Two Departmental Characters: CPS talk 12/01/15

– Article by Stephen Leach

He puts the merit in Emeritus…

That’s right; the CPS gets term started with Prof. Alwyn Davies. Under discussion are the departmental characters Alexander Williamson and Kathleen Lonsdale.

Ever wondered why we have a letter from the current Japanese Prime Minister in the lobby or why Japanese shops play Auld Lang Syne when they close? It’s because the five Japanese people who were responsible for shaping modern Japan used to live with the Head of Department of UCL Chemistry Alexander Williamson. What a story.

UCL was founded in 1836 when higher education in England was limited to good old Oxford and Cambridge, who would only educate you if you were a member of the Church of England and lacked a progressive selection of subjects at the time.

UCL was founded on the tenet that people of all creeds may have the chance to be educated if they could prove themselves capable and with it came the first Chemistry Department in England which Michael Faraday was invited to head, though he couldn’t make it. The first head was in actual fact Edward Turner, and in 1849 Williamson, educated in Giessen under Justus Von Liebig of condenser fame, was fourth to take the position,.

The ‘Choshu Five’ as they have become known, found themselves under the charge of Alexander Williamson it seems by coincidence. They smuggled themselves out of Japan, which was a closed and feudal society at the time, in order to learn more about a rapidly developing world. The merchant responsible for their exit, Mr Weigal, knew the Williamson’s and arranged for their introduction. They all got on swimmingly; not only did Alexander Williamson provide the five with a fine scientific education he also arranged for them to tour the country to observe the design of the industrial revolution. Yamao Yozo was inspired to develop the first Japanese sign language for the deaf when observing a similar thing in a noisy Liverpudlian shipyard. Inoue Monta became first Japanese foreign Minister, Ito Shunsuke went on to write the Japanese Constitution and was the first Prime Minister.

One of the five died of tuberculosis while in London, he wasn’t permitted to be buried in London as he was not Christian, instead he was buried in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. Such was the close bond between the Williamson’s and their guests, that upon their death they too requested to be buried in Brookwood.

You may have noticed a few facts missing from this pseudo historical account. Alwyn Davies has co-written a book which covers some of these events, entitled: “UCL Chemistry Department 1828-1974”, want to know more? Buy, Buy, Buy, or Internet, Internet, Internet. Piece the story together yourself and update the Wikipedia page because right now, it’s lacking.

Up next is Kathleen Lonsdale; the first person to confirm experimentally the structure of benzene, the first female Fellow of the Royal Society and the first female Professor at UCL.

She graduated from UCL with an MSci in Physics in 1924 at the age of 19 and was invited to join William Bragg at the RI to investigate Crystallography.

Benzene is a liquid at room temperature, so she used benzene derivatives such as hexamethylbenzene and hexachlorobenzene, (room temperature solids), as subjects for XRD analysis and proved the structure in 1929. After a spell in Leeds, she returned to be a reader in Chemistry at UCL where she continued to work in crystallography theoretically and experimentally. She is commemorated by the building of the same name at UCL and with Lonsdaleite, a carbon allotrope which on paper should be much harder than diamond.

Lonsdale had been a child during the First World War; as an adult she was a Pacifist and Quaker. During World War II she refused on political grounds to officially register for civil defence duties such as fire-watch, even though she performed them anyway. She was forced to pay a fine of two pounds, this too she refused to pay. So they threw her in jail. She didn’t seem to mind and wrote to the governor to say that she was managing to get a lot of good reading done, about 7 hours per day on top of her prison duties. She was in Holloway Prison for 1 month before someone paid her fine for her (they waited a whole month?) She also requested of the Governor that inmates should be allowed a few luxuries such as red lipstick. Such was the desire for red lipstick that inmates would rub the covers of the red prison bibles on their face to get the desired pout. Upon entering into jail you’d be asked whether you were catholic or protestant and receive either a red or blue bible accordingly. It seemed as though there were far more catholics getting banged up than protestants because everyone wanted the red bible… for lipstick of course! Thank you Alwyn Davies.

Up next ‘Women in Science’. Where?! I don’t see any!