Mary Somerville, Scottish polymath

Mary Somerville, born Mary Fairfax in 1780, was a Scottish scientist, known particularly for her books on astronomy and other physical sciences. Somerville College in Oxford is named after her. However, when I was at Somerville there was little sign of her in the college. I came across no portraits of her, and none of the undergraduates I knew seemed aware of who the college was named after.

In spite of the limited availability of education for girls at the time, Somerville seems to have seized her opportunities whenever they arose. For example, when she heard a teacher advising another (male) student to read Euclid’s Elements, she decided that she should do so too, as it would help her understand a textbook on navigational theory.

Her inheritance from the death of her first husband gave Somerville the freedom to pursue intellectual interests. She started to make a name for herself in 1811 when she was awarded a medal for solving a mathematical problem.

In 1827 Somerville was hired to translate Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste. She produced an expanded version of the first two volumes which was published as The Mechanism of the Heavens. This book made her famous, and remained a textbook for undergraduates until the 1880s. Somerville’s second book, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, sold over 10,000 copies and consolidated her reputation in physical science.

When Mary Somerville died in 1872, she was described in an obituary as the ‘queen of science’.

A shortage of domestic servants in 1909

Extract from pamphlet Canada wants domestic servants, issued by Canada’s Minister of the Interior in 1909:

The domestic servant problem is to-day one of the most serious questions which the Canadian ladies have to deal with, and it would be beneficial alike to the employer and employee if a large number of female domestics should decide at once to emigrate to the Dominion.

[In the four years 1904-1907] the number of domestics arriving in Canada from the British Isles has been [over fifteen thousand] but this number would not have a noticeable effect in decreasing the demand even if all had remained in service, while as a matter of fact a very large percentage enter the matrimonial state shortly after their arrival and in turn become themselves mistresses requiring help in their household duties.

Extract from section ‘Letters from satisfied domestics’:

Dear Sir:
   Just a line or two to let you know how I am getting on since I came out to Virden in the spring. I like Canada very much, and can’t write too highly about the people in the district, they are all so kind to us strangers. There are fifteen of the girls who came out on the “Corinthian” round about Virden, and all liking it well. Virden is a fine clean little town and one man or woman is considered as good as another.
   It is about the way I was treated lately when I was ill that I wish to tell you particularly. I was in a situation and took typhoid fever and I don’t know who was the kindest to me. I was sent to the hospital at Brandon by the St. Andrew’s Society of Virden, who got a semi-private ward for me and when I was better they paid off the hospital and doctors’ expenses and the Government paid the rest, so I was not out one cent. It was almost good to be ill to see people so kind, for although the doctor would not allow visitors, the Brandon ladies sent in the most lovely flowers to me and nearly every day some one was telephoning and enquiring for me. I am all right again and able for work.
   There are far more people wanting help than there are girls for. I would like so much for my two sisters to come in the spring. Three of the Edinburgh girls who came out with me are in Brandon. I got my baggage all right and we had a nice trip out. I have been long in writing to tell you how I am getting on, but time passes so quickly. Believe me,
   Yours truly,
   Annie Cameron

Æthelflæd - Lady of the Mercians

England in 878 AD

Æthelflæd, the daughter of King Alfred, was a significant figure in early British history. From the time of her husband’s death in 911, until her own death in 918, she ruled the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Although her title was ‘Lady of the Mercians’, it seems her role was that of queen, an unusual position for a woman in early Britain. The name ‘Æthelflæd’ means ‘noble beauty’.

Æthelflæd showed herself to be an excellent military tactician. She expanded Mercia’s territories to the north, east and west. Even during her husband’s life, building projects and treaties were carried out in her name. After his death, the pace of activity seems to have accelerated: according to a BBC article, numerous towns like Bridgnorth, Tamworth and Stafford were fortified by her, to secure roads and rivers.

In the 9th century most of eastern England was ruled by Danish Vikings, in an area known as the Danelaw. In 917 Æthelflæd captured the Danelaw borough of Derby, and in 918 the Danelaw borough of Leicester. Also in 918, Viking-occupied York offered to accept her rule; however, she died before this could come to fruition.

According to some accounts, she actually led her armies into battle. If true, this would make her an even more remarkable figure, and one of only a handful of women from history who were military leaders.

Æthelflæd seems to have been unfairly neglected by historians. In Michael Wood’s popular book about Saxon Britain, In Search of the Dark Ages, she is mentioned only as being the aunt of King Æthelstan.

The 12th century historian Henry of Huntingdon celebrated Æthelflæd in a poem.*

O Elfleda potens, O terror virgo virorum,
Victrix naturae, nomine digna viri.
Te, quo splendidior fieres, natura puellam,
Te probita fecit nomen habere viri.

[Heroic Elflede! great in martial fame,
A man in valour, woman though in name;
Thee warlike hosts, thee, nature too obey’d,
Conqu’ror o’er both, though born by sex a maid.]

* Extract from poem in Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum. Translation by Tom Arnold, 1879. Map of England courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Churchill, America and socialism

The rise of Nationalsozialismus in Germany was only one element in the more or less continuous socialist onslaughts on European capitalist, or aristocracy-based, civilisation. Nationalsozialismus ruined the British Empire, which had to put all its resources into opposing it. Britain could not have done otherwise, because the insularity which had protected it from invasion was no longer effective against modern technology.

Churchill knew that America’s support was indispensable, but America, which was far enough removed to treat this as a European problem, initially held out against him.

Of course this was the way things always were; countries did not support one another against external threats unless it was in their own interests to do so. America, at this time, recognised no obligation to defend civilisation against socialism, nor of course has any country done so at any time.

America came into the war at a late stage when all seemed lost. At first, the plan seemed to be to make Britain pay for the aid it received. I remember a system called Lend-Lease under which food, to be paid for after the war, arrived from America. Powdered dried egg, dried milk, and so on. In practice, the envisaged repayment after the war never materialised.

While America recognised no generalised obligation to aid civilised countries against the onslaughts of socialism, it has no doubt made plenty of donations to uncivilised countries without expecting repayment. As, of course, Britain has also done; making loans in ‘aid’ to ‘developing’ countries and then writing them off altogether or ‘re-scheduling’ them when they were not repaid.

Trade protectionism is supposed to be a bad thing. However, it is probably necessary for a country that has started to fall to socialism, as Britain has. Employment laws and welfare benefits raise the production costs of British goods. British manufacturers are in no position to compete with the flood of imports from countries where workers still work to keep themselves alive, and where the cost of their work is largely determined by how much they are willing to do it for.

I appeal for financial and moral support in improving my position.
I need people to provide moral support both for fund-raising, and as temporary or possibly long-term workers. Those interested should read my post on interns.

Denis Compton: genius cricketer

Denis Compton CBE
(1918 - 1997)

Denis Compton, a cricketer who played in nearly eighty Test matches for England and who was a household name during the 1940s, is widely regarded as one of the top batsmen of all time.

By the late 1930s, Compton was one of England’s finest batsmen, and remained at the top of his profession for some twenty years. His dashing approach to batting and the sheer enjoyment he exuded endeared him to a generation of cricket lovers.

On the England tour of South Africa 1948–49 he scored 300 against North-Eastern Transvaal in just over three hours — still the fastest triple-century ever in first-class cricket.

Compton’s style of playing could be described as inspirational. He became known for inventing new ways of batting which would then be imitated by other players.

His performance could be erratic, and I remember finding it disappointing on occasion. He would sometimes raise one’s expectations, then dash them.

Compton also played professional football, representing England during wartime in a number of friendly matches against allied countries such as France.

Compton seems to have had an unusual personality.

Compton’s absent-mindedness was legendary. Cricketer Colin Cowdrey writes that Compton turned up for the Old Trafford Test of 1955 against South Africa without his kitbag. Undaunted, Compton sauntered into the Old Trafford museum and, borrowing an antique bat off the display, went on to score 158 and 71 runs in the first two innings.

Peter Parfitt, another England Test cricketer, was a speaker at a major celebration in London for Compton’s 70th birthday. He says that Compton was called to the telephone by a lady who had heard about the dinner: eventually he agreed to take the call. “Denis,” she said, “it’s me, your mother. You’re not 70, you’re only 69.”

Extracts are from Wikipedia article about Denis Compton.

The statue of King Alfred and the aristocratic sculptor

Statue of King Alfred
by Count Gleichen (1833 – 1891)

The statue of Alfred The Great (shown above) located in Wantage, Oxfordshire was sculpted by an aristocrat, Count Gleichen.

Born in Langenburg, Germany, Count Gleichen joined the Royal Navy and became resident in Britain. He was related to Queen Victoria, being the son of her half-sister, Princess Feodora.

​In Germany he was known as Prinz Viktor zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Photograph © Charles McCreery 2012

Does the idea of ‘social justice’ lead to atrocities?

A couple of years ago there was a programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled ‘Intelligence — born smart, born equal, born different’.

According to the Radio Times review of the programme,

The analysis of inherited intelligence is something of a moral maze ... [Does research on this topic] really threaten all our utopian ideas of equality?

Francis Galton
(1822 - 1911)

In 1869 Francis Galton published his book Hereditary Genius, exploring the possible genetic basis of high ability. The idea of hereditary ability had already been of long standing when Galton’s book appeared.

The concept of an ‘intelligence quotient’ (IQ) as a measurable predictor of academic success only started to become of serious interest with the rise in state education and the desire to grade people on a nationwide basis. However, IQ soon became unfashionable again, perhaps because some studies suggested there was a significant inherited component to it, which did not fit with the politics of the time. And so research on IQ was gradually expunged from academic awareness.

IQ began to be referred to as ‘the false hypothesis’, as if it had been intrinsically bound up with the assertion of hereditary ability, whereas in fact the heredity idea had been around since well before the nineteenth century. Dismissing the concept of IQ as dubious also made the idea of heredity per se taboo in academic circles, and it now appears to have become something that is not even ‘talked about in polite society’.

According to a review of the programme in the Daily Mail, Galton’s ideas

were taken up with lethal enthusiasm in many countries in the early 20th century, leading to the theory of eugenics, sterilisation of the ‘unfit’ and, ultimately, Nazi genocide.

This of course is the standard way in which the concepts of heritability and innate intelligence are nowadays made to seem controversial, to the point that it supposedly becomes reasonable to suppress discussion of them. The argument is that they are somehow responsible for the Holocaust, as well as other atrocities.

An alternative argument, which seems no less plausible, is that what made the Holocaust, the Gulags, and various other genocides and human rights abuses possible was support for the tenet that

the collective has a right to interfere with individuals, provided it is done for the benefit of society.

If it were true that commitment to this tenet makes atrocities more likely, and one applied the same line of reasoning as is used to justify suppression of the discussion of IQ, it would follow that concepts such as ‘the interests of society’, the ‘right of the majority’, ‘social justice’ or ‘state planning’ should be regarded as ethically dubious, since their use tends to provide support for the tenet. This would point towards such concepts being avoided in discussion.

However, in practice this line of reasoning is never applied, or even considered.

A version of this post was published in 2014.

Civilization and inequality

Sphinx and pyramid at Giza

In Egypt’s palmy days, industry, foreign commerce, and successful wars poured untold wealth into the coffers of the pharaohs and the nobles. Their magnificent palaces and houses, of sun-dried brick or stone, were sumptuously equipped with richly inlaid furniture, beautiful tapestries, and the handiwork of accomplished sculptors, painters, goldsmiths, jewellers and glaziers.

Ancient Egypt is like a bright pupil who walks off with a whole batch of first and second prizes. By 3800 BC, her people were working copper mines [...] Their sailing ships and their use of stone in building are the earliest on record. They may be the creators, before 1500 BC, of the first known alphabet, in which each sign represents a single letter. They made the first materials for true writing – at all events in the Western world [...]

The great pyramid of Cheops at Giza stands 450 feet high and, it is said, employed the labour of 100,000 men for twenty years. *

Civilization arises from, and is maintained by, inequality.
In ancient Egypt, people fulfilling different functions had very different lifestyles.

* The Living World of History, London: Collins, 1963, p.11

Update: My colleague Fabian has posted about the meaning of the word “liberal”.

Biography of General Sir Richard McCreery

On Wednesday (14th November) a book was published about the life of the late General Sir Richard McCreery, the father of my colleague Dr Charles McCreery. According to the book, Sir Richard was ‘arguably one of the finest British fighting generals of the Second World War.’

The book gives a misleading impression of the life of Charles McCreery and of our past history as an organisation for academic research, an organisation which was intended to supplement the university career of Dr McCreery, among others. The General was, in effect, antagonistic and his hostility had damaging effects on Dr McCreery’s prospects in life and those of the Institute of Psychophysical Research, with which Dr McCreery had become associated.

What is said in the book omits most of what happened and gives a misleading impression of the little that is mentioned.

Other members of the McCreery family should have exerted themselves (but have never done so) to repair the damage to Charles McCreery’s prospects, by disinheritance and otherwise, which resulted from the General’s unjustifiable hostility towards this organisation, and towards Charles McCreery’s association with it.

Readers of the book might like to look at the category Charles McCreery and his family on this blog which provides further insights into the General’s life. The following six posts may be of particular interest.

A Registrar of Oxford and other deflating gas-bags

Slandered by academics

Treacherous parents and a treacherous fund-raiser

Slandered by aristocrats (part 1)

Your name will be up there one day

The sacrifices of sadism are the greater

Jefferson on debt

Thomas Jefferson (one of the Founding Fathers of the United States) said, in effect, that the first duty of a government was not to let the country get into debt.

I ... place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. (Letter to William Plumer, 1816)

Realistically, one might go further and say that the first duty of a government is to ensure that the country is as rich as possible and also always increasingly so, and that its defences against invasion by other countries are as strong as possible. This will prevent it from being at the mercy of other countries in various ways.

For a time Britain and America were able to improve their position, partly as a result of being relatively difficult to invade. So long as a country is building up its capital it is having to be realistic. But when sufficient margin of advantage has been built up, this gives it the freedom to abandon realism and reduce its resources by setting up social game plans which do not need to have any relation to reality.

For a century now a game plan about social engineering and ‘education’ has been operative and has contributed significantly to the destruction of this country’s resources. Now the country is bankrupt but this does not mean that there is a return to realistic considerations. Defence is the first thing to be axed so that the ‘essential’ games, such as education, medicine, general interference and ‘aid’ to poorer countries, can continue to be played.

The relevant departments of my unfunded independent university are effectively censored and suppressed. They have been prevented for decades from publishing analyses of the complex issues involved, while misleading and tendentious representations of them have continued to flood out from socially recognised sources. I hereby apply for financial support on a scale at least adequate for one active and fully financed university research department, to all universities, and to corporations or individuals who consider themselves to be in a position to give support to socially recognised academic establishments.

King George VI’s Christmas speech, 1939

When war had been declared on Germany and hence the British Empire faced another world war, King George VI made a Christmas broadcast which became famous. I have always suspected that it was his wife, later the Queen Mother, who put him up to this, and this is confirmed by something found via Google, which claims that his wife drew his attention to this poem*, which he quoted. It places the whole thing in an open-ended context which is clearly very un-modern.

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,

'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied,

'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.'

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,

The tradition of a royal Christmas Day broadcast began in 1932 with King George V, who spoke from a studio at the royal residence Sandringham. The message reached about 20 million people by radio.

The message began: 'I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.'

The war was certainly the Queen Mother's great project in life, although she was very angry with the Duke of Windsor for abdicating and causing her husband's early death by forcing him to become king. The war over, her husband dead and her daughter safely installed as Queen, she found herself with no purpose in life and it is scarcely surprising that she took to gin and horse-racing.

* by Minnie Louise Haskins; the complete poem can be read here

’We appeal for £1m as initial funding for a social science department in our unrecognised and unsupported independent university. This would enable it to publish analyses of the unexamined assumptions underlying current discussion of cultural and psychological issues. Such analyses could include an examination of what leads to the anachronistic tone of the quotation discussed above.’ Charles McCreery, DPhil

1850: the watershed

The rise of individualism prior to 1945 was not a simple matter. Probably the factors that would lead to its downfall were present from an early stage, and certainly so by the time the Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882.

Herbert Spencer identified a watershed at about 1850. Society, as he saw it, was always in a state of conflict between collectivism and individualism. Up to 1850, individualism was gaining ground; after it, the balance turned the other way and individual freedom declined in favour of collectivism.

Prior to the 19th century, there had been many monopolies. For example, Queen Elizabeth I had granted an exclusive right to print music to Tallis and Byrd (1575). No one could have their music printed by anyone else if they happened to have fallen out with Tallis and Byrd. And the guilds were as monopolistic as the modern medical profession. No one could make and sell candles, for example, unless they had been apprenticed and become a member of the candlemakers’ guild. As the monopolies were abolished, commercial freedom gave rise to intellectual freedom.

After 1850, we may suppose, the consequences of the earlier legislation in favour of free trade and against monopolies continued to bear fruit in the expanding activities of the intellectual upper class, but also in the psychological reactions of some of them against the enjoyment of this freedom by others, even if they had benefitted from it themselves.

In 1794 Prussia was the first European country to bring in state education, wishing to have an educated and indoctrinated population which would provide competent and compliant soldiers for its armies. It also brought in universal conscription in 1862. Prussia won the Franco-Prussian war; other countries thought that the universal education had provided Prussia with an advantage, and followed suit.

My suppressed independent university has a suppressed History Department as well as one in Philosophy, which needs only funding and status to be contributing significantly to the intellectual life of its time.