abstruse subjects were expounded, by the spoken word and appropriate illustrations, in such a manner that those whose knowledge of science was little more than rudimentary could understand in general terms the import of the lecture. The result was that these lectures always commanded a full house. Only very rarely did the good seed fall on such poor soil as that of the mind of a lady who reported that the lecture... NEXT PAGE
Back To The Kincardine Local History Group Homepage