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organisation it would repay them a hundred-fold. He did not think that anything had affected him personally so much as a short visit he paid to America. It was an entirely new revelation to him. He hoped therefore that this Association would be efficiently represented in America on this great occasion at Washington.” The Belfast meeting of The British Association for the Advancement of Science had been in every respect most successful. One thousand six hundred and twenty members had attended the meetings. “No town” it was agreed, “can compare with Belfast for hospitality and nowhere is the innate grace and urbanity of the Irish people more widely manifested.” Professor Dewar, whose opening address was characterised as being of “permanent value as a history of the efforts which, up till now, have been made to investigate the effects of extremely low temperatures upon gases” was warmly thanked for his services during the conference period and in acknowledging the enthusiastic applause of the audience he said that he attributed the success of the meetings “to the organisation and not to the president” and revealed in a few comments which he made on eminent scientists who had Irish connections that it was his being a pupil of Professor Andrews and Guthrie Tait that led him to undertake the line of research with which his name was connected.
On his way to Belfast, Professor Dewar paid a visit to his nephew Dr Thomas Dewar in Dunblane and on Friday 5th September they, along with other relatives, drove to Kincardine on what was Professor Dewar’s first visit to his native town in nearly thirty years. The party put up at the Unicorn Hotel where James Dewar had been born sixty years previously. For him it was a house around which clustered many memories of his parents and his brothers and his own earliest years. Few of his boyhood associates were still alive, but one, William Mustard, a blacksmith, was soon made aware of the professor’s arrival by a call at the smithy which used to be a favourite place of resort to all the young Dewars. Scenes and incidents of long ago were recalled and rehearsed with delight. Professor Dewar in the conversation showed that he retained a lively recollection of his early days in Kincardine and notwithstanding his absorbing scientific researches and the fame which his scientific discoveries had brought him it was Willie Mustard’s verdict that “he is still the same genial, humble, sincere friend and is still warmly attached to the place of his birth”.
In his addresses to The Chemical Society, to The British Association for the Advancement of Science and on other public occasions James Dewar made it plain that the discoveries of those engaged in scientific research should be used by industrialists to enable Britain to enlarge, her share in the international markets. Practising what he was preaching Professor Dewar became an active supporter of The Chemical Industry Society of which he was a founder member. Inaugurated in June 1881 with two hundred and ninety seven members, it spread rapidly from the metropolis to the provinces, branches being opened in Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle as well as in other manufacturing centres throughout England. A Scottish section was established in 1884 and later on other sections grew up overseas. The original members were connected with widely different aspects of industrial chemistry and included some of the most eminent chemists in Britain. In 1882 a journal was introduced in order to bring the work of researchers and the needs of industrialists into as close proximity as possible. Efforts were also made to encourage the masters of industry to employ in their factories chemists who were educated up to the level of the science of the day and who thus could understand and apply the discoveries of the purely scientific chemists – such as Dewar himself – to particular industries. Industrialists were also urged to erect laboratories which were in every way adequately equipped for the work in which their scientists would be engaged. Such an investment in both manpower and equipment was essential if British industry was to keep abreast with and better still pull ahead of its continental rivals, and besides it would prove in the long run economically a prudent investment. To the monthly journal, of which he served on the publications committee for some years, James Dewar was a frequent contributor usually in joint articles with colleagues who were experts in other scientific disciplines. He was a regular attender at the annual conferences of The Society and a delegate to the International Congress of Applied Chemistry held in London in 1909 and which was opened by The Prince of Wales – later King George V. Having served as one of its vice-presidents James Dewar was elected president for the... NEXT PAGE
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