Harold Hartley

Viscount Grey of Fallodon, K. G., F. R. S

Viscount Grey of Fallodon, K. G. was elected into the Royal Society on 26 November 1914 under Statute 12; his proposer was the then President, Sir William Crookes. His citation makes no mention of his ability as a naturalist or of his genius in winning the confidence of wild creatures. I met him first as Visitor of my College, Balliol, and in 19271 took my wife and son Christopher to have tea with him at Fallodon, where his little estate and his ducks were protected against vermin by a high wall with a small wicket gate through which you entered. We left the car outside and rang the bell. Before the door opened we became aware of the peaceful and trustful atmosphere of Fallodon when a small green parrot, like those that live in the walls of the deserted city of Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra, fluttered down on to my wife’s shoulder. We went into Greys study where a brown squirrel was eating nuts on the writing table.

Address at the Memorial Service for Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, O.M., F.R.S. at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton Road, London on 20 November 1967

WE are all here today to pay our tribute to the memory of Cyril Hinshelwood, who had one of the outstanding intellects of his generation. By his death his friends and colleagues have suffered a most grievous loss and he will be sorely missed by all the Institutions and Organizations to whose interests he devoted himself so unsparingly. He was Chairman of the Council of Queen Elizabeth College, Chairman of the Goldsmiths’ Education Committee, and a Trustee of the British Museum. He was also the scientific adviser of several great industrial organizations.

The Debt of Engineering to Fellows of the Royal Society

King Charles II, the founder and patron of the Royal Society, in its second charter of 1663, bade the Fellows apply their studies ‘to the advantage of the human race’. Encouraged by the presence of Moray and Bruce, both with industrial and business interests, and of William Petty, the founder of economic statistics, Charles was no doubt hoping for some practical results from their work. When he teased them ‘for spending time in weighing only air,’ he may well have had a material motive in his mind. Invention and Experiment In their early meetings they often discussed industrial problems, and they had committees on Mechanical Inventions and on Histories of Trade. In Robert Hooke their Curator of Experiments, they had one of the most prolific investigators and inventors of all time, remembered today as the founder of meteorology, for Hooke’s Law, for his universal or Hooke’s joint, the first dividing engine, the spiral gear, and the balance spring of watches. The interest of the Fellows in astronomy was due in no small part to their concern with the problems of navigation. John Wilkins, the Jules Verne of his generation, who presided at the founding meeting, wrote about the possibility of journeys to the moon and in his Mathematical Magick he discussed the flying Chariot’ and ‘an Ark for submarine Navigations’. So there was justification for the King’s optimism.