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Review 2014

The Royal Societyof Edinburgh

The R

oyal Society of Edinburgh Review

2013

Printed in Great Britain by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester, DT1 1HD

ISSN 1476-4342

cover_Layout 1 19/01/2016 16:43

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH

REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2012-2013

PUBLISHED BY

THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION

ISSN 1476-4342

The Royal Society of Edinburgh

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Edinburgh, EH2 2PQ

Telephone : 0131 240 5000

Fax : 0131 240 5024

email : [email protected]

Scottish Charity No SC000470

Printed in Great Britain by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester, DT1 1HD

CONTENTS

ACTIVITIES – SESSION 2012-2013

Proceedings of the Ordinary Meetings .............................. 3

Proceedings of the Statutory General Meeting ................. 5

Events ............................................................................. 41

Publications ................................................................... 267

Policy Advice .................................................................. 269

Events for Young People ............................................... 273

Research and Enterprise Awards ................................... 277

Medals, Prizes and Prize Lectureships ............................. 285

Grants Committee ........................................................ 287

International Programme .............................................. 289

Fellows’ Social Events .................................................... 295

Schedule of Investments ................................................ 297

Friends of the Society .................................................... 301

Changes in Fellowship during the Session ..................... 303

Staff .............................................................................. 305

OBITUARY NOTICES ............................................................ 307

TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND ACCOUNTS TO 31 MARCH 2013

Trustees Report ............................................................. 437

Auditors’ Report ........................................................... 459

Accounts ....................................................................... 461

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS2 December 2012

ChairmanSir John Arbuthnott, PRSE

BallotProfessors Ian Main and MarkSchaffer were announced asscrutineers for the forthcomingballot for the election of NewFellows. The outcome to beannounced at the OrdinaryMeeting in March 2013.

Lecture

RSE/BP Hutton prize Lecture inEnergy Innovation, Black magic,black gold. Dr David Wright, PGSSenior Research Fellow, Universityof Edinburgh.

19 March 2013


Election to Fellowship

Professor Ian Main and ProfessorMark Schaffer (Scrutineers for theballot for the election of new RSEFellows) reported that 44.5% ofthe Fellowship voted in the Ballot,and that the names on the list hadbeen approved by more than two-thirds of those voting, as requiredby the Society’s laws.

Lecture

The Scientific Life of Dr DavidLivingstone. The Presidentintroduced Professor MichaelBarrett, FRSE, Professor of Bio-chemical Parasitology, Universityof Glasgow, noting that ProfessorMichael Barrett was one of the

new Fellows and offered himcongratulations on becoming aFellow of the RSE.

24 June 2013


Formal Admission to Fellowship

Professor Marion Campbell

Professor James Garden

Professor Maggie Gill

Professor Margaret (Mandy)MacLean

Professor Graeme Ruxton

Professor Pauline Schaap

Professor Rhian M Touyz

Ballot

Scrutineers for the forthcomingballot for the election of new RSECouncil and Office-Bearers, forthe Session 2013-2014 wereannounced as: Professor AngusMacDonald and Professor JohnRenwick

Lecture

Professor Ian Frazer FRS, CEO andDirector of Research, TranslationalResearch Institute, Brisbane,Australia. Vaccines to Prevent andTreat Cancer

2 September 2013

ChairmanMr Ian Ritchie, Vice President

This meeting of the Society waspart of the RSE Research AwardsReception. There was no formalSociety business to be conducted.

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETINGMinutes of the Statutory General Meeting held on 7 October

2013, ending the 230th Session

The Annual Statutory Meeting took place in the Society’s Wolfson Theatreon Monday 7 October 2013 at 6 pm. Sir John Arbuthnott MRIA, President,took the Chair.

Sir John explained that the ASM would be in three parts, with the first(admission of Professor Jean Tirole and Professor James Dunlop) open toFellows and guests, the second part (the formal business) being private toFellows, and the third being presentations by members of the YoungAcademy of Scotland, which again would be open to all.

A GENERAL BUSINESS

1. Admission of Fellows ....................................................................... 6

B FORMAL BUSINESS - RSE FELLOWS ONLY IN ATTENDANCE

1. Minutes ........................................................................................... 9

2. Matters Arising ................................................................................ 9

3. Report on Activities for Session 2012/13 .......................................... 9

4. Office Bearers’ Reports ..................................................................... 9

- General Secretary’s Report .............................................................. 9

- Treasurer’s Report ......................................................................... 15

- Fellowship Secretary’s Report ....................................................... 16

5. Election of Council and Other Office-bearers for the231st Session ................................................................................. 20

6. Any Other Business ........................................................................ 22

C PRESENTATIONS BY MEMBERS OF THE YOUNG ACADEMY OFSCOTLAND

The Young Academy of Scotland, its activities andplans for the future. ....................................................................... 21

The benefits of YAS membership, and theYAS’ Research the Headlines Project ............................................... 23

Appendix I - Report on Activities for the Session ................................. 24

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Review of the Session 2012-2013

A. GENERAL BUSINESS

1.Admission of Fellows

Professor Jean Tirole:

The President invited Professor John Hardman Moore FBA FRSE to readthe citation for Professor Jean Tirole:

It is my privilege and pleasure to give the citation for the admission ofProfessor Jean Tirole to Honorary Fellowship of the Society.

Professor Tirole first trained in Paris, at the École Polytechnique and thenat the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, leading to a PhD from theUniversité Paris-Dauphine, before moving to the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology where he obtained a second doctorate. After graduationfrom MIT in 1981, he went back to Paris, to the École Nationale, for twoyears. But America wouldn’t let him go that easily. He returned to MIT tobecome one of their most distinguished professors, in a department thatalready boasted many of the world’s greatest economists. Jean is stillaffiliated to MIT, as a permanent visiting professor.

It looked as though Jean was lost from our side of the Atlantic. However,by the early 1990s, to France’s – and to Europe’s – enormous goodfortune, one of Jean’s close collaborators, Jean-Jacques Laffont, hadestablished a vibrant group of young economists at the University ofToulouse, and persuaded Jean to move there too. This was unheard of.People didn’t leave America, certainly not eminent full professors at MIT,to return to Europe. The world of economics watched with bated breath:would Tirole stay in Toulouse for long? The answer has been an emphat-ic yes. Under the combined magisterial leadership of the two Jeans,Jean-Jacques Laffont and Jean Tirole, Toulouse became the powerhouseof European economics, one of the very few centres of true excellence inthe world, easily able to match its US competitors. The story of Toulouseis a remarkable one, an unequalled triumph of the intellectual power andpersonalities of the two men. Tragically, Jean-Jacques Laffont passedaway at much too early an age, but Jean Tirole stayed in Toulouse, andthe institutional triumphs in that city continue apace — thanks to thegenerosity of spirit, the vast range, and the sheer brilliance of the personwho is being admitted to Honorary Fellowship of the Society thisevening.

In many ways, the Royal Society of Edinburgh may be a little late off themark in admitting Professor Tirole to Honorary Fellowship. He hasreceived numerous honours, many honorary degrees, and many prizes.Indeed, prizes seem to have been created so that he can be the first

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Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

recipient. For example, in 1993, together with Jean-Jacques Laffont, hewon the inaugural Yrjö Jahnsson award from the European EconomicAssociation. In 2008 he won the inaugural BBVA Frontiers of KnowledgeAward in the Economics and Finance category. The year earlier, he wasonly the second economist, following the Nobel Laureate Maurice Allais,to receive the highest award, the Médaille D’Or, of the French CNRS.With his collaborator Bengt Holmström, Jean won the Stephen A. Rossprize in Financial Economics for their crucial research into banking andliquidity shortages - work that predated the current crisis by more than adecade.

Not only is Jean a Fellow of many of the world’s learned societies –topped, after this evening, by the Royal Society of Edinburgh – he hasbeen President of many of them too. He was President of the Economet-ric Society in 1998, President of the European Economic Association in2001, and is currently Chair of the Institute for Advance Study in Tou-louse. Naturally, he is a Foreign Honorary Member of both the AmericanEconomic Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.He is also Chevalier de la Légion D’Honneur, as well as Officier de l’OrdreNational du Mérite.

Jean’s CV moves into the stratosphere in matters to do with publicationand influence. He has written over 10 books, published over 175research articles in English, et qui sait combien d’articles en français. Thequality of all this material! The influence! He has given around 80named lectures. He has more than a googol Google citations. And therange! Industrial organisation; regulation and procurement; bankingand corporate finance; asset pricing, crises and bubbles; psychology – hehas a forthcoming book with Roland Bénabou intriguingly entitledEgonomics. Quite honestly, it’s terrifying, bewildering. How does Jeando it? And how does he remain at same time such a courteous, consider-ate, caring friend and mentor to so many of us? I once asked hiscollaborator Drew Fudenberg – whose take, on the phenomenon that isJean Tirole, was simply: “Oh well, Jean’s brain just has a faster clockspeed.”

But speed isn’t everything. Jean is an utterly brilliant economist, one ofthe greatest in generations – primarily a theorist, with an unparalleledgift for building elegantly simple models of the world that are bothprofound and relevant, that capture a myriad of truths.

I should say that Jean himself is very modest about his reputation. Hesees his research work as “a matter of luck, being in the right place at theright time”, because, he explains, he began his career “just as two

8


interesting mathematical theories came to the fore: game theory andinformation theory”. The former predicts the strategies economic agentsadopt in a given situation, and is now a crucial tool of economic analysis.The latter describes how economic agents go about using information ina strategic way. Well, lucky or not, of the many people who had theopportunity, Jean was at the front of the scientific enquiry that made useof the tools of game and information theory. Jean was, and continues tobe, a leader of a scientific revolution.

Although Jean is unduly modest about his own research contribution, heis less shy about economics itself. He is a great optimist and campaignerfor the importance and power of our discipline to change lives. Let megive the last words to him: “Economics is central to the understanding ofour societies and essential to make our world a better one. Often calledthe dismal science, it makes explicit what’s feasible and what’s not; thecommon refusal to consider trade-offs implies that we often contentourselves with mediocre policymaking. Modern economic theory hasbroadened its scope of investigation, and has substantially increased itspolicy relevance. Rather than a dismal science, lay people will discovereconomics to be a rigorous, fun, and deeply human science.”

Professor Tirole was then invited by the President to sign the Fellows’ Rolland was admitted as an Honorary Fellow of the Society.

Professor Tirole thanked Sir John for the welcome, and Professor Hard-man Moore for the very kind words.

Professor James Dunlop

The President invited Professor James S. Dunlop, Professor of Extragalac-tic Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, to sign the Fellows’ Roll and wasadmitted as a Fellow of the Society.

Before the formal business of the ASM, the President asked any non-Fellows who were in attendance for the admission of Professors Tiroleand Dunlop to leave the room. They would be welcome to re-join for thepresentations by the members of the Young Academy of Scotland.

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B. FORMAL BUSINESS

1. MINUTES

The Minutes of the Annual Statutory Meeting held on Monday 1 October2012 were taken as read, approved by those Fellows present and signedby the President as a correct record.

2.MATTERS ARISING

There were no matters arising.

3.REPORT ON ACTIVITIES FOR SESSION 2012/13

The meeting noted the Report on Activities for Session 2012/13 distrib-uted to Fellows in advance (Appendix I). The President noted that it hadbeen an incredibly busy year, and the report encapsulates the work thathas been undertaken. The President suggested that any discussion ofthe report should take place after the Office Bearers’ Reports had beendelivered.

4.OFFICE BEARERS’ REPORTS

GENERAL SECRETARY’S REPORT

Before inviting Professor Alice Brown to give the General Secretary’sReport, the President announced that the Scottish Government had justnamed Professor Brown as the next Chair of the Scottish FundingCouncil. The President noted that this is excellent news for the furtherand higher education sector, but sadly means that Professor Brown canno longer act as RSE General Secretary, and as a result would be standingdown at the end of this ASM. Professor Brown has been an impeccableGeneral Secretary, in a very demanding post, and the President offeredhis congratulations to Alice for her new role.

The President handed over to Professor Alice Brown, who gave thefollowing report:

We report our performance during the fiscal year, which runs from Aprilto March, in two ways. Firstly, as required by charity law, through ourAnnual Trustees’ Report and Accounts. The Report and Accounts for2012-2013 was approved by Council in its capacity as the Society’sTrustees and is available to any Fellow via our website, or in printedformat on request. Secondly, we report through our illustrated AnnualReview, which summarises the main activities described in the Trustees’Report, highlights the key impacts of these activities, and includes anapproved summary of Accounts, on which the Treasurer will report later.

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You should have received a paper or electronic copy of this illustratedreview with your papers for this evening.

My report this evening covers activities during the Society’s annualSession, which began on 2nd October 2012 and ends today. Yourpapers included a report of the full and varied programme of activitiesthe Society delivered during the session. These contributed to the publicbenefit outcomes which were set out in the Society’s Strategic Frameworkfor 2012-2015, namely:

1. Enhancing the capacity of world-class researchers working in scienceand culture in Scotland

2. Strengthening connections among academia, business, the publicand the voluntary sectors

3. Enhancing the RSE Young Academy of Scotland’s capacity to contrib-ute to the future of Scotland

4. Enhancing the public’s contribution to and understanding of scientif-ic, economic and cultural issues

5. Informing and influencing public policy decisions

6. Sustaining and utilising our multi-disciplinary Fellowship and recog-nising outstanding achievement and excellence

It is worth stressing that we have taken a more strategic approach tosome of our activities for example in establishing an Events Strategy anddeveloping our International Strategy and linking these more effectivelywith the work of our Policy Advice Unit.

You will observe from the Report on Activities for the current session thatit has been another extremely busy and productive year for the RSE. TheReport outlines the range of things that we have done covering ResearchAwards, Fellowships, our ‘Friends of Society’ initiative, the Internationalprogramme and an impressive list of activities under our Events pro-gramme, not least the Lochaber project; and we were delighted that HisRoyal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh was able to present the RoyalMedals in August. We have also had confirmation that Scottish Enter-prise will fund the next phase of the Enterprise Fellowships which isexcellent news.

I do not propose to report in detail on each and every one of the activitiesoutlined in the Report and will let them speak for themselves, but Iwould like to select a few highlights. Let me start with the project on:

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Enlightening the Constitutional Debate

Last year I reported that we had worked in partnership with the BritishAcademy in holding two events in London and in Edinburgh where weexamined the different constitutional options facing Scotland and thepotential political and economic implications of the respective positions.

As you will be aware, the Scottish Government intends to hold a referen-dum in September 2014 in which people living in Scotland will be askedwhether or not Scotland should be an independent country. As anindependent and impartial organisation with no party-political agendathe RSE does not have a view about how people should vote. However, itdoes have an important role to play in enlightening the constitutionaldebate and providing a forum for expert analysis of the many questionsand issues that will need to be addressed in the run-up to the referen-dum.

To this end we have held a series of public discussion events covering arange of topics including Scotland and the EU; Taxation and Spending;Defence and International Relations; The Real Economy; Currency,Banking and Financial Services; Culture and Broadcasting; and Borders,Immigration and Citizenship. Most of these events have been held hereat the RSE and have been extremely well attended by Fellows and mem-bers of the public. The two events on Taxation and Currency were held atthe British Academy in London. In contrast to our public events, theywere by invitation only and were conducted under Chatham House Rules.Because of the interest in these topics we intend to repeat them in a jointsession to be held in Edinburgh in January next year.

In addition we will continue the series with an event at the University ofAberdeen later this month on Science and Higher Education followed byan event on Welfare and Public Services to be held at the University ofStrathclyde in November. The final topic on Historical, Legal and Constitu-tional Issues will be held at the British Academy in February.

Reports of all the events have been published and the discussions at theRSE have been videoed. It is intended that the series should culminate inan event centred on a publication which will bring together the discus-sions that have taken place and serve as a historical archive of theSociety’s contribution to such a significant period in Scotland’s history,

Inquiries

a. The RSE launched our Report entitled Tapping All our Talent. Womenin STEM: a Strategy for Scotland last year in which we recommended aco-ordinated strategy to help increase the proportion of women in

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the workplace qualified in STEM subjects and those who hold seniorpositions in universities, research institutes, government, businessand industry. The recommendations made in the Report have beendisseminated widely – we have given presentations in different partsof Scotland, to the Department of Business, Innovation and Science inLondon, as well as at events in Belfast and in Brussels. Most recently Igave a presentation at the Parliamentary Links Day at Westminsterwhich focused on Science and Diversity. We have also made a writtensubmission to a House of Commons Science and Technology Com-mittee inquiry on the subject.

We have been very encouraged that many of our recommendationshave been adopted by the Scottish Government and supported byother bodies. This is an area that continues to attract attention andwe hope to give evidence to the Select Committee inquiry later in theyear.

b. At the same time as we have been disseminating the results of ourprevious inquiry, we have been engaged in a new inquiry into DigitalParticipation in Scotland. This inquiry is being chaired by ProfessorMichael Fourman and Professor Alan Alexander.

The ways we communicate, work, consume, grow our economy, areactive in our communities, deliver and access public services, commu-nity planning, education and healthcare are all evolving. Digitalinformation and communications technologies are changing theways we live, work and play and the pace of change will continue.However, research shows that many individuals, businesses andcommunities are not engaged and are at risk of being excluded.

The RSE Inquiry is focused on communities – including social,economic and cultural communities – and aims to address three keyquestions:

· How can digital technologies benefit our communities?

· What do communities, businesses and organisations need to beable to fully participate in this changing society?

· How can we ensure that digital technologies help to narrow thesocial divide, rather than widen it?

The Inquiry team has been gathering evidence from different commu-nities around Scotland, including cities, urban, rural and islandcommunities, and are currently drafting their Interim Report which

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will go out for consultation in November. It is intended that the finalReport will be published in March next year.

Policy Advice Unit

a. Education Committee: We continue to provide briefing papers and tosubmit advice papers and responses to consultations to the ScottishParliament and Scottish Government. This session our EducationCommittee has been actively engaged with policy makers on themajor reforms underway in Scottish education, and in particular theimplementation of Curriculum for Excellence and the new nationalqualifications. The Education Committee has been asked by theScottish Government to provide advice in relation to the evaluation ofthe Curriculum for Excellence being carried out by the OECD.

The Committee has also worked in partnership with the BritishComputer Society on a project to exemplify computing science-related aspects of the Curriculum for Excellence. The aim has been tohelp re-energise the teaching of computing in schools and highlightsits importance in supporting a digital society.

In addition, the Committee has been monitoring the debate aroundthe future of Higher and Further Education in Scotland. With financialsupport from a range of partners, including a number of universities,the RSE is undertaking a joint project with the David Hume Instituteto examine the future role of universities in Scotland. The intention isto inform the next iteration of policy in this area with the publicationof discussion papers ahead of the Scottish Parliamentary elections in2016.

b. Business Innovation Forum: The Forum is preparing an advice paperon Financing Innovation in Scotland which will be a follow-up to apaper produced on this subject in 2012. The Forum has been work-ing with external partners, Scottish Financial Enterprise and theInstitute of Chartered Accountants (Scotland), in preparing the paperand it is understood that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, JohnSwinney, is interested in the results.

The Forum also hosted a briefing session on the EU Horizon 2020funding and followed this up by taking a group of around 30researchers and university staff involved in commercialisation for aseries of meetings with MEPs and EU officials in Brussels.

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The Young Academy

The RSE established and launched the Young Academy of Scotland inNovember 2011. It is worth recalling that the RSE Young Academy is thefirst of its kind in the United Kingdom. In the first year 68 foundingmembers, 40% of whom are women, were appointed and they comefrom a wide range of backgrounds both academic and non-academic.

This session we entered into the second round of applications andappointed 50 new members, 50% of whom are women. This brings thetotal membership to 118 – 43% women and 57% men. It is worthnoting that the RSE Fellowship has quite a bit further to go to get to thislevel!

I will not go in to detail about the Young Academy as I am delighted thatwe have Professor Ineke De Moortel, Co-Chair of the YA’s FacilitatingGroup, and Dr Sinead Rhodes, lead on the Research the Headlinesproject, with us this evening and they will tell us more about theiractivities and plans for the future.

Conclusion & Thanks

To conclude, it is evident that during the year the Society has, once again,advanced learning and useful knowledge through a wide range of publicbenefit activities, which have reached many people and places acrossScotland and beyond. This would not have been possible without thewilling and voluntary contribution of Fellows, the support of the Society’shard working staff, or the voluntary input of others. On behalf of theSociety, I would like to thank all of them for their substantial contribu-tions.

I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the Office Bearers andTrustees who see their terms of office ending today. Namely:

· Vice-President, Professor Wilson Sibbett

· Council Members, Professor Sir David Edward and Professor SheilaRowan

On behalf of the Society I would like to thank all of them for the valuablecontributions they have made to the Society’s work, whilst at the sametime fulfilling many other demands on their time.

Finally, the President has announced that, because I have accepted theappointment as Chair of the Scottish Funding Council, I have to standdown from my position as General Secretary of the RSE. It is with greatregret that I do so as I can honestly say that I have thoroughly enjoyed myperiod in office as General Secretary and have welcomed the opportunity

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to work with so many fascinating and highly motivated people across thewhole range of the RSE’s activities. I would not have missed it for theworld and will cherish the many positive memories I have of the experi-ence. Can I thank you for electing me as General Secretary and I amconfident that you will provide my successor with the same level ofsupport that I have received.

That concludes my report. I will hand over to the Treasurer now, followedby the Fellowship Secretary, and then will be happy to take any questionswhich you may have on any of our activities during the session.

TREASURER’S REPORT

Mr Gerald Wilson gave the following report:

2012-13 was a challenging year for the RSE but I am able to report thatthe financial outcome is satisfactory. The overall surplus for the year was£325k. This includes a significant legacy and other non-recurring items.The underlying surplus on our operations was £31k compared with a£21k deficit in the previous year. At a more detailed level there are threepoints worth noting:

First, our grant from the Scottish Government fell from £2.45m in 2011-12 to £2.350m in 2012-13 as a result of the Government’s economymeasures. The grant has fallen by £577k in 2 years (nearly 20%). Ibelieve that the Scottish Government are not unappreciative of what wedo but they are dealing with a declining public purse and growingdemands in other areas. Our task is to persuade them that, even in aperiod of economic difficulty and amid other pressures, support for whatwe do is a good investment and is important to Scotland‘s future.

Secondly, our investment income at around £820k was slightly ahead oftarget and I should take this opportunity to thank the InvestmentCommittee and Speirs & Jeffrey & Co who manage our portfolio. Thevalue of the portfolio now stands at nearly £22m, up from £19.1m in theprevious year.

Thirdly, as regards the balance sheet, consolidated net assets stand atnearly £27.2m, compare with £24.1m in the previous year.

Turning to expenditure, our total expenditure decreased by £280K or5%. The major element was a reduction in grants in support of researchand innovation. In particular, there were fewer research and enterprisefellows in post. Our reduced Government grant and the need to safe-guard the support for existing fellows meant that we could make only 3new research fellowship awards in 2012.

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The Council runs a tight ship and fellows will be happy to note that ourgovernance costs remain at a similar level to previous years at 3% of ourtotal recurring income. However the pips are starting to squeak.

On the basis of the figures you might argue that the RSE is doing finefinancially and is making an appropriate public benefit contributiondespite financial pressures. This might suggest a sort of “steady as shegoes” approach to the future. Unfortunately, I do not think that wouldbe prudent. We know that the Government is under continuing financialpressure and that is likely to remain the case for some time. If we hopeto retain and perhaps see an increase in its financial support, notwith-standing the Government’s growing list of other priorities (arising froman ageing population, the need to address social deprivation, thepressures on the NHS etc.), we need to renew our efforts to strengthenand enhance – and also demonstrate – the real value to Scotland of theRSE’s work and our strategic vision. I should recognise your efforts, MrPresident, to get the message across to the Minister. We also need tocontinue to raise our profile more widely, not only to Government andpoliticians, but also to academia generally, to other interest groups,especially to the business community, and to the general Scottish public.

Finally, we need to diversify our funding sources. The New Enlighten-ment Fund is an important vehicle in this connection. The Council’sfundraising efforts are developing apace and they must be a priority forus all over the next few years. I believe that the future financial health ofthe RSE and indeed its future as a credible, influential and independentorganisation depends on it. I hope that we can count on the support ofFellows in our efforts.

FELLOWSHIP SECRETARY’S REPORT

Professor Alan Miller gave the following report:

In this paper I will cover the distribution of the current fellowship, wherewe are with the current election cycle to elect new Fellows to the Society,and some important changes that we are making to the nominationprocess to try to improve the balance of the Fellowship.

Current Fellowship

Looking at the current fellowship, we have 1559 Fellows in total, includ-ing Honorary and Corresponding. These are spread across the fourdiscipline groups as follows:

Sector A – Life Sciences 35.8% Sector B – Physical Sciences 35.7%

Sector C – Humanities and Creative Sector D – Social Sciences,Arts 14.5% Education and Public Service 13.8%

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10.8% of the Fellowship is female, a small increase from 10.3% last year,moving slowly in the right direction. We recognise that more still needsto be done to increase the number of women in the Fellowship, and I willmention one of the steps that we are taking later in this report.

Looking at the age distribution of the Fellowship, we have Fellows agedfrom 37 to 97 with an average age of around 67. As in previous years,there are very few Fellows in the 30-39 age group.

In May of this Session we elected 39 new Fellows, together with 5Corresponding Fellows and 3 Honorary Fellows.

Current Election Cycle

Looking now at the current, 2013/2014 election cycle. We have 193candidates for consideration, 178 for Fellowship, 7 for Honorary Fellow-ship and 8 for Corresponding Fellowship. Of the 178 for Fellowship, 81of these are new candidates, the same number as for last year.

I am pleased to report that there has been a substantial increase in thenumber of nominations of women this year. We have 33 new nomina-tions this year compared to 17 last year. Including those beingconsidered for their second or third year, there are 53 female candidatesbeing considered this year, compared to 33 last year. This means thatover a quarter of the candidates for consideration this year are female.

The allocation of places for Fellowship is always an important issue forCouncil and there are various factors taken into account when we drawup these numbers. Every year since the review in 2007 the recommenda-tion has been that we should elect no more than 40 new Fellows a year,however this year Council has agreed that in order to improve thebalance of the Fellowship, five additional places should be made availa-ble. As such Council has agreed the following distribution of places forthis year:

Group A 13Group B 13Group C 5Group D 9Additional Places 5TOTAL 45

Additional places will be allocated to cross-sectoral candidates and willalso be used to address some of the imbalances in the Fellowship byallowing additional places to be available for female candidates, businesscandidates and candidates in the creative arts. These will be allocated by

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the Fellowship Committee based on the shortlistings from the Commit-tees and Sector Groups.

The election process involves five stages, the first of which is the SectionalCommittee meetings, which were completed at the beginning of Octo-ber. Following this, the top candidates from each of the SectionalCommittees will then be considered and prioritised by the Sector Groups,which are chaired by the relevant Vice-President. The prioritised candi-dates from the Sector Group meetings are then considered by theFellowship Committee, which will also allocate this year’s additionalplaces, and finally the recommendations are approved by Council. InDecember there is a ballot of the whole fellowship, and I would encour-age Fellows to participate in this vote. I am pleased that we are gettingsuch excellent candidates and such excellent Fellows elected.

Nominations Group

A key message which I have made in previous years in terms of genderbalance, but which also applies to other imbalances in the Fellowship, isthe importance of having reasonable numbers of candidates being putforward in the first place for consideration. I reported last year that, forthis reason, the Fellowship Committee had agreed to establish Nomina-tions Groups to proactively seek out candidates for Fellowship incurrently underrepresented groups. I am pleased to report that Groupsmet this session to increase the numbers of female candidates, andcandidates in the creative arts. As a result of the work of these Groups,new Female candidates have increased from 17 in 2012 to 33 this year,and candidates in the creative arts from one in 2012 to 12 this year. I amin no doubt that this process has been a success, and a positive steptowards correcting the imbalances in the Fellowship. It is intended thatthese groups will continue next year, with the addition of a groupencouraging nominations of business, management and public affairscandidates.

Changes for 2014

Changes to sector groups

In reviewing the nomination process, the Fellowship Committee agreedthat the current Sector grouping was not particularly satisfactory, specifi-cally with regards to Sector D which currently combines a mix of academicand non-academic candidates. As such, Council has agreed to anincrease to five Sector Groups: Life Sciences; Physical, Engineering andInformatic Sciences; Humanities, Creative Arts, Education and Public

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Understanding; Social Sciences, Law and Economics; Business, Manage-ment and Public Affairs.

A more detailed subject breakdown will be available following furtherdiscussions with the relevant Sectional Committees and Vice-Presidents.

This new grouping emphasises the importance of business, managementand public affairs to the RSE, and provides more focus on Social Sciences,Law and Economics. This grouping creates a fifth Sector, and in thelonger term Council may wish to create a new Vice-President to representthis area, but in the interim stages, and until we see that this structureworks, it was agreed that an ordinary member of Council will haveresponsibility for the newly created Sector D.

Changes to Nomination Forms

During this session it has also been agreed that the nomination processfor business, public service and management candidates should bechanged, to move away from the academic-focus of the existing process.A separate nomination form for business, public service and manage-ment candidates has therefore been agreed.

Nominators of business, public service and management candidates arealso to be encouraged to have more detailed dialogue with the candidatein advance of submitting the nomination.

It has also been agreed that for all nomination forms and the updateform it would be useful to include a candidate statement, in addition tothe statements from the nominator. This candidate statement will beincluded in the nomination forms and update forms for the 2014-2015round.

Fellows’ Involvement

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Fellows involved inthe nomination process, especially those on the various SectionalCommittees. Nearly 200 Fellows are actively involved in the process onthese Sectional Committees and we are very grateful to them for theirdedication and hard work in contributing to this process.

I would also like to take this opportunity to ask Fellows to give somethought to who should be put forward as candidates in 2014. We havetaken steps to highlight and deal with gaps in the Fellowship, but we relyon existing Fellows to submit high-quality nominations each year toensure that we have outstanding nominations to consider. Fellows mayin particular wish to think of possible candidates for CorrespondingFellowship. We are looking for outstanding individuals overseas who will

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engage with the RSE and who could help the RSE to foster stronger linksinternationally.

QUESTIONS ON OFFICE BEARERS’ REPORTS

The President invited questions on the Office Bearers reports. Thefollowing were raised:

What does Council hope to see as a steady state regarding the genderbalance of the Fellowship?

50/50 is the obvious target. 10% is far too low, although we recognisethat it will take a long time to change. However compared to the genderbalance in universities, we don’t compare favourably, and need to domore.

There have been a number of bequests and an increase in investmentincome recently; will any of this be used to pay off the mortgage on 22George Street?

The RSE has already paid off this mortgage, and now has no borrowings.However we need to be careful with the endowment fund, as the stockmarket is volatile.

The Young Academy of Scotland is part of the Society, and therefore itdoesn’t seem right that YAS members have been excluded from this ASM.

The RSE Laws state that only Fellows of the Society and relevant staff mayattend the ASM. Also, the YAS wants to be independent, and notnecessarily too closely associated with the RSE. However we are anevolving Society, and this needs to be taken into consideration.

As there were no further questions, Sir John thanked all of the OfficeBearers for their work over the past year, and for their input into thisASM.

5.ELECTION OF COUNCIL AND OTHER OFFICE-BEARERS FOR THE231ST SESSION

The President announced that under Law 6 of the Society, Council hasthe ability to appoint a Fellow to fill the vacancy arising, to hold officeuntil the next Statutory Meeting. As such, Professor Alan Alexander,Emeritus Professor of Local & Public Management, University of Strath-clyde, has agreed to fill the post of General Secretary for the comingSession. Alan has already been involved centrally in the Enlightening theConstitutional Debate series, and in the review of digital participation.The President offered his thanks and congratulations to Alan.

The President then reported on the ballot of Council and other Office-Bearers for the 2013-2014 Session. All Fellows entitled to vote had been

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sent a ballot paper. The returned papers had been examined by thescrutineers, Professor Angus Macdonald and Professor John Renwick.

There were 447 returns - this equates to 31% of the Fellowship. 433papers were clean, and 14 papers were marked by scoring out a name ornames. No papers were spoiled. The Scrutineers were content that allthose proposed were elected unanimously or by ‘an overwhelmingmajority’.

Membership of Council and the Executive Board for the next Sessionwould be:

EXECUTIVE BOARD

General SecrearyProfessor Alan Alexander *

CuratorDr Iain Gordon Brown

Vice-President InternationalProfessor Tariq Durrani

Vice-President BusinessMr Ian Ritchie

Programme ConvenerSir Andrew Cubie

Research Awards ConvenerProfessor Steve Beaumont

Young People’s ProgrammeConvenerDr Chris van der Kuyl

Education Committee ConvenerProfessor Sally Brown

Chairman, The RSE ScotlandFoundationProfessor Donald Ritchie

Chairman, The RSE Scotland SCIOProfessor Peter Holmes

COUNCIL

PresidentSir John Arbuthnott

General SecrearyProfessor Alan Alexander *

Vice-PresidentsProfessor Graham CaieProfessor Anna DominiczakProfessor Tariq DurraniMr Ian RitchieSir David Wallace *

TreasurerMr Gerald Wilson

Fellowship SecretaryProfessor Alan Miller

Ordinary MembersProfessor Doreen Cantrell *Dr Barbara Crawford *Professor Robert CormackSir Muir Russell

ObserverSir Brian Ivory

* Newly elected members

6.ANY OTHER BUSINESS

There was no other formal business. The President thanked all thosewho had attended the meeting and had contributed to the reports and

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The Young Academy of Scotland, its activities and plans for the future.

Professor Ineke De Moortel, Royal Society University Research Fellow,University of St Andrews, and Co-Chair of the Young Academy of Scotland.

Professor Dr Moortel began by giving some background on the YoungAcademy of Scotland (YAS), which was established in 2001, and which,after two application rounds, now has a membership of 118. The YAS ispart of a growing international movement, and several YAS members arealso members of the Global Young Academy. The YAS is unique in itscomposition, as not only does it include arts, humanities and social sciencesas well as sciences, but it also has a membership beyond academia, includ-ing practitioners, professionals, entrepreneurs, and members from the thirdsector and the public sector. This interdisciplinarity is a core part of themission of the YAS. The mission also states that the YAS will look beyondacademia to the wider society and will work to “address the most challeng-ing issues facing society in Scotland and beyond”.

When established, the YAS was given a blank slate with regards to theorganisational structure. They agreed on a flat management structure, witha Facilitating Group comprising four Co-Chairs, each with a particular remit,and a Treasurer. There is also a Steering Group, made up of the FacilitatingGroup and the leaders of each of the Working Groups.

The YAS holds four plenary meetings per year, Working Group meetings,regional groups for local networking, and regular electronic communica-tion via the discussion forum on the website and email bulletins.

A number of working groups have been established, covering subjectsincluding excellence in education, open data, health, constitutional reform,women in STEM and media relations (which Dr Rhodes will talk about inmore detail). The working groups are running a range of related events,including seminars, debates, surveys and blogs.

C. PRESENTATIONS BY MEMBERS OFTHE YOUNG ACADEMY OF SCOTLAND

discussions. The President reminded the Fellows present that theevening would continue with presentations by two members of theYoung Academy of Scotland, and Fellows were encouraged to stay tohear these.

At this stage, members of the Young Academy and other non-Fellowswere welcomed back into the room.

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The benefits of YAS membership, and the YAS’ Research the Head-lines Project

Dr Sinead Rhodes, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Strathclyde,and Chair of the Young Academy of Scotland Media Relations WorkingGroup.

Dr Rhodes began by talking about the benefits of YAS membership, whichfor her include public engagement opportunities, opportunities to takepart in calls for evidence, such as the Royal Society’s call on ‘Science as aPublic Enterprise’, and the opportunities for multi-disciplinary collabora-tions, for example with sociologist.

Dr Rhodes then provided information on the Media Relations WorkingGroup, which she chairs. The purpose of this working group is to proac-tively engage with the media about the portrayal of research within themedia across the disciplines represented within the YAS.

The Working Group has established a Research the Headlines blog (http://researchtheheadlines.org/), which addresses the way in which research isdiscussed and portrayed in the media, provides expert positions acrossmultiple disciplines and is targeted to lay audiences and suitable for thosewith and without any research training.

The Group has produced reactive pieces, responding to articles in themedia, such as one on ‘Growing out of autism’, as well as expert guides,‘science or fiction?’ articles, and articles which look ‘under the radar’, forexample looking at the science behind articles such as ‘Worrying moleculefound in bottled water’.

Dr Rhodes concluded by saying that, although she has just presented thework of this one Working Group, this exemplifies the type of work that canoccur when you bring together a multidisciplinary team of interestedpeople.

Sir John thanked both speakers for their interesting presentations. Henoted that we live in a different media world, and one with which we needto be more engaged. So he was particularly pleased to see the YAS leadingthe way on this.

Sir John Arbuthnott, President6 October 2014

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The Fellowship of the RSE contin-ued to deliver a wide-rangingprogramme of activities, support-ed by staff of the Society andothers. These activities contribut-ed to the overarching aims set outin the Society’s Strategic Frame-work for 2012–2015. This reportrecords the various activities andthe difference that we aim tomake through these activities.

Enhancing the capacity ofworld-class researchers work-ing in science and culture inScotland

Research Awards

Our Research Awards programmesupports some of the mostoutstanding young scientists andinnovators working in Scotlandtoday, and it is through thesevarious schemes that we are ableto attract and support world-classresearchers. The RSE Awardscreate conditions that attractthose with outstanding potentialand allow them to establish theircareer in Scotland and make long-term contributions to the science,technology, engineering andmathematics (STEM) base inScotland. It provides scope toplace special emphasis on areas ofresearch key to the well-being ofScotland, and complementssimilar programmes available on aUK-wide basis from organisations

Appendix IReport on Activities for the Annual Session 2012/13

(2 October 2012 – 7 October 2013)

such as the Royal Society, ResearchCouncils and major researchcharities. The RSE is very gratefulto organisations such as BP, theScottish Government and theEuropean Commission, whocontinue to provide support forthese valuable Awards.

The following awards were madeduring the Session:

· One CRF Personal ResearchFellowship in BiomedicalSciences

· 14 CRF European VisitingResearch Fellowships in Arts,Humanities & Social Sciences

· Six Scottish GovernmentPersonal Research Fellowships

· Cormack awards: One Under-graduate Prize, OnePostgraduate Prizes and SixVacation Research Scholarships

· Eight Lessells Travel Scholarships

The Scottish Government-fundedPersonal Research Fellowshipscheme is the largest fellowshipscheme administered by the RSEfor postdoctoral researchers andthe research fellowships leverbenefits for Scottish research –over the past year, an additional£6.2m has been attracted into theScottish research pool. We werepleased this year to be able tomake six new awards, and are

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grateful to the host universitiesfor their help in enabling us to doso. In addition, we have contin-ued during the Session to supportnineteen existing PersonalResearch Fellows.

The EU Marie-Curie COFUNDscheme has continued to supportthe internationalisation of ourScottish Government-fundedResearch Fellowships, and thisfunding has supported threeResearch Fellows over the pastyear and enabled them to work inthe USA, Iceland and Eire.

In addition to these scienceactivities, the Scottish Governmentgrant has continued to supportour Arts & Humanities pro-gramme, through the awarding ofthe following:

· Seven Research Workshops

· 22 Small Research Grants

Seven existing Research Networksand two Major Research Grantswere supported in their secondyear of a two- and three-yeargrant respectively.

Since its inception in February2007, this programme hasbenefitted 109 individuals andhas enabled them to develop linkswith people and organisation thatthey would not otherwise haveeasily been able to work with.

This programme allows theestablishment of long-termdialogue, both interdisciplinaryand inter-institutional, across

Scotland and beyond, involvingartists, curators, art historians,librarians, archivists, scientists andresearch students. Evidenceobtained from the awardeesshows that the objective ofimproving understanding ofhuman culture, past and present,is being met by this programme.

Scottish Crucible

For a number of years now theRSE has partnered with otherScottish universities to supportthe “Scottish Crucible” trainingscheme, funded by the ScottishFunding Council, and withadditional support coming fromUniversities Scotland. Through aseries of intensive two-dayworkshops, this programmebrings together talented research-ers from across Scotland toexplore and expand their capacityand problem solving. This year 32researchers benefitted from thisopportunity, and the Society isgrateful to the various funders forcontinuing to support thisworthwhile scheme.

Strengthening connectionsamong academia, business, thepublic and the voluntary sectors

Enterprise Fellowship

The RSE administers three Enter-prise Fellowship schemes, whichare designed to help createsustainable companies with high-value jobs that make a positivecontribution to the economy inthe long term. The three schemes,

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funded separately by ScottishEnterprise, the Science andTechnology Facilities Council(STFC) and the Biotechnology andBiological Sciences ResearchCouncil (BBSRC), encourage thecommercialisation of technology-based business ideas fromacademic institutions into spin-out companies.

The fellowships offer support todevelop business skills throughintensive business training andmentoring, as well as introduc-tions to potential collaborators,investors and other specialistswho are able to help get thebusiness up and running.

This Session, four ScottishEnterprise Enterprise Fellowshipwere awarded, together with oneBBSRC Enterprise Fellowship. TheResearch Council schemes operateon a UK-wide basis, with thepurpose of supporting thecommercialisation of researchpreviously funded by BBSRC andSTFC.

Two RSE Entrepreneurs’ Clubdinners took place during theSession. The first of these washeld at the RSE on the 15thOctober, when Derek Shepherd,Global Scot, NGenTec Ltd and CarlGardiner, Scottish DevelopmentInternational, spoke on “How toaccess international markets andexport”. The second took placeon the 25th April, when the mainspeakers were Katie Michels,

Director of the Saltire FoundationFellowship Programme and KimRichmond, a newly-graduatedSaltire Foundation Fellow, whospoke about the Saltire Fellowshipprogramme and what it offersaspiring entrepreneurs. Seven ofthe recent and current EnterpriseFellows then delivered one-minute‘elevator pitches’ to allow gueststo learn about the range ofbusinesses being funded throughthe Enterprise Fellowship pro-gramme. The events wereattended by current and formerEnterprise Fellows, Fellows of theRSE, mentors to the EnterpriseFellowship programme, SaltireFoundation Fellows and guestsfrom the Business Angel commu-nities.

Friends of the Society

The RSE’s corporate engagementinitiative “Friends of the Society”(Corporate Partners of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh) continues togrow since its launch in April2009. By September 2013,membership remained steady at16 organisations. The members atthe end of September 2013 wereArup, BP, The Herald, the Institu-tion of Civil Engineers, LloydsBanking Group, MacRoberts,Optos, Oracle, RBS, SCDI, ScottishPower, Shell, Shepherd andWedderburn, Standard Life,Toshiba and the Wood Group.

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International Programme

Our International Programme,funded by the Scottish Govern-ment since 2003, helps ýto createand support international collabo-rations, strengtheningconnections among academiaaround the world, and raisingScotland’s reputation as a centreof academic excellence. Throughformal Memoranda of Under-standing with overseas sisterAcademies, as well as informallinks with other Academies andorganisations, the Society hasdeveloped strong links interna-tionally. The Bilateral and Openexchange schemes supportresearcher exchanges that fre-quently allow the researchers tolever further, and often significant,funding from sources here andabroad. A particularly strongelement of the programme is thejoint research project scheme, runover two years, between the RSEand the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China (NSFC),supporting longer-term collabora-tions and levering furtherfunding.

During the Session, 23 Bilateraland 26 Open Exchange Schemegrants were awarded, whichamounted to 126 person-weeksof researcher support for visitsbetween Scotland and over 24countries worldwide. Six newjoint projects with the NSFC wereawarded for two years fromSpring 2013 in the area of Energy

Technology and Management,and12 existing joint projects inImage Processing and InformationScience were supported in theirfirst and second years.

The RSE signed a Memorandumof Understanding with theChinese Academy of SocialSciences in September 2013,during the visit to China by thePresident and the Vice-Presidentfor International Relations. Theagreement sets out the wish topromote and strengthen co-operation between researchers inScotland and China, and thevarious ways in which this may beencouraged and supported by thetwo Academies. This agreementcomplements those alreadysigned with the Chinese Academyof Sciences and the NationalNatural Science Foundation ofChina.

The RSE was also involved in anumber of international eventsthis Session:

- Franco–Scottish Art & Humani-ties Seminar

- RSE / NSFC Joint ProjectsWorkshop – ComputationalCognitive Neuroscience Psy-cholinguistics (particularly inrelation to Chinese languageprocessing), Interaction andCommunication Visual Cogni-tion Social Neuroscience

- The International Launch ofHCR:V3

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- US Consulate Reception/talk forNASA engineer Nagin Cox

- Franco–British Marine EnergyConference - New Waves inMarine Energy

- Chinese Academy of SciencesDelegation Visit

- President’s visit to China –meetings with National NaturalScience Foundation of China,Chinese Academy of Sciencesand Chinese Academy of SocialSciences

- Norway–Scotland Internal wavessymposia

- Society of Swedish Literature inFinland delegation visit

- RSE / NSFC Joint ProjectsWorkshop – Renewable Energy

Enhancing the RSE YoungAcademy of Scotland’s capacityto contribute to the future ofScotland

This Session saw the secondround of applications for theYoung Academy. The RSE received200 applications for membershipof the RSE Young Academy andappointed 50 new members,bringing the total membership to118. Of these, 43% are female,73% are from the academic sectorand 27% from business and theprofessions. The current Facilitat-ing Group ended their 18-monthterm in September 2013. The YASheld elections for the four co-Chair and Treasurer positions,with Ineke De Moortel (re-elected),Karen Lorimer, Patrick Harkness,

Neil McLennan and Giles Ham-mond (Treasurer), successfullyelected.

The interests of the RSE YoungAcademy of Scotland havedeveloped under four broadcategories: Knowledge, Employ-ment, Young People and Healthand Wellbeing; whilst alsoallowing for engagement withtopical issues such as ScottishConstitutional Reform. The workof the Young Academy is conduct-ed through a number of WorkingGroups. Each sets its own agendaof activities and works towardsresponding to some of the mostinteresting and pressing challeng-es facing Scotland today.Currently, there are eight activeWorking Groups:

- Excellence in Education

- Health Communication

- Health and Wellbeing

- Media Relations

- Open Data

- Scottish Constitutional Reform

- Tapping All Our Talents

- Work, Employment and Markets

Members have continued to beinvolved with InterdisciplinaryLearning, on which a paper isbeing prepared, and were in-volved with the RSE EducationWorking Group on History inSchools to facilitate the TeachingHistory: A Model for Collaborationworkshop (RSE February 2013).This workshop brought together

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school teachers and academics,with a view to creating a collabo-rative professional learningcommunity.

Members believe that the sharingand protection of data is closelylinked with almost every aspect ofsociety, producing a report onScience as a Public Enterprise inresponse to the Royal Society’sCall for Evidence (2011) and also aresponse to the HEFCE’s Call forEvidence on Open Access in thePost-2014 Research ExcellenceFramework (2013).

The topic of inequality wasexplored in relation to bothemployment and health, withpanel debates on Strategies forOvercoming Inequality in theWorkplace (St Andrews, March2013) and Health Inequalities(Glasgow, June 2013). A work-shop on Addressing Hate andViolence: The Scottish Experienceof Communities and Complexity(RSE, July 2013) brought togethercommunity activists, policepractitioners, representatives fromcentral and local government anda range of local communitystakeholders, with a keynotespeech from the Scottish Govern-ment’s Cabinet Secretary forJustice, Kenny MacAskill.

A panel debate on Communica-tion between Researchers and theMedia (at the RSE, April 2013) wasfollowed up with the launch ofResearch the Headlines at theYoung Academy AGM hosted by

Stirling University in August 2013.This public blog addresses theway research is portrayed in themedia, with contributions fromthe multidisciplinary expertise ofYAS members.

Members also continue torepresent the YAS at externalevents and are developingcollaborative relationships withkey organisations. Most notably, acollaboration with the DavidHume Institute has recently beendeveloped to host a series ofcollaborative seminars to debateissues related to the 2014Referendum. Members participat-ed in the Global Young Academy’ssymposium Shaping the Future ofYoung Academies (Amsterdam,October 2012), and collaboratedwith Young Academies in Germa-ny, the Netherlands, Russia andSweden on Images of Fascination(Berlin, June 2013) – a photo-graphic competition invitingscholars from across Europe tosubmit images which capture theessence of what makes researchfascinating. European relation-ships were further strengthenedwith the German, Dutch, Swedishand Global Young Academiesparticipating in DevelopingInternational Links at the YASAGM (Stirling, August 2013). EachAcademy gave a presentation ontheir own work and organisation,providing the basis for a groupbrainstorming session on the aimsand plans for the forthcoming

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year of the Young Academy ofScotland.

Following requests to the YAS forapplications, YAS member LukeBisby was selected as a 2013Young Scientist by the WorldEconomic Forum and will repre-sent the YAS at the AnnualMeeting of the New Championsin China, and YAS member MartynPickersgill was selected by ALLEAto sit on the ALLEA Science andEthics Working Group. Two YASmembers were also appointed tothe Global Young Academy.

Three Young Academy memberswere also recognised in the 2013RSE Prizes, receiving awards in theEarly Careers section. The prizewinners and their respectivemedals are:

- Patrick Neill Medal: Dr MarcDweck, University of Edinburgh;

- Thomas Reid Medal: Dr GordonPentland, University of Edin-burgh;

- Henry Duncan Medal: Mr NeilMcLennan, Aberdeen CityCouncil.

Full details of all YAS 2012–2013activities can be found in theYoung Academy of Scotland’sReport to the Young AcademyAGM 2013.

Enhancing the public’s contribu-tion to and understanding ofscientific, economics andcultural issues

Events Programme

Once again this year, the RSEplanned and organised thedelivery and promotion of amultidisciplinary programme ofevents aimed at a wide range ofaudiences. We delivered a total of62 events, including lectures,discussion forums, a mock trial,conferences and disseminationevents.

Lectures

- Robert Cormack BequestLecture: Exploring the Diversityof Exoplanets

- MacCormick European Lecture

- RSE/BP Hutton Prize Lecture inEnergy Innovation/OrdinaryMeeting

- The Royal Society of EdinburghChristmas Lecture 2012: TheJourney to Gold

- Sexual and Reproductive HealthIssues for Women in Combat

- SCRR Peter Wilson Lecture: TheEvidential Basis for Food andEnvironmental Policy

- RSE/RAE Joint Annual Lecture:Growing Healthcare TechnologyBusinesses – Bringing Engineer-ing Inventions to Market withLimited Resources

- Lecture/Ordinary Meeting: TheScientific Life of Dr Livingstone

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- Edinburgh Lecture Series: JohnRae - Forgotten Hero of ArcticExploration

- From Gannets to Pandas - 100Years of Progress at EdinburghZoo

- Holywood Trust RSE@Dumfries& Galloway Public Lecture: APuzzle from Scotland’s Past: Whydid the Scottish EnlightenmentHappen?

- Lecture/Ordinary Meeting:Vaccines to Prevent and TreatCancer

- Edinburgh International Festival2013: The Leisure Revolution

- Edinburgh International Festival2013: How Art intersects withTechnology in Cinema

Discussion Forums

- Integrated Reporting Benefit ofCost?

- Illuminating Biology andRobotics through ContemporaryClassical Music: Launching LabNotes

Mock Trial

- RSE@Lochaber – The AppinMurder (1752) – re-trial ofJames of the Glen, the manconvicted for the killing of ColinCampbell of Glenure, the RedFox

Conferences

- Europe and the Arab World

- CTR Wilson, a Great ScottishPhysicist: His Life, Work andLegacy

- The Teaching of History: AModel for Collaboration

- Women’s Reproductive Healthacross the Lifecourse - Implica-tions for Public Policy

Networking Event / Reception

- Research Awards Reception(Ordinary Meeting)

Dissemination / Launch Events

- Dissemination event Edinburgh:Women in Stem

- Digital Participation EnquiryLaunch

Seminar

- European Union Horizon 2020

- (Discussion seminar) RevisingTapping all our Talents

Meeting

- SUPA Cormack AstronomyMeeting

Fellows’ Events

- New Fellows’ Induction Day

- Fellows’ Summer Reception

- Royal Medals Event

- Dining Club December 2012

- Dining Club April 2013

- Dining Club June 2013

Friends of the Society Events

- Friends of the Society Lunch(Winter)

- Friends of the Society President’sDinner ( Spring)

- Friends of the Society SpringReception

- Friends of the Society President’sDinner (Autumn)

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Schools Programme

RSE Fellows and other expertsrecognise the importance ofengaging with school-agechildren and, as such, continue toshare their knowledge andunderstanding of science andculture with this age group. Thereis a particular focus on enthusingthose already “engaged”, andreaching those who are moregeographically removed fromScottish universities and ScienceCentres, and who therefore havemore limited opportunity toparticipate and meet with experts.

Enlightening the ConstitutionalDebate

In partnership with the BritishAcademy we began, in March2013, a series of public discussionevents aimed at Enlightening theConstitutional Debate in advanceof the September 2014 Referen-dum on Scotland’s futurerelationship with the rest of theUnited Kingdom.

The series evolved from a confer-ence on Scotland and the UnitedKingdom, which the RSE and theBritish Academy held during2012. The conference, held overtwo days in Edinburgh andLondon, was attended by a rangeof academic and policy experts.The report on the events, Scotlandand the United Kingdom, waspublished in September 2012 andis a record of the views expressed

by the speakers and attendees atthose events.

During the Session, discussionevents were held in Edinburghand London on the followingtopics:

- Scotland and the EU (held atRSE)

- Taxation and Spending (held atBA)

- Defence and InternationalRelations (held at RSE)

- The Real Economy (held at RSE),

- Currency, Banking and FinancialServices (held at BA)

- Culture and Broadcasting (heldat Scottish Parliament)

- Borders, Immigration andCitizenship (held at RSE)

The series will cover the followingtopics in the year ahead:

- Science and Higher Education(at the University of Aberdeen inOctober)

- Welfare and Public Services (atthe University of Strathclyde inNovember)

- Currency, Banking and FinancialServices (at the RSE in January)

- Historical, Legal and Constitu-tional Issues (at the BA inFebruary).

It is also intended that the seriesshould culminate in an eventcentred on a publication, whichwill bring together the discussionsthat have taken place, and serve asa historical archive of the Society’s

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contribution to such a significantperiod in Scottish history.

The events in Scotland are free toattend and open to the public.Events at the British Academy areby invitation only and are con-ducted under the Chatham HouseRule. Reports of the discussionswhich flowed from all of thesehighly informative events areavailable on the Society’s website,as are video recordings of theevents held in Scotland.

PR & Communications

The Society also continued toenhance people’s appreciationand understanding through othermodes of communication, andincreasingly through electronicmeans. The RSE website wasupdated regularly throughout theSession and provided informationfor the public and for Fellows. Wecontinued to provide audio andvideo recordings of RSE events toensure as many people as possiblecan access these, as well as the 37written summary reports ofactivities in the public events andschools programme that werepublished on the site. We alsocontinue to use social networkssuch as Twitter and Facebook as ameans of communicating the RSEto the outside world.

Media briefings and press releaseswere provided for most majorevents and launches, and therewas appreciable media coverage

of many of the significant activi-ties in the RSE programme.

Four issues of ReSourcE, the RSENewsletter, were published anddistributed to a mailing list of over1,500, including the Fellowship,business leaders, journalists,research institutes, schools, MPs,MSPs and interested individuals.The Newsletter is now alsoavailable on the RSE website andmany of the Fellowship and otherschose to view it in that format.

Throughout the Session, Fellowsreceived a monthly e-bulletin,which enabled them to keep up todate with and, if appropriate,disseminate information on theRSE and its work. In addition, 18public e-bulletins were sent outduring the Session to advertisevarious events and schoolsactivities.

Two issues of Science Scotlandentitled The Business of Biomedi-cine and Inside Geoscience werepublished during the year. ScienceScotland continues to increasepeople’s awareness of cutting-edge science and technologyactivities in Scotland.

Journals

Through the RSE ScotlandFoundation, we continued topublish two journals, Earth andEnvironmental Science Transac-tions of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh and Proceedings of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh,Section A: Mathematics. Copies of

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the journals were sent to 350University Libraries, Academiesand Institutions world wide, aspart of the Society’s exchangeprogramme. The journals arehighly regarded by academics aspublication vehicles for theirresearch, and they both main-tained a respectably high impactfactor in comparison with similarjournals in their fields.

Seven issues of Proceedings A andfive issues (three single issues andone double issue) of Transactionswere published during theSession.

The digitisation of the RSE’sarchive journals – Transactions(1783–1979), Transactions: EarthSciences (1980–2000), Proceed-ings (1832–1940), Proceedings A:Mathematics (1941–1999) andProceedings B: Biological Sciences(1941–1996) is almost complete.Most of the archive is nowavailable online, along withcurrent and more recent backissues of Transactions andProceedings A, and the currentstatus is as follows:

Transactions (TRSE) – volumes 1–70: live

Transactions: Earth Sciences(TRSE:ES) – volumes 71–97: live

Earth and Environmental ScienceTransactions of the Royal Societyof Edinburgh (EESTRSE) – volume98 (2007) onwards – live

Proceedings (PRSE) – volumes 1–60: not yet live

Proceedings A: Mathematics(PRSE:A) – volume 61onwards: live

Proceedings B: Biological Sciences(PRSE:B) – volumes 61–104: live

The archive is on public sale,making the RSE’s highly regardedjournal archive more easilyaccessible to a world-wideaudience. The sales of the archivecontinue to benefit the RSEfinancially. In 2012, the RSE’sshare of the surplus revenue(50%) was as follows: Proceedings( = PRSE, PRSE:A & PRSE:B) –£28,734.05; Transactions ( =TRSE, TRSE:ES & EESTRSE)£26,604.57. This makes the totalrevenue realised to date in excessof £105,000. Further sales of thedigital archive will be confirmedbefore the end of 2013.

Informing and influencing publicpolicy decisions

Key outputs of our Policy andAdvice unit were:

· Five briefing papers, includingScotland as a science nation; theneed for a balanced energyportfolio; and on the findingsof the Commission on SchoolReform.

· 14 Advice papers, seven to theScottish Parliament and/or theScottish Government, on arange of topics including: thefinancing of business innova-tion in Scotland; the Scottish

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Government’s National Perform-ance Framework; theAquaculture and Fisheries(Scotland) Bill; proposals for theestablishment of an independ-ent fiscal body; the Post-16Education (Scotland) Bill; andpublic services reform inScotland.

· A discussion forum was held onBiodiversity to coincide with thepublication of the ScottishGovernment’s 2020 Challengefor Scotland’s Biodiversity.

- Oral evidence to ScottishParliamentary Committees wasprovided on Public servicesreform in Scotland

Science and the Parliament

Another successful Science andthe Parliament event was held thisSession, in partnership with theRoyal Society of Chemistry. Morethan 300 delegates, includingMSPs and senior members of thecivil service, attended the event.This year’s event had a doubletheme, Science and the constitu-tion; and growing the SME sectorin Scotland. The event exploredhow to increase the rate of newbusiness start-up and support thegrowth of existing enterprises inscience and engineering. Theevent also provided an opportuni-ty for an open and honestdiscussion on the topics sur-rounding the vote onIndependence in 2014, and theimpact that Independence could

make to the future of science inScotland.

Education Committee

This Session, our EducationCommittee has actively engagedwith policy makers on the majorreforms underway in Scottisheducation, not least the imple-mentation of Curriculum forExcellence and the new nationalqualifications.

In January 2013, members of ourEducation Committee met withMichael Russell MSP, CabinetSecretary for Education, andScottish Government educationofficials to discuss the develop-ment of plans for evaluation andon-going review of the Curricu-lum for Excellence. Members ofthe Education Committee havealso had further discussions withthese education officials. This hasprovided the RSE with an oppor-tunity to influence the ScottishGovernment’s approach in thisarea.

In partnership with the BritishComputer Society (BCS), the RSEhas been involved in a project toexemplify computing science-related aspects of Curriculum forExcellence and the new nationalqualifications. This project hasprovided an opportunity to re-energise the teaching ofcomputing in schools andhighlight its importance to adigitally-enabled society. Theproject has received widespread

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support, including from EducationScotland, schools, and academicand industry partners.

Three extensive resources, com-prising tutor and learnermaterials, were launched at theRSE in December 2012. DrAlasdair Allan MSP, Minister forLearning, and Professor MuffyCalder, Chief Scientific Adviser,spoke at the launch. The materialshave been trialled in schoolsacross Scotland and have receivedvery positive responses fromteachers. They have also receivednational and internationalrecognition.

The project has entered its third(and final) year and the focus is onopen-sourcing and updating thematerials developed to date. Theintention is to create a communityof Computing Science teacherswho can sustain and develop thematerials in the future.

As well as being concerned withschool education, our EducationCommittee has been monitoringthe debate surrounding the futureof Higher and Further Educationin Scotland. In January, theCommittee contributed to RSEresponses on the Post-16 Educa-tion (Scotland) Bill and on thedevelopment of the Scottish Codeof Good Higher EducationGovernance.

With financial support from arange of partners, including anumber of universities, the RSE is

undertaking a joint project withthe David Hume Institute toexamine the role of universities inScotland. The intention is toinform the next iteration of policyin this area with the publication ofdiscussion papers, ahead of theScottish Parliamentary elections in2016. A number of roundtablediscussion sessions have beenheld throughout 2012 and 2013on topics, including: The role ofuniversities in the economy, Whoare universities for? and Theschool/college/university interfaceand collaboration.

The RSE also facilitates thecollaborative Learned Societies’Group on Scottish ScienceEducation, which was formallylaunched at the RSE in May 2012.This standing group has arisendue to concerns about, and aneed to contribute to, the majorreforms in the delivery of scienceeducation in Scottish schools. Thegroup comprises representativesfrom the Royal Society of Chemis-try, the Institute of Physics, theSociety of Biology, the BritishComputer Society, the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh, the Associa-tion of Science Education, theScottish Schools EducationResearch Centre and the Engineer-ing Policy Group (Scotland). Thegroup also has good links withthe STEM Education Committee(STEMEC), which is supported bythe Scottish Government.

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Along with STEMEC, the LearnedSocieties’ Group has identifiedinterdisciplinary learning in STEMeducation as a priority area. TheLearned Societies’ Group andSTEMEC are organising a strategymeeting with senior educationrepresentatives in Scotland. Theintention is to foster the establish-ment of programmes, actions andresponsibilities for delivery ofinterdisciplinary learning. Follow-ing on from this, there are plansto organise a conference in 2014with the aim of raising awarenessof teachers’ understanding ofinterdisciplinarity, multidisciplinar-ity and cross-curricular teachingand learning in STEM education.

In May 2013, both the EducationCommittee and the LearnedSocieties’ Group submittedresponses to the General TeachingCouncil for Scotland (GTCS)review of entry requirements toprogrammes of Initial TeacherEducation. The submissionsexpressed concern that entrants toprimary teaching are not requiredto have any level of sciencequalification. They also comment-ed on a lack of ambition inrelation to raising the require-ments for Mathematicsqualifications. The submissionsreceived extensive media coverageincluding the BBC, The Herald,The Courier and The TimesEducation Supplement (Scotland).Members of the Learned Societies’Group will meet with representa-

tives of the GTCS in October todiscuss the concerns raised.

Sustaining and utilising ourmulti-disciplinary Fellowshipand recognising outstandingachievement and excellence

It would not be possible toundertake many of these taskswithout our multi-disciplinaryFellowship.

In March 2013, we announcedthe election of three new Honor-ary Fellows, five newCorresponding Fellows and 39new Fellows. This followed thescrutiny of 165 candidatesthrough a four-stage committeeprocess, culminating in the postalballot in December to the entireFellowship.

The addition of new Fellowsbrings the current Fellowship upto 1557 – 64 Honorary Fellows,64 Corresponding Fellows and1429 Fellows.

The discipline balance of theFellowship is broadly representedby four cognate sectors. In theFellowship (excluding Honoraryand Corresponding) the currentbalance of these sectors is 35.8%(Life Sciences – Sector A), 35.7%(Physical Engineering and Infor-matic Sciences – Sector B), 14.5%(Humanities and Creative Arts –Sector C) and 13.8% (SocialSciences, Education and PublicService – Sector D). 10.8% of theFellowship is female, a smallincrease from 10.3% in 2012.

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The annual New Fellows’ Induc-tion Day took place in May andwas attended by 37 new Fellows.They were given an introductionto the Society by the President andmet Council members and staff,before being formally admittedinto the Fellowship.

Fellows were once again pivotal tothe Society’s delivery of publicbenefit activities. The manyCommittees, which cover govern-ance, operational andmanagement matters, are com-prised overwhelmingly of Fellowsof the Society, and over 300Fellows are currently involved inone of more RSE committees.Amongst other activities, Fellowsfreely gave of their time and theirexpertise in the selection ofResearch and Enterprise Fellow-ship awardees; the awarding ofInternational Exchange grants,various medals, grants and prizes;participating in the planning oflectures, conferences and discus-sion forums; contributing to theYoung People’s programme;serving on Inquiry Committeesand Editorial Boards; and provid-ing evidence and advice to informresponses to policy and decisionmakers.

RSE Royal Medals

A major highlight of the Sessionwas the presentation of the RSERoyal Medals, presented by HisRoyal Highness The Duke ofEdinburgh at the Society inAugust 2013. We were particular-

ly honoured that His RoyalHighness’ visit to the RSE was hisfirst public engagement since heunderwent surgery. Medals wereawarded to:

- Sir John Cadogan CBE FRS FRSE,Inaugural President of theLearned Society of Wales, for hisoutstanding contribution toOrganic Chemistry through hisresearch, discovery and inven-tion, and the impact for wideracademia of his work with theUK Research Councils andindustry.

- Professor Michael Ferguson CBEFRS FRSE FMedSci, Dean ofResearch, College of LifeSciences, University of Dundee,for his outstanding contributionto the field of Parasitology, hiswork in drug development tocombat parasites, and for hisleadership of a world-class teamof scientists in Dundee.

- Sir Ian Wood CBE FRSE, Chair-man, John Wood Group PLC,for his outstanding contributionto business and commerce inScotland through his leadershipof the John Wood Group PLC,and his public service toScotland in a variety of roles,and for his philanthropy.

His Royal Highness also presentedthe IEEE/ RSE/James Clerk MaxwellAward for 2013 to ProfessorRichard Muller and ProfessorRichard White, both of Universityof California, USA, for pioneeringinnovation and leadership in

39


micro-electro-mechanical systems(MEMS) technology.

New Enlightenment Fund

The 2012 Session saw the launchof the RSE’s new Strategic Frame-work Towards a NewEnlightenment, which sets out theRSE’s vision for the next threeyears. Our overarching aims are tocontinue to build a dynamic andrelevant National Academy forScotland, and to serve as anindependent source of inspira-tion, engagement and expertise inScotland and beyond.

In order to ensure that we are ableto achieve the aims set out in theFramework, we also launched theNew Enlightenment Fund. Therehas been a very positive responseto the launch of this Fund, anddonations, through a range ofoptions for giving, includinglegacies, regular donations andone-off donations, will help toensure that we are able to fund,both in the short and the longterm, the ambitious and worth-while activities of the RSE.

41

EVENTSThe Navvy, the Priests and the King .............................................................. 43

SUPA Cormack Astronomy Meeting ............................................................. 49

Exploring the Diversity of Exoplanets ............................................................ 54

RSE / NSFC Seminar ...................................................................................... 58

RSE MacCormick European Lecture .............................................................. 60

Europe and the Arab World Conference ...................................................... 65

MTEM – From PhD Research to Commercial Exploration Tool ....................... 75

C T R Wilson, a Great Scottish Physicist: His Life, Work and Legacy ............... 78

The Journey to Gold ..................................................................................... 95

The European Union Horizon 2020 Programme ......................................... 101

The Teaching of History: a Model for Collaboration ................................... 102

For the Benefit of Mankind: Industrialisation, Environmentand the Politics of Highland Development ................................................. 106

Investments Integrated Reporting: Benefit or Cost? ................................... 112

The Evidential Basis for Food and Environmental Policy .............................. 117

The Weathermen of Ben Nevis 1883–1904 ................................................ 121

Women’s Reproductive Health across the LifecourseImplications for Public Policy ...................................................................... 127

Growing Healthcare Technology Businesses – Bringing EngineeringInventions to Market with Limited Resources ............................................. 133

A Lochaber McDonald in the Camp of Sitting Bull ..................................... 147

C T R Wilson, Ben Nevis and the Higgs Boson ............................................ 152

The Scientific Life of Dr Livingstone ............................................................ 159

John Rae: The Forgotten Hero of Arctic Exploration ................................... 163

Revisiting Tapping all our Talents ............................................................... 167

A Puzzle from Scotland’s Past:Why did the Scottish Enlightenment happen? ........................................... 168

From Gannets to Pandas – 100 Years of Progress at Edinburgh Zoo ........... 175

Gaelic Culture of Lochaber: Lifting the Night – A’ fuadach na h-oidhche .... 179

Illuminating Biology and Robotics through Contemporary Classical Music:Launching Lab Notes .................................................................................. 186

Women in Science: Antarctic Experience ..................................................... 190

Lochaber: Bandit Country or Jacobite Heartland? ....................................... 195

English and Scots: Using the Past to Explain the Present ............................ 203

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New Waves in Marine Energy ..................................................................... 209

Feeding 9 Billion People ............................................................................. 216

Scotland Rocks! ......................................................................................... 222

Vaccines to Prevent and Treat Cancer .......................................................... 228

Blood Curdling Stories from Scottish History ............................................. 232

The Leisure Revolution ............................................................................... 233

How Art Intersects with Technology in Cinema .......................................... 238

The Appin Murder Part 1 – Historical Context ............................................ 243

The Appin Murder – Part IIA Case Review of James of the Glen ........................................................... 251

Enlightening the Constitutional Debate ..................................................... 261

Scotland and the EU ............................................................................. 261

Tax and Spending ................................................................................. 261

Defence and International Relations ..................................................... 262

The Real Economy ................................................................................ 263

Currency, Banking and Financial Servicesafter the Scottish Referendum .............................................................. 264

Culture and Broadcasting ..................................................................... 265

Borders, Immigration and Citizenship .................................................. 266

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Events

Owen Dudley Edwards discussesthe author Patrick McGill and howKing George V helped him writehis masterpiece, Children of theDead End. Mr Dudley Edwardsstarted by drawing the audience’sattention to a lecture delivered atthe Kinlochleven Literary Society in1920 by Dr Lachlan Grant entitledIs life worth living? Despite itsremote, rural location, Kinlochlev-en was central to theindustrialisation of Scotland. Onlyten years prior to Dr Grant’slecture, the small Highland villagewas populated by 3,000 navvieswho were building the localreservoir and adjoining railroads.The Kinlochleven navvy’s life wasarduous; they worked at least 55hours per week and were paidonly 5d–6d per hour. Gamblingwas rife amongst the navvycommunity and they foundthemselves time and again inconditions of apparent hopeless-ness. Additionally, the harshphysical nature of the work meantworkplace death was a frequentoccurrence. However, many hadtravelled long distances to work inKinlochleven, considering the roleof the navvy to be a much betterjob than many others available tothem in their situation. Despite

Owen Dudley Edwards FRSEUniversity of Edinburgh

The Navvy, the Priests and the King

30 October 2012Mallaig High School

the navvies’ major and relativelyrecent contribution to the localarea, Dr Grant of the KinlochlevenLiterary Society made no mentionof them in his 1920 lecture; MrDudley Edwards considered whythis might be.

Kinlochleven’s greatest and, inmany ways only literary witness,the author Patrick McGill, wouldnot necessarily have been sur-prised about the lack of mentionof the navvies in Dr Grant’slecture. Having worked as a navvyhimself, he would have beengrimly aware of the realities of lifethere and indeed wrote poemsand prose about it; his most wellknown work Children of the DeadEnd is a largely autobiographicalaccount of his life working inKinlochleven. Dudley Edwardsstated, “…although the navvieswere creating great advancementsfor civilisation, there was a generalperception of them as not reallyhuman; they did a very necessaryjob but nobody wanted to hearabout them. The scant accounts ofthe lives of navvies over theprevious 150 years virtuallydemonised them. Children weretaken to see the navvies at work inthe same way one would visit thezoo today”.

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The best account of the navvy’slife, other than Children of theDead End, was written by James EHandley – The Navvy in Scotland(1970). Handley’s other booksprimarily focus on the history ofthe Irish in Scotland and promotethe sense of the self-pitying,persecuted Irish Catholic. DudleyEdwards is of the opinion thatthere is little justification for thismindset and, indeed, that the IrishCatholics were just as capable ofpersecution as any other nation;albeit, he does consider The Navvyin Scotland to contain invaluableresearch about the subject.Furthermore, Dudley Edwardscommented that a very interestingfactor in accounts relating to thehistory of the navvies is thatwhilst, as to be expected, therewas a certain amount of clashingof different cultures reported, it isdifficult to determine whetherthere was any ethnic or religiousbasis for this, or whether reasonsfor disputes could simply bereduced to the difficult economicsituation. “When the navvies fromIreland started working in Scot-land, there were some clasheswith Highland navvies coming towork in the Central Belt. Thesegroups were mutually comprehen-sible to each other; both spokeGaelic (the Irish Gaelic of Donegalis understood by speakers of ScotsGaelic). However, mutual compre-hension very often did little toalleviate hostility. All the navvieswere fighting for the lowest jobs

on the economic ladder; it can’teven be said that the hostilitieswere between the Protestants andCatholics”. By the time PatrickMcGill, a Catholic from Donegal,described the navvies in Kinloch-leven in Children of the Dead End,he reports no religious hostilitybetween the navvies; they fightabout everything else but notreligion or ethnicity. DudleyEdwards suggested that “perhapsthey were too uncultured tounderstand football. Although atthis time in the early 20th CenturyCeltic and Rangers were knownfor being the two clubs that werefriendliest to each other inScotland – they were looked downon by the other clubs for beingtoo obviously clubs of the people– having been devised by localpastors to keep the boys off thestreets”.

The writings of Patrick McGill tellus that it is quite true that navviesin this time were largely despised,but not for their Irish heritage ortheir religion. Suggesting anotherreason for this dislike of thenavvies, Dudley Edwards drew acomparison to the relationshipbetween the cowboy and farmerin Rodgers & Hammerstein’sOklahoma; the cowboy as theshort-lived pioneer and thesteadfast farmer representingunwelcome development andchange, ultimately bringing aboutthe demise of the cowboy. Theyoung pioneer’s time is very short;he breaks the frontier and forms

45

Events

associations both hostile andfriendly with the locals, butcivilisation marches on and is atodds with the long-establishedways. This is paralleled in the storyof the navvies; they are makingcivilisation and industrialisationpossible, but are largely bitterlyresented and, where possible,forgotten in history. DudleyEdwards recognises that PatrickMcGill is our greatest witness tothe story of the navvies and it islargely due to him that they arenot lost in history.

Patrick McGill was born inDonegal in 1890 to a poorCatholic family. He was bilingualin Irish Gaelic and English at anearly age, and as a child sawsomething of developments onthe fringes of national politics; heconsidered that the poorer peoplein society were exploited andadvantages were given to localcapitalists, particularly by theCatholic church dignitaries andofficials. McGill was sold intoslavery at about the age of 11.This was common at the time;poor Catholic families would sell achild to work for six or seven yearsas an agricultural labourer ormaid. Patrick McGill ran awayfrom his ‘owners’ and took a shipfrom Derry to Scotland. As arefugee, he continued labouringin Scotland in various capacities.In Children of the Dead End, hewrites about many of the peoplehe works with and describes indetail working as a railway man

and working on the Kinlochlevenreservoir. He describes in hisbooks and poems the differenttypes of people who work there,but doesn’t particularly describetheir ethnicity, other than men-tioning an English person’s death,of which there were relatively fewworking as navvies. The Irishworkers he met were sufficientlynumerous that he didn’t feel theneed to describe their ethnicorigin; they all blended in togeth-er in their variety of gangs.

In the period between1912 and1914, Dudley Edwards noted,there are many examples inliterature of a lusting for war – thezeitgeist of the time. A magazineentitled The English Reviewpublished many stories containingconsiderable violence at this timeand Patrick McGill produced workfor them, depicting a brutalsociety of navvies, which was bothauthentic witness and much moresavage than anything in Childrenof the Dead End. Dudley Edwardssuggested that there is a questionabout Children of the Dead End’sauthenticity – whilst McGill mostdefinitely wrote the book and inthat respect it is an authentictestimony, Dudley Edwardscommented that it is necessary tolook at the circumstances of itscomposition; for example,publishers and printers alwaysrequire elements to be changed tofit with their ethos.

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What started McGill writing? Hestarted by writing poems and,having left school aged ten, hewas very much an autodidact. Heread widely and educated himselfin his craft through reading andstudying the work of otherauthors and poets, includingworks by Montaigne and VictorHugo. McGill started writingpoetry whilst working as a navvyand certainly wrote whilst labour-ing in Kinlochleven; indeed, hededicated his collection of poetrySongs of the Dead End to his pickand shovel, which he described ashis friends. Furthering his careeras a writer, he gained a job withthe Daily Express as a journalistand worked in London, interview-ing many interesting people.Amongst these was GeorgeBernard Shaw, who asked McGill“what caused you to decline inthe world that you entered thisprofession in place of the honour-able one in which you had been?”McGill did not stay in the journal-istic profession for very long.Whilst working for the DailyExpress, he was already workingon developing his masterpieceChildren of the Dead End. Thisbook is largely autobiographical,with the invented characterDermod Flynn representingMcGill. Additionally, he describesseveral navvies as specific charac-ters within the novel, mostnotably Moleskin Joe, who was toappear in a later book of McGill’s,with the title Moleskin Joe.

McGill’s excellent publisher,Herbert Jenkins, was central toMcGill’s success and recognitionas an author. Jenkins, who alsomade a best-selling author of PGWodehouse, was devoted to hisauthors and was a genius atgenerating publicity and gettingbooks reviewed widely.

Meanwhile, Patrick McGill hadmade an interesting friend. Hemet Canon John Neale Dalton, thefather of the future Chancellor ofthe Exchequer, at a Turkish bath.Canon Dalton had been tutor tothe royal princes, the Duke ofClarence and the Duke of York,sons of the Prince of Wales,latterly Edward VII. Canon Daltonwas very fond of the Duke of Yorkand accompanied him around theworld. They retained this friend-ship when the Duke of Yorkbecame King George V in 1910.King George V enjoyed a quiet lifewith his wife, Queen Mary, andspent a lot of time talking andconsulting with the Canon.Canon Dalton introduced theKing to Patrick McGill who,following their meeting, had beenemployed by the Canon as hisSecretary and on the premise ofhelping with his work researchingmediaeval charters. However,Dudley Edwards commented thatMcGill spent much of this timewriting Children of the Dead End,with the encouragement andadvice of Canon Dalton. DudleyEdwards suspects that CanonDalton, as an Anglican clergyman,

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Events

encouraged McGill’s particularlystrongly unfavourable descriptionof Father McFadden, the IrishRoman Catholic priest from hisearlier life in Ireland. “We arelooking at what is our best sourceof information of the navvies ofKinlochleven, but at the same timean account which had beensupervised somewhat by CanonDalton, the King’s private tutor”.Dudley Edwards commented thatKing George V would have beenbriefed regularly by the Canonregarding McGill’s writing andthat they had a comradely associa-tion. In its first week ofpublication, Children of the DeadEnd sold over 30,000 copies andconstitutes an “invaluable portraitof a time and from a place wherethere was virtually nothing”.

McGill went on to write a com-panion piece, The Rat Pit, coveringthe same period but told from thepoint of view of a woman.Children of the Dead End hadintroduced various figures,including the principal femalecharacter, Rose. McGill later saidthat Rose was devised fromseveral girls he had known andtheir fates. In The Rat Pit he tellsthe story from her point of view,and this is not an autobiographi-cal work but a novel. It wasreviewed in the New Statesman,alongside a novel by VirginiaWoolf; the New Statesmanconsidered The Rat Pit to be thebetter of the two. Dudley Edwardsdescribed The Rat Pit as “a great

moment of the feminist novel,particularly in its readiness to dealwith the full horrors of the way inwhich women were destroyed inthe industrialisation process”.

At the outbreak of the First WorldWar, Patrick McGill promptly andwillingly entered the army. DudleyEdwards described McGill asWindsor Castle’s contribution tothe Irish Rifles. He continued towrite poetry during his warexperience and also contributedto journals. McGill wrote a seriesof essays which Jenkins publishedas The Amateur Army; a descrip-tion of the mobilisation of thearmy in the first days of WWI, seenfrom the point of view of Privates.McGill was subsequently arrestedand put on a charge of espionage.Dudley Edwards suggested thatthe reason behind this wasbecause he was “a Private whowas also a human being; Privatesin the First World War weredehumanised even more than thenavvies of Kinlochleven. Thenotion of a Private actually writingwas, for the superior officers,contrary to all possible regula-tions. McGill was put on trial but,due to his friends in WindsorCastle, was reprieved. From thearmy’s point of view, the discoveryby the other soldiers that theywere entitled to make judgementswas abhorrent”. The armydescribed his crime as one againstthe United Kingdom’s security andthen subsequently posted him tointelligence!

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McGill went on to write severalmore books about the army whilstthe War was still ongoing. Whenthe War was over, he wrote his farless famous novel, Fear; a muchmore explicit novel about life inthe army, with the title of thebook revealing the extent towhich the fear of death hung overthe troops. McGill returned fromthe War and married his wife,Margaret. He continued toproduce novels, the most remark-able being Lanty Hanlon andMaureen. McGill went to theUnited States with his family withthe hope that his wife could makea living as a dance teacher inHollywood, but this was at thestart of the Great Depression and,as such, money for luxuries wasscarce. He developed multiplesclerosis and lived the rest of hislife with most people having

forgotten his existence. He died in1963 in Massachusetts in reducedfinancial circumstances. Today, heis remembered through a revivalof his work published by CalibanBooks and Birlinn.

Dudley Edwards summed upMcGill’s life and work: “while somuch of McGill’s story is a tragicone, he brought a lot of laughterinto it and he wanted us torecognise that what he was sayingwas a witness to laughter amidstsuffering and privation in all sortsof ways. We don’t have to besimple solemn opponents ofeconomic oppression; we shouldalso be able to know the joy oflaughter, the celebration ofhuman existence and the respectfor God, not only in the sense ofsuffering but also in the rejoic-ing”.

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Events

Philip Breen (Ed) - The dynami-cal evolution of stellar-massblack hole subsystems in starclusters

It is expected that hundreds ofstellar-mass black holes form inglobular star clusters (PortegiesZwart & McMillan 2000). At thetime of their formation the stellarmass black holes are more massivethan the other stars in the cluster.Therefore the black holes willbecome concentrated in thecentre of the cluster via masssegregation, forming a subsystemof black holes within the cluster.The traditional view of thesubsequent evolution of the blackhole subsystem is that thesubsystem completely evaporates,leaving behind at most a singleblack hole or black hole-blackhole binary (Kulkari et al 1993,Sigurdsson & Hernquist 1993).The black hole subsystem evapo-rates by ejecting black holesthrough strong interactions withdynamically formed black holebinaries. However, recently Straderet al (2012) found evidence of twostellar-mass black holes in theglobular cluster M22 challengingthe traditional view. We willdiscuss an alternative treatment ofthe dynamical evolution of blackhole subsystems in globularclusters, one in which the evolu-tion of the black hole subsystem is

SUPA Cormack Astronomy Meeting

13 November 2012

regulated by the cluster in which itis contained.

Josh Logue (Gla) Inferring Core-collapse Supernova Physics withGravitational Waves

Dr. I.S Heng Stellar collapse andthe subsequent development of acore-collapse supernova explosionemit bursts of gravitational waves(GWs) that might be detected bythe advanced generation of laserinterfer- ometer gravitational-waveobservatories such as AdvancedLIGO, Advanced Virgo, and LCGT.GW bursts from core-collapsesupernovae encode informationon the intricate multi-dimensionaldynamics at work at the core of adying massive star and mayprovide direct evidence for the yetuncertain mechanism drivingsupernovae in massive stars.Recent multi-dimensional simula-tions of core-collapse supernovaeexploding via the neutrino,magnetorotational, and acousticexplosion mechanisms havepredicted GW signals which havedistinct structure in both the timeand frequency domains. Motivat-ed by this, we describe apromising method for determin-ing the most likely explosionmechanism underlying a hypo-thetical GW signal, based onPrincipal Component Analysis andBayesian model selection. Usingsimulated Advanced LIGO noise

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and assuming a single detectorand linear waveform polarizationfor simplicity, we demonstrate thatour method can distinguishmagnetorotational explosionsthroughout the Milky Way (D ~10kpc) and explosions driven bythe neutrino and acoustic mecha-nisms to D ~ 2 kpc. Furthermore,we show that we can differentiatebetween models for rotatingaccretion-induced collapse ofmassive white dwarfs and modelsof rotating iron core collapse withhigh reliability out to several kpc.

Dr Paul Rimmer (StA) TakingCharge: Sources of Ionization inBrown Dwarf Atmospheres

Craig R. Stark and ChristianeHelling. Lightning is a terrifyingand powerful event that hascaptured the human imaginationsince our species infancy, and hasinspired sweeping poetry andgreat works of art. It is also asubject of much scientific interest,and has been invoked to a explainvarious phenomena from atmos-pheric ionization to the chemicalorigin of life.

Lightning itself is not well under-stood. It is believed that, on earth,free electrons produced by cosmicrays attach themselves to waterdroplets. The water dropletsbecome negatively charged, andare carried by convection to thelower atmosphere, while thepositive ions remain in the upperatmosphere. The charge continuesto build up until a critical point, at

which time a discharge eventoccurs.

Lightning is quite ubiquitous inour solar system, observed in everysolar system planet with a cloudlayer. It may also be responsiblefor transient X-ray emissionsobserved in brown dwarfs. Weexplore this possibility by mode-ling clouds of mineral grains thatcarry the electrons in brown dwarfatmospheres (it is too hot inbrown dwarf atmospheres forwater droplets).

Dr Scott Gregory (StA) Can wepredict the global magnetictopology of a pre-main se-quence star from its position inthe Hertzsprung-Russell dia-gram?J.-F. Donati, J. Morin, G. A. J.Hussain, N. Mayne, L. A. Hillen-brand, M. JardineZeeman-Doppler imaging studieshave shown that the magneticfields of pre-main sequence (PMS)stars can be significantly morecomplex than a simple dipole andcan vary significantly betweensources. I will summarise themagnetic field topology informa-tion obtained to date and presentHertzsprung-Russell (H-R) dia-grams for the stars in the sample.Intriguingly, the large-scale fieldtopology of a given PMS star isstrongly dependent upon thestellar internal structure, with thestrength of the dipole componentof its multipolar magnetic fielddecaying rapidly, and the overallfield complexity increasing

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Events

markedly, with the developmentof a radiative core. Using theobservational data as a basis, I willargue that the general characteris-tics of the global magnetic field ofa PMS star can be determinedsolely from its position in the H-Rdiagram. Moving from hotter andmore luminous to cooler and lessluminous stars across the PMS ofthe H-R diagram, I will presentevidence for four distinct magnet-ic topology regimes, and examinethe implications for the star-diskinteraction. Furthermore, basedon similarities between themagnetic properties of PMS starsand main-sequence M-dwarfswith similar internal structures, Iwill argue that a bistable dynamoprocess operates for the lowestmass PMS stars (<0.5 Msun at anage of a few Myr) and that futureobservations will show that theyhost a variety of magnetic fieldtopologies. If the magnetictopology trends across the H-Rdiagram are confirmed, they mayprovide a new method of con-straining PMS stellar evolutionmodels.

Invited talk: Prof. Donald Kurtz(University of Central Lanca-shire)Asteroseismology: A NewKeplerian Revolution

In 1926 in the opening paragraphof his now-classic book, TheInternal Constitution of the Stars,Sir Arthur Eddington lamented,“What appliance can piercethrough the outer layers of a star

and test the conditions within?”While he considered theory to bethe proper answer to that ques-tion, there is now anobservational answer: asteroseis-mology. We are in a time of asignificant advance in our under-standing of stellar astrophysicswith data from the Kepler Mis-sion, a space telescope orbitingthe Sun on a mission to discoverplanets orbiting other stars. It hasso far discovered more than 2200exoplanets - the majority of allknown - and is closing in on agoal to find another Earth in the“Goldilocks zone” where lifemight exist. Kepler has alsoimproved our ability to seepulsations and variability in starsby 100 to 1000 times comparedwith ground-based telescopes,allowing us to see into stars usingasteroseismology. We are seeingas never before: heartbeat stars,novel eclipsing stars, spots, flaresand magnetic cycles as in our ownSun. Astrophysics that used to betheoretical is now also observa-tional: gravitational lensing ineclipsing binary stars; Dopplerboosting; multiple pulsation axes;period doubling; tidal excitation.Kepler data for solar-like stars arenow comparable to data for theSun seen as a star, giving usmasses, radii and ages for hun-dreds of single stars, allowingdetermination of their orbitingplanets’ sizes, and giving newconstraints on stellar evolutiontheory. This talk will introduce the

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concepts of asteroseismology andshow a selection of excitingobservational results from theKepler mission.

Dr Denija Crnojevic (Ed) Galaxyevolution through resolvedstellar populations

Resolved stellar populations arethe best tool we have to getinsights into the formation andevolution history of nearbygalaxies. I will present resultspertaining the closeby CenA/M83galaxy group, highlighting the keyrole played by galaxy interactionsin the evolution of both dwarfand giant galaxies.

Dr Alex Russell (Gla) NewModels for Solar Flares

Lyndsay Fletcher. During solarflares, huge quantities of energyare released from magnetic fieldsin the corona and transported tothe underlying chromosphere,where most flare photons areformed. For 40 years, our under-standing of flares has been basedon an assumption that electronstransport the necessary energy,moving at near relativistic speeds.Unfortunately, those models haveencountered severe obstacles, andthere are urgent calls for newideas. I will review the issuesfacing “standard models” and thecase for a novel model invokingMHD waves. I will then present aview of how new models mightwork, show some recent resultsand discuss future directions forthe topic.

Raphaelle Haywood(StA) Disentangling planetwobbles from starspot signa-tures

C. Cameron (University of StAndrews), D. Queloz (ObservatoireAstronomique de l’Universite deGeneve), R. Fares (University of StAndrews), J. Llama (University of StAndrews), M. Gillon (Institutd’Astrophysique et de Geophy-sique, Universite de Liege), A.Hatzes (Thueringer Landesstern-warte Tautenburg), M. Deleuil(Laboratoire d’Astrophysique deMarseille), A. Lanza (INAF -Osservatorio Astronomico diCatania), C. Lovis (ObservatoireAstronomique de l’Universite deGeneve), C. Moutou (Laboratoired’Astrophysique de Marseille), F.Pepe (Observatoire Astronomiquede l’Universite de Geneve), D.Pollacco (University of Warwick), D.Ségransan (Observatoire As-tronomique de l’Universite deGeneve), Y. Unruh (ImperialCollege London)

In July 2009, Leger (2009) an-nounced the discovery of thetransiting Super-Earth CoRoT-7b.Since then, several investigationson the number and precisemasses of planets present in thesystem have been made, but theyall yield different results. This islikely to be due to the star’s highlevel of activity. Radial velocityvariations induced by stellaractivity therefore need to bemodelled and removed to allow a

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reliable detection of all planets inthe system. We observed CoRoT-7in January 2012 with both HARPSand the CoRoT satellite, so thatwe now have the benefit ofsimultaneous radial velocity andphotometric data. This allows usto model the stellar radial velocitycontribution based on the off-transit variations in the lightcurve,according to the methods de-scribed by Aigrain (2011) andLanza (2010). We then make aprecise determination of CoRoT-7b\’s orbit and mass. This mass iscompared to that obtainedthrough our own implementationof the method of Hatzes (2011).We also present a periodogramsearch for evidence of additionalplanets in the CoRoT-7 system.

Cormack Prize talk DavidBrown (StA) Falling planets:stellar spin-up through tidalinteractions

Tidal interactions between hotJupiters and their host stars canbe a powerful diagnostic tool.

Examining the evolution of theorbital elements as a result ofsuch interactions can tells us agreat deal about a planetarysystem’s past and future evolu-tion. I present a simple model oftidal interactions, and use testcases of known hot Jupiters todemonstrate its ability to charac-terise orbital and rotationalhistories. I also show how theinformation provided by themodel can be used to estimate theages of exoplanet host stars, andcompare this to existing methods.

Academic careers advice forearly-stage career researchers

· Individual career paths inastronomy (Drs Scott Gregory,Craig Stark, Alex Russell andChristiane Helling)

· Bi-gender survey results oncareers in astronomy DrChristiane Helling (First surveyresults were published at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AN....333..280F)

· Discussion on ‘Careers inAstronomy’

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In the last two decades, the waywe view the Universe has beentransformed. Scientists havediscovered many hundreds ofexoplanets – that is, planets thatorbit stars other than our Sun –some of which may well harbourlife. In this lecture, Dr SuzanneAigrain described the journey todiscover and characterise planetsoutwith our own Solar System –and gave an intriguing glimpseinto future possibilities.

For millennia, astronomers andothers have looked to the stars totry to understand our place in theUniverse. Many discoveries havebeen made – for example, ourunderstanding of our own SolarSystem, with its eight planetsorbiting the Sun, was transformedfrom the 17th Century onwards,when the invention of effectivetelescopes allowed us to see thefirst four moons of Jupiter,Uranus and Neptune. We havealso been able to observe otherkinds of objects, such as cometsand asteroids, as well as dwarfplanets such as Pluto in the KuiperBelt, all of which provide impor-tant information about theformation of the Solar System.

For a long time, astronomerssuspected that ours was not the

Dr Suzanne AigrainLecturer in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford

and a Fellow of All Souls College

Exploring the Diversity of ExoplanetsCo-organised by Cormack and SUPA

13 November 2012

only Solar System – that therewere other suns, orbited by theirown planets, in the Universe. Butit was only as recently as the mid1990s, with the discovery of thefirst exoplanets (or extra solarplanets), that we received confir-mation. Since then, manyhundreds of exoplanets have beendiscovered: some are large,resembling Jupiter or Uranus;some are smaller and may shareproperties similar to those ofEarth – including the ability toharbour life. Dr Aigrain said shehad been very lucky to start herPhD in 2001, when the nature ofthe first exoplanets had beenconfirmed. It was an exciting time,she said, because the whole areawas transformed from a ‘pipedream’ to an endeavour ofphysical characterisation.

Dr Aigrain gave a summary ofwhere we are and how we gothere. There are some 100 billionstars in the Milky Way (ourGalaxy), including our Sun, withits own planetary system aroundit. These planets were formed inthe disk of dust and gas whichsurrounded the infant Sun.Although the Sun has the vastmajority of the mass in the SolarSystem, the planets contain most

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of the angular momentum or‘spin’, and can be seen as anatural by-product of the forma-tion of the Sun itself. Our SolarSystem is the best studied around,and provides a useful frame ofreference when looking at others.Unless our Solar System is in someway special or unusual – and DrAigrain doesn’t subscribe to thatview – it’s likely that other solarsystems formed in similar ways toours. In other words, a home starcreated the conditions in whichplanets could form.

The first definitive discovery of anexoplanet orbiting a star wasreported in 1995 (51 Pegasi) andthis was followed by morediscoveries. To date, there arearound 800 confirmed exoplanetsand many more thousand candi-dates. But how do we findexoplanets and how can we learnmore about them? There areseveral crucial differences betweenplanets and stars, said Dr Aigrain.Planets emit almost no light,which makes them very difficult tosee unless you can ‘cancel’ thelight from the home star. You canlook for light from planets, lightthat is reflected or absorbed fromthe Sun, and finding the infraredgives the best chance, but asplanets tend to be close to theirown suns, it is difficult to makethem out. It’s also difficult tocancel the light from the starperfectly.

Direct imaging is one way to findexoplanets, although it is still

relatively rare. Dr Aigrain de-scribed her delight when acolleague brought her a photo-graph taken in 2008, whichshowed three red dots – basicallymassive planets in a scaled-upversion of our Solar System. “Thiswas the most exciting photo I’dever seen, the first picture ofanother planetary system.”Although some exoplanets havebeen found by direct observation,most have been discovered usingindirect methods. Dr Aigraindescribed two of these. The first isthe radial velocity method. Thisinvolves looking for the smallwobble in the star’s position asboth the planet and the star orbitaround the centre of mass of thesystem. The radial velocity is thevelocity along the line of sight.Using a dispersing element suchas a slit or a grism, the light fromthe star is dispersed into itsconstituent colours, or wave-lengths, The resulting spectrumcontains dark lines at specificwavelengths, which are due toabsorption by various elements,such as hydrogen. Because weknow where these lines should beif the star is at rest, but they areshifted towards the blue or thered if the star is moving towardsor away from us, we can measurethe star’s radial velocity, and inferthe presence of one or moreplanets. It’s possible to measurethe radial velocity of stars to lessthan a metre per second, she said.The amplitude of the star’s motion

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depends on how massive theplanet is, and how close to thestar it orbits. Hot Jupiters – socalled because they are large,gaseous planets, like Jupiter, andbecause their proximity to theirstar heats them up (especially the‘day side’ facing the star) – areeasier to find via the radial velocitymethod because they create moreof a ‘wobble’ in the motion of thestar.

Dr Aigrain also works with thetransit method, which involveslooking at the small flux thathappens when a planet moves infront of the star. You have to belucky to see it because it will onlyhappen if the orbit of the planet isaligned just right, she said. What’sinteresting is that the depth of thetransit tells you the size of theplanet relative to the star. You alsoknow the inclination, so with theradial velocity method you get themass, and if you put the twotogether you get the density of aplanet. This in turn can give agood idea of the planet’s physicalcomposition. Very specialistequipment isn’t needed toobserve transits, so it can eveninvolve an army of lay or amateurastronomers, who can examinelarge swathes of sky from theirback gardens. “You don’t need abig telescope, just ten centime-tres,” said Dr Aigrain. “Manydedicated amateurs make verysignificant contributions to thefield.” Dr Aigrain showed a slideof around 750 of the known

exoplanets, which also showedhow many are in multi-planetsystems – and described how thefirst transitting planet significantlysmaller than Jupiter – a so-calledhot-Neptune – had been foundalmost by chance by colleaguesusing a small telescope designedprimarily for outreach. This planetprobably has a thick water layeron top of a rocky core and belowa gaseous atmosphere. Exoticplanets like this, which have noequivalent in our Solar System,defy our imagination. Althoughthis planet is much hotter thanthe Earth, because it is muchcloser to its star, much of thewater inside the planet is likely tobe frozen, because at highpressure water freezes up to muchhigher temperatures, forming akind of ‘hot ice’. As the pressuredrops towards the outside of theplanet, there may be oceanfloating on an ice layer, ratherthan the other way around.

If, however, like Dr Aigrain, yourinterest lies in Earth-like planets –which are terrestrial in nature, andhave temperate surface tempera-tures – you really need to go intoSpace, she said, because theirtransits are so shallow and so rare.A number of missions doing justthis are either in progress or in thepipeline. CoRoT, a mission led bythe French Space agency CNES,has been used since 2007 tosearch for planetary transits fromorbit, and has detected a numberof exoplanets. But the NASA

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mission Kepler (on an Earth-trailing orbit, which makes it verystable) is a more powerful succes-sor to CoRoT and is providing veryprecise information on starsacross a large part of the sky. Ithas already detected 2,300candidate transitting planets – “abewildering array of planets ofdifferent sizes and temperatures”,including numerous multi-planetsystems, which are proving to beone of the most interesting resultsfrom Kepler.

Excitingly, some are deemed to bein the ‘habitable’ zone of theirhome star, which means that thecomputed temperature of theplanet suggests that it’s some-where that water (essential forformation of life as we know it)would remain liquid on thesurface. Although Dr Aigrain’swork includes coming up withalgorithms for finding transits,she acknowledged that even thebest method won’t capture themall. For some of them, you justneed a human eye, she added.Projects such as planethunters.orghave been set up to enable thepublic to participate in theexoplanet discovery process byvisually examining Kepler lightcurves and spotting transit-likeevents. The transit method canalso be used to probe the make-up of the planet’s atmosphere;this is a very difficult process, buthas been done thoroughly for asmall number of exoplanets. DrAigrain described one such

observation done with the HubbleSpace Telescope, which led to thediscovery of a haze of smallparticles in the atmosphere of oneof the hot Jupiters.

Dr Aigrain concluded with someglimpses into the future. As wellas ongoing research, such as thecharacterisation of the atmos-pheres of hot giant planets, andthe Kepler mission to measure theincidence of Earth-like planets(and others), it will shortly bepossible to use direct imaging onlarge ground-based telescopes toview young solar systems. Withinthe next decade, new insights arelikely from other Space telescopessuch as TESS or PLATO (looking fortransiting planets around brightstars) or EChO and JWST (charac-terising atmospheres of hotJupiters, Neptunes and Super-Earths), while the ground-basedE-ELT (European Extremely LargeTelescope) will be used to detectand characterise the atmosphereof even smaller, cooler planets –possibly a bit like Earth. “We nowknow that planets are common,possibly more numerous thanstars in the Galaxy,” said DrAigrain, adding that within thenext decade, we should knowhow common Earth-like planetsare. “Ultimately we might look forsigns of life,” although there issome debate about what preciselywill be looked for. There are alsoexiting indications of planetscloser to home, with new discover-ies all the time.

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This event was in the form of a seminar for academics and practitioners toexchange ideas and to identify potential areas for collaboration on energypolicy and renewables in Scotland and China. It followed a series ofsuccessful meetings held in recent years involving representatives of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Scotland’s national academy, and theNational Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

Participation was limited to 35 people (by invitation only) so as to encour-age an exchange of views and experiences, with everyone able to join thediscussion.

RSE / NSFC Seminar

Thursday 22 - Friday 23 November 2012

Supported by the Royal Society of Edinburghand the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Morning SessionEnergy Policy: Scotland and China

Financial Innovation for GreenEconomy: Demand from ChinaProfessor Wei Zhang, Professor andDean of the College of Managementand Economics, Tianjin University

The Energy Policy Context:Sustainable CitiesRichard Bellingham, Deputy Director,Fraser of Allander Institute

Afternoon SessionMarine Energy

Marine Energy - Hydro-environ-mental impact of tidal energydevices on marine watersProfessor Binliang Lin, TsinghuaUniversity, Beijing

Marine Energy in the UK -Development Status and R&DBaseProfessor Robin Wallace, ExecutiveDirector EPSRC Supergen UKCentre for Marine Energy Re-search, Dean International,College of Science and Engineer-ing, University of Edinburgh

Marine Energy - Ocean Renew-able Energy in ChinaProfessor Shi Hongda, Dean ofCollege of Engineering, OceanUniversity of China

Thursday 22 November

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Morning SessionCarbon Capture and Storage

Innovative CCS TechnologySuitable for ChinaProfessor Jin Hongguang, Insti-tute of EngineeringThermophysics, Chinese Academyof Sciences

CO2 Capture and Storage atthe University of EdinburghDr Xianfeng Fan, Senior Lecturer,Institute for Materials andProcesses, School of Engineering,University of Edinburgh

Advanced Coal Utilisation inChinaProfessor Minghou Xu, Director,State Key Laboratory of CoalCombustion, Huazhong Universityof Science and Technology

Afternoon SessionRenewable Energy

Sustainable Energy Develop-ment and CO2 Mitigation inChina: An integrated technolo-gy and policy perspectiveProfessor Zhang Xiliang, Professorand Executive Director, Institute ofEnergy, Environment and Econo-my, Tsinghua University, Beijing

Going Green for a GoldenFuture?Professor Tariq S Durrani, Universi-ty of Strathclyde

Friday 23 November

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To begin his journey into modernEurope, Allan Little took hisaudience to Warsaw on November1 2012. He had been there on AllSaints’ Day, the Day of the Dead,and the Polish city had closeddown. At dusk, everyone hadheaded for the cemeteries; thegraves were lit by a flicker of redand orange candle flames and theliving were moving silently amongthe shadows. Nowhere else inEurope, Little said, do the deadspeak more powerfully or reachout to stake a claim in the present.In Europe, history is the unseenguest at every table.

And that would be his argumentthis evening; that we are allprisoners of our histories and thatthe story of the European Unionsince its inception in Rome in1957 has been releasing us fromthe thraldom of history. Oldloyalties, allegiances and enmitieslong thought consigned to historyhave the habit of re-emerging innew forms. The problem inEurope today, Little argued, is notthe fact of a single currency butthe manner of its construction. Ithas been driven by politicalimperatives flowing in the face ofbetter economic judgement, andthis has taught us lessons aboutdemocracy in Europe today.

Allan LittleBBC World Affairs Correspondent

RSE MacCormick European Lecture

26 November 2012

Politics are still national, whileeconomics are increasingly global;somewhere in the middle is theEuropean Union, which, for all ithas achieved, faces a profoundcrisis of legitimacy.

His perspective, however, was notone of a scholar but of an itiner-ant reporter, eyewitness and tellerof tales. His personal startingpoint in understanding the valueof the EU was 25 November 1989,when he was standing in a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square inPrague, along with a crowd of400,000 Czechs. Vaclav Havelappeared on a balcony above thecrowd and behind him stood awhite-haired old man whose facewas instantly recognisable to mostpeople there, even though he hadnot been seen in public for 21years. It was Dubcek and heuttered only one word: “Czesko-slovenko” – the name of thecountry.

Little had been struck by thethought that after two decades ofenforced silence, the formerleader had not chosen to speak ofan abstract notion such as libertyor democracy, but of somethingmore visceral – the appeal of thetribe. Dubcek had articulated thereal desire of Czechs and Slovaks –

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the overthrow not just of apolitical system (Communism), butof foreign tyranny as well. It was amoment of national liberationand what chance did the Commu-nist regime stand? Later thatnight, the Czech Politburoresigned. It was a significantmoment for the people of easternand central Europe who had, forthe most part, long believed thatan alien tyranny had stoodbetween them and their rightfuldestiny for 40 years. And theirrightful destiny was somethingeasily expressed as somethingcalled “The West.” The revolu-tions of 1989 were all aboutbecoming “western.” What theywanted was what the citizens ofThe West had and took forgranted – the right to votegovernments out, the rule of law,freedom under the law, the rightto property and its protectionunder the law, plurality of opin-ion, separation of church andstate and free political andphilosophical discourse.

But these revolutions had effectson The West too. As the philoso-pher Ernest Gellner wrote justbefore he died in 1995, Littlepointed out, it is only the redis-covery of this ideal in easternEurope that has reminded theinhabitants of liberal states “justwhat it is that they possess andought to hold dear.” So it wasthat those events became one ofthe hinges on which the history ofthe European continent turned. It

also led directly to the predica-ment that Europe finds itself intoday, Little said, kick-startingwhat many western Europeanleaders dream of – monetaryunion.

This goal was driven by HelmutKohl, the German Chancellor, whobelieved German reunificationmight be short-lived and wantedto act before the Russian threatemerged again. But, Little con-tended, this brought back intoplay, for other European leaders,the “German Question” of howto contain a Germany that hadtwice used its size and weight tolay waste to the continent in the20th Century; in other words,how to “Europeanise” Germany.Both Francois Mitterand in Franceand Margaret Thatcher in the UKwere alarmed at the speed atwhich Kohl wanted to move.France, in particular, had beenhappy with a diminished Germa-ny; the prospect of a reunifiedGermany with its capital in Berlin,drawing eastern European nationsaround it like a shawl, alarmedMitterand. In the event, the Frenchdecided not to oppose reunifica-tion, but instead to accelerate thetimetable for monetary union tobind Germany into a Europe inwhich French leadership would bepreserved. Instead, Little argued,the opposite happened. BindingGermany in catalysed and com-pelled the emergence of itsleadership of Europe, or, at least,of the Eurozone.

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The big fear in Germany followingWW2 was of rampant inflationand the protection given against itby the might of the Deutschmark.Out of this desire for continuedprotection came the EuropeanCentral Bank, modelled on the all-powerful Bundesbank,independent of government butwith an all-important obligationto fight inflation. This, Little said,was the Germans doing for thefirst time what the French haddone since 1957, using theemerging institutions of Europeas a way of projecting their valueson the continent as a whole.

The French did not like it – theywanted a bank modelled on theirown bank; that is, an instrumentof economic policy in the hands ofpoliticians. So, already in the early1990s, the contours of future,and still unresolved, conflicts werebeing mapped out. The Maas-tricht Treaty of 1992 set out thefault lines, when 12 of the 15member states at that time optedto lock their currencies together,with entry governed by stricteconomic criteria. Britain, Den-mark and Sweden opted out.Eventually, 17 nations from anexpanded EU opted in. “How wasit,” Little asked, “that 17 nationswould marry in such haste, only torepent so bitterly?”

How important economic unionhad become dawned on Little in1992 when, he said, he was in theBosnian capital, Sarajevo, report-ing on the Balkans conflict. He

had gathered stories of appallinghuman tragedy, but his reportswere overwhelmed by economicnews from home; it was “BlackWednesday,” when, under JohnMajor’s government, the poundlost 17 per cent of its value in aday and was ejected from theEuropean Exchange Rate Mecha-nism, in a crisis triggered by Kohl’sattempts to fight inflation. BlackWednesday should have been anearly lesson in the dangers oftrying to bind different nationaleconomies into a one-size-fits-allcurrency union, Little said. “Butthe Steamship Single Currencysailed on regardless.” It betrayeda recurring theme; that at keymoments the process was drivenby political imperatives, noteconomic better judgement. Sohow was it that by the end of thedecade, 12 nations were in theEurozone, Little asked? BecauseItaly was allowed to disregard theMaastricht criteria because itsuited German trade; Portugaland Spain were allowed to joineven though Spain’s competitive-ness ratings were “woefullyinadequate”; and Ireland andGreece followed; all wanting to beat Europe’s top table, for politicalrather than economic reasons.

So what has emerged, in additionto the tension between politicaland economic imperatives, is thetension between elected govern-ments on the one hand andsupranational institutions such asthe European Commission on the

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other. But, Little said, his argu-ment is that the lesson now beingdrawn across Europe is not thatthose centralised institutions aretoo strong, but that they are tooweak. Even though those supra-national bodies may be in a betterposition to act in the interests ofEurope as a whole, their demo-cratic legitimacy remains on a“very shoogly peg.” As anexample of how matters can gowrong in a monetary union intowhich some countries should nothave been allowed, Little recount-ed conversations with Greekofficials who explained now hugebudget deficits could be made to“disappear” under current EUfinancial rules. But, he said, it wastoo easy for Europe to blame itssouthern flank and make it dopenance. In that way, the argu-ment about how to resolve thefinancial crisis takes on thecharacter of a fight between richand poor – and, more alarmingly,a conflict between nations.“Europe has been down that roadoften in its history,” Little said. “Itdoesn’t often end well.”

So if the lessons of the past are tobe learned, Little argued, theobjective of many Europeanpoliticians should now be, despitethe difficulties, to persuade theirelectorates that EU member statesshould become more integratedand not less. He reminded hisaudience that the men andwomen who built the EU from the1950s on were driven by the

experience of the most destructivewar in human history. Theywanted to answer the “GermanQuestion” and make sure conti-nent-wide conflict couldn’thappen again. They have succeed-ed.

But everywhere, at present, faithin European integration is beingundermined and there is a retreatto “national silos.” There isdisillusionment about the singlecurrency because the perceptionin wealthy northern regions is thatthey are being asked to bail outthe “feckless” south in perpetuity.But we have much to lose fromthis trend of thought, Littleexplained. He was recently in thebeautiful Polish town of Wroclaw,which until 1945 was in Germany.The city of Lvov is the same,moving in recent history from theownership of one country toanother. “To central Europeans,an end to all that is what they seein a strengthened EU,” Little said.A former adviser to ChancellorKohl had made the same point tohim. After WW2, he said, Germa-ny had made friends with itswestern neighbours through theEU. Now it is doing the same onits eastern borders. “For the firsttime in our history,” he added,“we are encircled by allies.”

Little said he had seen for himself,close up, the reality of war inEurope. In 1991, he was sent towhat was then Yugoslavia, wheretension was rising between ethnicSerbs and Croats. He stayed for

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four years, during which time 100people a day died, most of themin Bosnia, a country with the samepopulation as Scotland. On oneoccasion, he had to carry to safetythe body of a local cameramanand colleague, whom he hadasked to help him carry out hiswork. He died on All Saints’ Day,Little’s starting point for hislecture and a reminder of thepower of the dead of Europe’s“terrible 20th Century” to shapewhat we do. It is our duty to try todo well by them to save futuregenerations from their fate.

Since the enlargement of the EUin 2004, Little said, the centre ofgravity has moved dramatically tothe East. The old Paris–Bonn axisbelongs to a different age, whenEurope was shaped by survivors ofthe Western Front. Now we havebeen joined by the survivors of themore brutal Eastern Front. Theymay be natural allies of Britain,Atlanticist in their thinking,inclined to free market economicsand a second language that isEnglish, not French. But Britainhas been shaped by its historytoo, Little argued. Almost unique-ly in Europe, it has not sufferedthe humiliation of military defeatand occupation; it has not had toturn the page on centuries of

enmity. He said he understoodwhy further European integrationis a hard sell to the British publicand this is one of the reasons whyEastern Europeans are lookinginstead to Germany for leader-ship.

In October, he had met RadelSikorski, Poland’s foreign minister,who was exasperated by Britain’sdecision not to fully engage withEurope. In a recent speech inBerlin, Sikorski had describedGermany as Europe’s “indispensa-ble” nation. His subtext was, Littlesaid: “We Poles have got over theNazis. So can you. We are nolonger afraid of you. You muststop being afraid of yourselves.”

Little concluded that if Britainwere applying to join Europe nowit would be knocking on a door inBerlin not Paris. However, Britainlooks to be heading in a differentdirection, with 56 per cent of thepopulation wanting out of the EU.“If that happens,” he said, “theywill press on without us” as theprocess that began in the 1950sto Europeanise Germany is havingthe opposite effect. It is now inthe van and other countries, atleast in their public finances, nowhave to become more like theGermany that has been utterlytransformed from its darkest days.

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The Arab World is undergoingmajor political and social upheaval– at the same time, Europe faces afar-reaching economic crisis. Theconference examined the relation-ships between the regions andhow Europe can promote stability,peace and prosperity in Arabcountries. The speakers were HisRoyal Highness Prince El HassanBin Talal of Jordan, Professor YasirSuleiman of Cambridge Universi-ty’s Faculty of Asian and MiddleEastern Studies, Christian Bergerof the European External ActionService, Andrew Claret of theAnna Lindh Foundation, Dr MalikDahlan from the InstitutionQuraysh for Law and Society andTarek El Sherbini of the EuropeanBank for Reconstruction andDevelopment. The welcome wasprovided by Sir David Edward,outgoing RSE InternationalCommittee Convener.

Overview

Professor Suleiman said therelationship between Europe andthe Arab World is an ancient one,with many bloody encounters atone end of the spectrum andpeaceful, productive ones at theother. Today, the memories ofwarfare and colonialism outweigh

Europe and the Arab World Conference

Joint event with the European Movement in Scotlandand supported by the European Commission Office in Scotland

and the Centre for Advanced Study of the Arab World

27 November 2012

those of rich cultural exchange.The conference, he said, wasdesigned to help tilt perceptionstowards the positive end of thespectrum. Arab and Europeanattitudes are not helped by over-simplistic attitudes. Many Arabsconflate Europe and otherpowers, such as the USA, andsimply see them as “the West”.Likewise, Europeans tend to seeArabs and Muslims as one andthe same, when there are manyArab Christians.

According to Professor Suleiman,there has been a range of initia-tives from the EU in the past threedecades responding to changes inthe southern and eastern Mediter-ranean. These have had threegoals:

Prosperity – economic co-operation, access to oil and gas,trade plus economic and technicalaid. Tied in with these are Europe-an worries about mass migrationand combating Islamic terrorism.

Stability – democratic govern-ance, respect for human rights,the rule of law, freedom ofexpression, association andassembly, along with free media,independent judiciaries, politicalpluralism and a strong civil society.

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Peace – solving conflicts, chieflythose between the Arabs andIsrael. Good intentions have beenundermined by security fears,which have led Europe to toleratetyrannical regimes. There wasoften a bogus idea that Arabs hadlittle interest in democraticfreedoms – a notion destroyed bythe Arab Spring. Europeaneconomic protectionism has alsoundermined the pursuit ofprosperity.

The Arab Spring has placed amoral responsibility on Europe tolive up to its convictions andsupport Arab people in their drivefor freedom and democracy. It is agolden opportunity to dispel thenotion that Europe speaks oneway and acts another. Nonethe-less, democratisation ends thecertainties offered by tyrannicalregimes. Europe must learn a newkind of politics dealing with forces– such as the Muslim Brotherhood– which it has previously demon-ised. The progress of the ArabSpring is uneven and Europe alsoneeds to consider its relationshipswith surviving old regimes.Professor Suleiman said: “Thechallenge for Europe is how to fillthe trinity of prosperity, stabilityand peace with new meanings,both conceptual and practical, todeal with a newly-emerging orderin the Arab World.”

He said the conference goals wereto:

- Identify and examine commonchallenges faced by Europe andthe Arab World.

- Facilitate relationship buildingbetween experts from academia,civil society and state institu-tions.

- Provide the basis for a focusedaction plan and concrete follow-up initiatives. The aims wouldbe addressed under threeheadings:

- Civil society

- Structures of government

- Sustainable and equitableeconomic development

Session 1

Christian BergerEuropean External Action ServiceDirector for North Africa, MiddleEast, Arabian Peninsula, Iran andIraq

Europe can be a powerful actor inthe world, but it is currentlydissipating its energies by beingintrospective, as it struggles withinternal issues and fails to uniteon external ones. He predictedthat the EU would appear weak asit split in the forthcoming UN voteon giving observer status toPalestine [vote took place on 29November – see BBC Q&A http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13701636]. MrBerger compared this to the EU’shighly effective role when member

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states united over the issue ofsettlements in the OccupiedTerritories.

North Africa and the Middle Easthave presented security challengesand have been places of rapidgeopolitical change since longbefore the Arab Spring. There hasbeen the spread of terroristgroups, the emergence of Turkey,the nuclear ambitions of Iran, andthe Iraq War.

The Arab uprisings have accelerat-ed change and brought newchallenges – including thepossibility that the conflict in Syriacould destabilise the wholeregion. The EU has used sanctionsand diplomacy to try to achievepeace in Syria and is providing aidfor refugees. Mr Berger expressedhope that the work done to createa more united Syrian oppositionmay yield results.

The recent violence in Gaza andIsrael has demonstrated theimportance of finding a solutionto the Arab/Israeli conflict – the EUbacks a two-state solution. Theinstability in the Sahel region isanother area of concern, with therapid spread of weapons andarmed groups. In places such asnorthern Mali, the EU is workingwith governments to stem theconsequent illegal traffic ofweapons, drugs and people. TheArab Spring has brought hopethat people can achieve freedom.It has also brought the chance fordignity, which Mr Berger de-scribed as having three facets:

- Political – the redefinition of therelationship between state andindividual. Something similarhappened in Europe with therevolutions of 1848.

- Social and economic – betterlives, opportunities and educa-tion.

- National – Arabs seek their ownnational dignities and nationaldignity for Palestinians.

Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have hadfree elections and significantreform is underway in countriessuch as Jordan. The EU hasimposed sanctions on dictatorsduring periods of struggle andgiven support to build new stateand civil society structures in timesof transition. The policy is “morefor more”, meaning “if a countrycan absorb more help, then theEU should provide it”. Despite itsown internal issues, Europe iscommitted to improved arrange-ments on trade and themovement of people.

Many issues are regional and arebeing addressed at that level, withthe EU working in conjunctionwith organisations such as theLeague of Arab States – whichplayed a leading role in Libya andis loosely involved in Syria.European foreign ministers havejust agreed a work programmewith the Arab League whichcovers many areas, from energyand culture to law and electoralprocesses.

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Mr Berger said that progress inthe Arab World is likely to havesetbacks, just as it had in Europe.Despite the revolutions of 1848,much of Europe was only democ-ratised in 1948, and other partsnot until 1989, with the collapseof communism. In Europe, the EUreacted positively to change bysupporting progressive andhumanitarian forces and seekingto integrate newly democraticstates.

With the Lisbon Treaty in placeand the establishment of theEuropean External Action Service,the EU is able to play a greaterrole in North Africa and theMiddle East. This is valuable interms of building and strengthen-ing the institutions andinfrastructure needed by stable,pluralistic and democratic socie-ties.

The EU needs to look at what itcan offer democratised Arabstates. Options might include abroader European economic spaceor new customs arrangements.Whatever the case, the EU iscommitted to being a long-termpartner for Arab peoples’ free-dom, dignity and economicprosperity.

Session 2

His Royal Highness Prince ElHassan Bin Talal

The post-World War I attempts tocreate a settlement in what isoften called the Middle East havefailed. New thinking is needed

which recognises the pluralism ofWestern Asia and North Africa asa diverse region incorporatingArab Muslim and non-ArabMuslim nations, such as Israel.

Commenting on progress towardsgreater freedoms in the ArabWorld, Prince El Hassan said thatin 2009 he chaired the ArabThought Forum, which welcomedparticipants from many countriesto discuss the compatibility ofdemocracy and Islam. A numberof them are now in power andsome are bringing change.

Prince El Hassan criticised Westernviews of the pace of change: “Idid rather smart at the EuropeanCouncil’s report on how Jordan isnot fulfilling the promises ofreform … the promises started in2009 before the Arab Springprocess and the reality is that thestreet protests actually delayed theprocess of reform that was beingenvisaged by the leadership notonly of Jordan but of the ArabWorld.” The reforms were tobring about integrated ratherthan piecemeal change.

The Arab Spring has broughtsome progress, but Prince ElHassan said the attitudes of somefrom the West have been disquiet-ing. He was visited by a leadingEuropean ambassador who said“we have done it in Tunis, wehave done it in Libya, we havedone it in Egypt”. This, said theprince, missed the whole pointthat it was Arabs had broughtchange for themselves.

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Despite positive developments insome countries, Prince El Hassanbelieves the Arab World facesmany dangers and that themomentum is towards mutuallyassured destruction, when thegoal should be mutually assuredsurvival. The region is “caughtbetween two right wing realities”which threaten the advance ofreform. The first is that the Gulfoil states are not keen on changeand their Western allies arereluctant to push them. Thesecond reality is that the currentIsraeli government is only interest-ed in the traditional lament of“we are surrounded by enemies”– an argument he hoped hadbeen disposed of some time ago.

The Prince highlighted Iran’snuclear status as an area ofconcern and expressed regret atthe US cancellation of a plannedHelsinki Process meeting. Headded that during a visit toTehran, for a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, he madesome unpopular statements onnuclear issues, but rather thanbeing dismissed they sparkedserious discussion.

Prince El Hassan described Syria asbeing the centre of a proxy warbetween “rich” and “ignorant”protagonists on the so-calledSunni side (though their interest ispolitical not religious) againstforces aligned with Iran who wantto maintain an axis of powerbetween Iraq, Iran, Syria andLebanon. At the same time, there

is a growing struggle for waterresources. This, the Prince fears,has the potential to bring regionalnuclear war. While the search fordemocratisation, human rightsand dignity are of fundamentalimportance, Europe has puteconomic interests first. The Westhas benefited from huge militarycontracts with Arab countries,when what is needed is a plan forthe equitable sharing of water –blue peace.

Europe, according to the Prince,often fails to understand thenature of the challenges facingthe Arab World – for example, theimpact on stability of 26 millionrefugees and displaced people.

He called on the USA to looktowards the Arab World in a spiritof partnership and for movestowards a CSCME (Conference forSecurity and Co-operation in theMiddle East). The Prince advocatedan end to local axes of power anda move towards a Beneluxsolution of intra-independence“you may be a small country oryou may be a large country, butyou recognise my right to expressan opinion”. In addition, he calledfor the establishment of a region-al bank for reconstruction anddevelopment that would makeuse of some of the region’s wealth“to put a smile on the face ofevery Somali child, and every childfor that matter, whether Muslimor non- Muslim”. This would helppull the rug from under the feetof extremists who point to the

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ungenerosity of the region’s rulersto argue that they are unfit torule. Beyond this, Prince El Hassanargued that paternalistic generosi-ty is not the answer to the region’sneeds; a social charter is requiredto empower all citizens, regardlessof ethnicity, faith or gender. Thismust be accompanied by rights-based measures to address theneeds of all people.

The region faces challenges fromtwo sources, extremism and oil.Neither benefits the ordinarypeople, or the children, of theArab World. Prince El Hassan saidthat all our efforts must be tosecure their future and to ensurethat “human dignity is the wayforward”.

Sessions 3–5The next sessions saw speakersdeliver three short talks. Theaudience then separated forroundtable discussions and theresults were fed back to the entireconference.

3. Civil Society

Andreu ClaretExecutive Director of the AnnaLindh Foundation, based inAlexandria

Western approaches to the ArabWorld are evolving positively – afew years ago, a conference of thiskind would have started withreligion not civil society. This ispartly the result of the newperceptions generated by theArab Spring and the appreciation

of the diversity and complexity ofthese societies.

Civil society has been critical in thedevelopment of many Europeancountries, from the emergence ofSpain from dictatorship to thedownfall of communism in theeast. Social movements have alsoproved crucial in toppling auto-cratic regimes in Arab countries.But there are differences betweenEuropean and Arab civil society.Arab civil society tends to beweaker and is divided on religiouslines. It also suffers through thelack of democratic tradition, whichmakes it better at opposing thingsthan proposing solutions. Foreffective civil society to develop,organisations must arise tochampion social issues of everykind – from jobs to traffic orplanning. This can only happenwhere partnerships with theadministration can be built withauthority. For example Alexandriahas no mayor, and has no electedcity council, meaning the channelsfor debate and changes arelimited.

Situations and traditions differbetween countries, and change isdeeper rooted in some thanothers, so the prospects for strongcivil society vary. However, MrClaret said, they can only everthrive given certain preconditions.These are freedom of associationand movement, the consolidationof democratic culture and thecapacity to overcome the divisions

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between secular and religious-orientated organisations. Finally,European governments and civilsociety organisations shouldprovide support and buildpartnerships with European ‘no-gos’

4. Structures of Government

Dr Malik DahlanPrincipal and Chief Lawyer, theInstitution Quraysh for Law andPolicy

Dr Dahlan speculated that theMiddle East’s redefinition as WestAsia may reflect a disappointmentwith relations with Europe, and bea source of new hope about thepossibilities from new partner-ships in Asia. Like Europe acentury ago, the Arab countriesare in turmoil and face “toweringquestions of legitimacy”. Also likeEurope, “Those who stood tobenefit were weary, those whosuffered stood restless, empiresanxious – humanity needed a self-definition in a new age.”

In the aftermath of World War II,he added, Europe needed firmcommitment to good governanceand the rule of law. This is whatthe Arab World needs now. DrDahlan argued that the rule of lawis the essence of a free and fairsociety – “without this most basicof guarantees, nothing canprosper”. He quoted former ChiefJustice of England and Wales,Lord Wolfe, as saying that it is therule of law which prevents

democracy from descending intoelected dictatorship and addedthat the last few weeks in Egyptunderlined this reality.

Political Islam has dominated thepost-revolutionary Arab politicalenvironment. Together with manyother factors, this is bringingintensive struggles for legitimacyand authority. What is clear is thatwithout the rule of law, it will bedifficult to achieve prosperity,stability and peace. Dr Dahlanasserted that this is achievable, asthere is no contradiction betweenIslamic governance and the rule oflaw. Dr Dahlan discussed the valueof a region-wide approach togovernance and the tackling ofendemic social and economicproblems. At the same time, heacknowledged that the past islittered with failed examples ofschemes for Arab co-operation. Akey factor would be flexibility(helping avoid problems such asthose faced by the Eurozone) andopenness to non-regionalinvolvement by countries such asChina and the US. Such a struc-ture, he believes, would ease the“fraught” problems of forginglinks with Israel. But it is only oncethe rule of law is established thatthe foundations will be in placefor progress towards prosperity,stability and peace. Internationalrelations are also vital and it maybe that the Arab World cannotwait for Europe to resolve itsinternal problems and will have to

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look eastward for partnershipsinstead.

5. Sustainable and EquitableEconomic Development

Tarek El SherbiniSenior Banker, Acting Director forJordan and Egypt, European Bankfor Reconstruction and Develop-ment (EBRD).

While the EBRD was created tohelp former Soviet Bloc economiesmake the transition to democracyand market economies, Mr ElSherbini said that four years agohe started an initiative to spreadits activities to the Arab World.The Arab Spring gave the idea amajor political push. The EUcurrently identifies Jordan,Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia ascountries in transition.

The EBRD aims to help countriesachieve their goals in promotingsustainable and equitable growth.According to Mr El Sherbini, this isa challenge that no country hastruly met. Governments tend tofocus on growth of any kindrather than on equitable distribu-tion, and the world has hadexperience of the stultifying effectof communist attempts at im-posed redistribution. A hybridstrategy of growth and equality iskey. In the Arab countries whererevolutions broke out in 2011,there had been a long build up ofeconomic disparities. In Tunisia,this was between coast andinterior; in Egypt, between the

north, south and Sinai – and alsobetween upper and lower socialclasses. Prosperity went to thealready wealthy, leaving the poorworse off than before. The highprice of education reinforcedsocial division. The situation wasunsustainable. Prosperity, arguedMr El Sherbini, can only be wonthrough productivity and competi-tiveness. Debt-fuelled growth willalso fail. Sustainable prosperitydemands longterm investment.Growth also needs to be balancedacross sectors, rather thandependent on natural resourcesor tourism. Corruption must betackled top down, because itdiverts wealth to the rich and putsoff investors. “If there is one thingthe Arab Spring should bring, it isthe reduction and eventualelimination of the corruption thathas plagued many countries in theArab World.”

Education has to be reformed andmust meet market needs, provid-ing for students according to theirability and training them for rolesthe economy needs. Geographicalinequalities also need to beaddressed. International organisa-tions and donors can help buildequitable and sustainable growth.Advice and assistance on policyand regulation is of value, as istraining and mentoring. Invest-ment and donor aid need to betargeted for effectiveness – thismeans supporting critical areassuch as SMEs and infrastructure.

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Sustainable and equitable growthare now a necessity, not an option– the more time that passes, themore upheaval will take place.

Prince El Hassan followed Mr ElSherbini’s talk by advocating theneed for a regional cohesion fundand a social charter. He referred toearlier failed proposals for a fundintended to allow 24 nations tobuild their economies and provideopportunities for their citizens –“imagine how many lives wouldhave been saved and how manyrevolutions would have been lessbloody, if they had to be bloody atall”. He envisaged three sourcesof funding to build a moreequitable and sustainable future –Europe, the emerging powerssuch as China and the Gulf oilstates.

Conclusions

Professor Suleiman provided asumming up of the conference,saying it had achieved much. Hesaid that Europe should not befrightened of involvement withthe Arab World in case it is seenas neo-colonialism. It is reasona-ble, he added, for European andArab countries to view each otherwith enlightened self-interest.

Europe is an actor in the worldand must choose how to engage.It needs to recognise and supportthe political, social, economic anddemocratic dignity of the Arabpeoples.

There is a great deal of room formutual benefit if the partiesbehave with common respect.Beyond dealing with peoples andnations, Europe must also builtconstructive relationships withregional bodies such as the ArabLeague, which is once againbecoming a potent force.

European good intentions are notenough and there need to be newtools and instruments for change.One of the most important shiftsthat Europe can make is frompolicies that are reactive to onesthat are proactive and get aheadof crises. Professor Suleiman saidcivil society is crucial to the futureof the Arab World. It provides theopportunity for people to workwith government, but also witheach other. Importantly, there isenormous potential for civilsociety organisations fromdifferent Arab countries tocollaborate with one another andwith their European counterparts.Democracy is not simply political,but also cultural. But culturaldemocracy demands appropriatelegal frameworks. There are signsthat these are developing but “itis a difficult birth”. Civil societyorganisations need to move frombeing powers of opposition tobecoming engines of progress –the sources of positive ideas andplans for progress. And to make areal difference, and build strongersocieties, groups of all kinds must

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open dialogues with others withopposing and different views.

The rule of law is of great impor-tance and is compatible with thespirit of Sharia, which is intendedas a path of moral living. ProfessorSuleiman pointed to the value ofwork being undertaken to meldthe values of Sharia with the ruleof law.

There is a need for financial andsocial capital to be invested overthe long term, in order to achievethe great moral objectives ofsustainable and equitable eco-nomic development. Education,knowledge and skills transfers can

be a great help. But the ArabWorld also needs to develophigher education institutions witha new ethos, so they are places oftrust and freedom where respon-sibility is delegated. Finally, theProfessor said the conference haddemonstrated the willingness thatexists for co-operation betweenEurope and the Arab World. Hesaid it is clear that opportunitiesfor great progress are nowopening up and that that theyshould be seized by Arabs andEuropeans alike – time is shortand the window could soon closeagain.

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Black magic, black gold

MTEM is one of the best examplesin Scotland of a university spin-out which has turned a researchproject into a major commercialsuccess, selling the company for$275 million just three years afterit was founded – and before itsbreakthrough product for oil andgas exploration was even ready formarket. Co-founder David Wrighttold the company story in anentertaining lecture which coveredeverything from black magic tolasagne and everywhere from theFirth of Forth to the Trinidadjungle...

Every year, the oil and gas industryspends about $6 billion lookingfor new reserves, and $70 billionon drilling. A hundred years ago,the chances of finding oil and gaswere about one in 20, and thechances of finding a field contain-ing one million barrels of oil wereabout one in 50. Twenty-five yearsago, one in eight wells werecommercially viable, and todayonly one in four are successful.And at up to $150 million perwell, drilling could be a big wasteof money.

These were just some of thefigures presented by Dr DavidWright in his lecture to illustrate

Dr David WrightPGS Senior Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh

MTEM – From PhD Research to Commercial Exploration ToolRSE/BP Hutton Prize Lecture in Energy Innovation

3 December 2012

the fact that oil and gas explora-tion is risky and very expensive,and that any technologicaladvance that can improve thechance of success in the search fornew commercially-viable fields hasenormous potential.

The history of oil and gas explora-tion shows how much the sciencehas changed through the years. Inthe early days, drilling wascomparatively random, but afterthe Titanic sank in 1912, aninventor called Reginald Fessend-en developed a new method fordetecting icebergs, using soundwaves, which soon evolved intothe seismic techniques still usedtoday for most geophysicalsurveys – searching for oil atdepths of up to 35,000 feet.Wright also described what an oilfield typically looks like – not a bigtank filled with oil, but layers ofporous rock containing pockets ofoil. If the oil can flow from onepore to another (i.e. permeable),then it may be a practical source,so the problem is not just to finda new source but to analyse howmuch oil and gas it contains andwhether or not you will be able toextract it. In other words, it’s notenough to find oil – there must beenough oil. “The key thing is to

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understand the rocks,” saidWright.

The new technology developed byWright and his co-founders,Professor Anton Ziolkowski andProfessor Bruce Hobbs of theUniversity of Edinburgh’s Schoolof GeoSciences, uses electromag-netics to detect oil and gas,injecting electricity into theground and measuring thevoltage response at many pointson the surface which are sensitiveto different depths, to build up apicture of what lies below –including sites which may containoil. As Wright explained, waterlooks very like oil to seismic data,but responds very differently forelectromagnetic data. The basictechniques are not new. TheSchlumberger brothers inventedan electromagnetic device in1927, based on the knowledgethat “the primary sensitivity” ofelectromagnetics is good fordetecting the fluid in the porespace of rocks. The major problemwith electromagnetics is how tointerpret the data produced, andWright compared this to trying toanalyse a plate of lasagne,measuring the temperature atdifferent locations and probingthe layers to detect pasta, meatsauce and cheese. You get a lot ofdata but it’s difficult to get a veryaccurate picture of exactly what’sin the lasagne. In 1936, a scientif-ic journal published a paper,headlined “Black magic in

geophysical prospecting,”describing these problems – andelectromagnetics went out offavour for the next 60 years.

Twenty years ago, Ziolkowski andHobbs took up the challenge.Armed with 3.4 million Euros ofEEC funding, they used electro-magnetics to prospect for gas in areservoir outside Paris. From 1992to 1998, they struggled toproduce results, but two yearslater, Wright approached them todiscuss a suitable subject for hisPhD Thesis, and they told him thatthey had “some interesting data”that might be worth furtherresearch. Wright spent the nexttwo years analysing the data andcame to the conclusion that therewere several problems with theelectronics used to acquire thedata. Using new software, he wasable to fine-tune the data andcorrect these small errors –proving that careful analysis couldproduce valid results. The threemen knew they had a newtechnology which had thepotential to become a hugeearner, and the next step wascommercialisation. In 2001, theyfiled for a patent, but without anyproduct or buyers, they were still along way from success. In 2003,they successfully applied forScottish Enterprise proof-of-concept funding worth £200,000and drew up a business plandescribing the need for a further£1.5 million investment to bring

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the technology to market. Thefollowing year, Scottish EquityPartners (SEP), Energy Venturesand Hitec Vision committed toinvesting £7.4 million in thecompany, and set out a series ofmilestones that had to be passedin order to release all the moneyin stages, including marine trials,which took place in the Firth ofForth in 2005, using 24v lorrybatteries inside wooden boxes todetect the presence of coal. Othertests later proved the technologyworked in different terrains suchas deserts, frozen swamps, Albertatar sands and the Trinidad jungle.

Wright then explained how TotalOil confirmed that the newtechnology worked and MTEMreceived a letter of intent whichconfirmed the commercialpotential. “The prototype is not acommercial system,” said Wright,but it attracted so much interestfrom Petroleum Geo Services (PGS)of Norway that it bought MTEMfor $275 million in 2007 – lessthan a year after the companyalmost ran out of money andneeded a further injection of £3.3million from its original backers.Since then, PGS has improved thecapabilities of the new product,

including using it while beingtowed at sea, which greatlyspeeds up the capture of data.Commercial viability has also beenproved, and in 2010, Italiancompany ENI confirmed theresults of an earlier survey bystriking oil where MTEM hadpredicted.

The dream solution for oil and gasexploration is a combination ofseismic and electromagnetictechniques. In 2011, PGS carriedout the first simultaneous seismicand electromagnetic survey, and inOctober 2012, this new technolo-gy was used commercially for thefirst time. Finally, Wright discussedthe economic impact of the newtechnology. Production efficiencyin the North Sea has improvedfrom 30 to 65 per cent in recentyears, and electromagneticexploration could greatly contrib-ute to this – helping an industrywhich employs 440,000 people inthe UK, almost half of them inScotland. The University ofEdinburgh has also received £8.6million in funds from the sale ofthe company, £2.4m of which wasused to fund 164 PhD students –doing research across all schoolswithin the University.

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Introduction

This meeting was held to honourCharles Thomson Rees Wilson(CTR), the 1927 Physics NobelLaureate, who invented the cloudchamber, described by ErnestRutherford as “the most originaland wonderful instrument inscientific history”. Wilson con-ceived the cloud chamber initiallyto better understand the process-es of water condensation –inspired by clouds seen fromScottish mountains – and quicklyfound that it could be used todetect ionisation produced by X-rays and radioactive sources. By1912, Wilson had perfected hisdevice and was able to takephotographs that made visiblerepresentations of subatomicparticles. His instrument was usedacross the world for intensivestudies of cosmic rays, which werediscovered in the same year. Theseefforts shaped the study of cosmicrays and the development ofparticle physics throughout thefirst 60 years of the 20th Century.Wilson was also deeply interestedin atmospheric electricity, and hisinstruments and his ideas aboutthunderstorms and the globalatmospheric electrical circuitremain at the heart of modern

Conference

C T R Wilson, a Great Scottish Physicist: His Life, Work and Legacy

7 December 2012

theories. His family knew him as amild-mannered, thoughtfulperson, keen on hill-walking, witha lifelong scientific curiosity; hiskeen observation, persistence andpatience made him a notablymeticulous experimental physicist.

C T R Wilson was born on 14February 1869, and in 1888 wentup to Sidney Sussex College,Cambridge, from where hegraduated in physics in 1892. Hetried school teaching, briefly, butreturned to Cambridge and to theCavendish Laboratory, although itwas a visit to the Ben NevisObservatory in 1894 that sparkedhis interests in cloud formation.He continued his career asdemonstrator, developing theapparatus that in 1912 becamethe cloud chamber. After showingthat the cloud chamber could beused to see particle tracks, heconcentrated much of his energieson meteorology and atmosphericelectricity. In 1925, he becameJacksonian Professor at theCavendish, remaining there forthe rest of his career, beforeretiring to Edinburgh where hebecame friendly with Max Bornwho lived in the same street. Later,he went to live in the small villageof Carlops, close to his birthplace.

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In 1956, at the age of 87, hepublished a paper on a theory ofthunderstorm electricity inProceedings A of the RoyalSociety, the oldest Fellow of theSociety to have published there.The cloud chamber, or WilsonChamber, makes visible themysterious world of subatomicphysics, and has inspired many totake up the study of science. Hiscontributions to physics shapedmodern thinking about cosmicrays and climate, thunderstorms,particle physics and the search forthe origin of cosmic rays, some-thing about which CTR speculatedover ten years before theirdiscovery in 1912.

C T R Wilson: Reminiscences of agrandson

Andrew Wilson

Andrew Wilson began by recount-ing that visitors to The Cottage inCarlops would occasionally findCTR lying on the floor flat on hisback, with Algernon, a blackrabbit, chewing on the old man’shair, to the evident enjoyment ofboth. “I don’t know if this iscommon among Nobel Prizewin-ners…” said the speaker.

Mr Wilson went on to describeCTR’s early life, noting that theThomson and Rees names camefrom two shepherds who wereemployed by his father John, anoted sheep breeder. CTR wasvery fit, thanks to his love of hillwalking, particularly in Arran and,

as a student at Sidney SussexCollege, he had a cold bath everymorning irrespective of theweather. He never carried anyweight, always ate sparingly anddid not drink at all for most of hislife. CTR’s mother was a foundermember of the British Women’sTemperance Association, while hisbrother-in-law was the 12thgeneration of Presbyterianministers. Perhaps as a conse-quence, CTR’s strongest expletivethroughout his life was “tut tut”.

CTR was a very private man whodid not show his emotions, neverlaughing but occasionally smiling;as a consequence, he was difficultto know. However, he was verykind to his grandchildren, whomhe was happy to take up PatiesHill at Carlops to look at beetlesand other small creatures of whichhe seemed to have an encyclopae-dic knowledge. He seemed tohave liked most of his colleagues,but thought Einstein conceitedand did not approve of MadamCurie’s love life.

At 87, CTR was the oldest mem-ber of the Royal Society to publisha paper, although he confessed tobeing disappointed by its recep-tion. His 90th birthday wasmarked by a wellattended partyincluding many colleagues,notably Giuseppe Occhialini whohad travelled all the way fromMilan by train. Mr Wilson con-cluded by drawing attention tothe 27 boxes of notebooks in the

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Clerk Maxwell collection atAberdeen University, and also thathe recorded having seen athunderstorm phenomenon nowknown as a sprite as early as1924, but their existence was notconfirmed until 1989.

Scene setting

Dr Tam Dalyell FRSE

Dr Dalyell recalled a soaking wetSaturday afternoon in the foothillsof the Pentlands, when he was a26-year-old Labour candidate,canvassing on a bicycle. He wasextremely grateful for the offer ofa cup of tea and a chat from anelderly man in a cottage inCarlops. “As he put the kettle on,I looked around,” recalled DrDalyell. “One framed photograph,among the others on the wall,had me transfixed. It showedsome familiar faces – Einstein,Bohr, Pauli, Planck, von Laue,Langevin, Madame Curie, Ruther-ford – and, standing in the secondrow at the end, somewhatdiffidently, someone who wasobviously my host, 30 yearsyounger. I realised that he couldonly be C T R Wilson.”

That photograph started a wide-ranging conversation. CTR saidthat he got on well with all ofthem, apart from Werner Heisen-berg, whom he positively disliked.He remembered with respect PeterKapitsa and, many years later,when Dalyell visited the SovietAcademy of Sciences, Kapitsa had

asked him if he had met C T RWilson, whom he held in veryhigh regard.

Dr Dalyell found CTR Wilson a veryreflective man, and one whoinfluenced his future life. As heleft the cottage, CTR asked him ifhe would take a serious interest inscience if he were ever elected. “Isaid that I would”, recounted DrDalyell, “and that is why I am heretoday.”

Glories seen at the Ben NevisMeteorological Observatory

Ms Marjory RoyScottish Centre, Royal Meteoro-logical Society

The Ben Nevis Observatory was ameteorological observatory thatexisted from 1883 to 1904 at analtitude of 1344m at the summitof Ben Nevis. It was established, incommon with others acrossEurope, in order to get high-altitude data otherwise only veryintermittently available at thattime by using balloons or kites,from which recording instrumentshad to be retrieved. It was pro-posed by David Milner Horne,Chair of the Council of theScottish Meteorological Society.

Alexander Buchan, Secretary ofthe Scottish MeteorologicalSociety, was involved in much ofthe planning, and the construc-tion was funded by publicsubscription. C T R Wilson spenttwo weeks there as a temporaryobserver, from the 8th to the

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22nd September 1894. He notedwhile he was there that he saw abrockenspectre, or glory, arainbow-like effect of sunlight onclouds, surrounding the observer’sshadow. Weather records quotedby Ms Roy show that he was luckyto have weather conditions to doso; Observatory records show that,on average, hill fog was presentfor 70% of the time in September,with just two hours of sunshine aday. But the weather on Ben Neviswhen CTR was there was excep-tionally good, with anticyclonicconditions, very low humidity atthe summit and temperatureinversions – ideal conditions tosee glories. In 1895, when onholiday in the area, CTR alsonoted two other significantevents. On 19 June, he sawlightning striking the Observatoryand the next day when he visited,he saw some of the effects of thedischarge. On 26 June 1895,when he was on Carn Mor Dearg,he felt his hair standing on endand saw St Elmo’s fire around hishead and, realising that this was adirect experience of atmosphericelectricity, he descended rapidlydown the scree.

Some of the instruments in placeat the BNO when C T R Wilsonspent his time there would havebeen of interest, notably anAitken Dustcounter, a devicedeveloped by John Aitken toinvestigate the ideas of Cuvierabout the importance of conden-

sation nuclei for the formation ofclouds. At the time when C T RWilson was at the Observatory,this instrument may have been inuse, although CTR does notmention it.

Ms Roy concluded by noting thatthe observational log books fromthe Observatory are now in theArchive of the National Registry ofScotland (although not in digitalform) and contain a lot of infor-mation not available in thepublished reports; showing forexample, that Ormond, (the firstSuperintendent of the Observato-ry), was very interested in opticalphenomena such as glories.

Medical impact of cosmicradiation

Professor Anne Glover CBEFRSEChief Scientific Advisor, EuropeanCommission

Professor Glover began by citingthe inspirational effect of thework done by C T R Wilson.Seeing cosmic rays in a cloudchamber became part of whatdrove her into a career as abiologist.

Cosmic rays from the Sun andfrom the wider galaxy both havemedical effects. Professor Glovercited solar X-ray data from theGeostationary OperationalEnvironmental Satellite (GOES)spacecraft that showed theradiation dose going up by afactor of 1000 in just a few

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minutes. Solar radiation varies onthe surface of the Earth, in linewith the cycle of solar activity, andhigh latitudes are more vulnerablethan low latitudes, because of thestructure of the Earth’s magneticfield. The levels of galactic cosmicrays are modulated by the solarcycle, but their effects are differ-ent, largely because they consistof ionised nuclei with highenergies; in other words, theirdeeply penetrating radiation ishard to shield and has highbiological impact. The effects ofboth are greater at high altitude.Altogether, this makes space avery dangerous place for humans– the Apollo astronauts missedinstant death by just a few days.

Biological effects range from thetransient lights seen by astronautsas individual accelerated particlesflashing through their eyes, to celldamage from ionising radiation.Light ionising radiation tends tobreak single strands of DNA,which is relatively easy for thebody to repair. If cells experienceheavy ionising radiation, bothstrands of DNA may break,making the whole molecule shearapart. This is harder to repair andmay lead to genetic damage inprogeny.

Professor Glover described theMatryoshka experiment, in whicha model human body, made oflayers like a Russian doll, corre-sponding to the different layers ofthe human body, and packed with

sensors, was exposed on theoutside of the International SpaceStation. The results showed hotspots of high exposure within thedoll, amid generally low expo-sures. But even low levels pose aproblem, because of the durationand continuous nature of expo-sure in space. Any further spaceexploration, whether it involvesminers seeking rare earth ele-ments on the Moon, or explorersvisiting Mars, demands effectiveshielding; so far we have onlywater or aluminium to offer. Evenwith this, astronauts travelling toMars and back would be likely tohave 3% of their body cells hit byiron ions. Professor Gloverdescribed radiological studies ofshielding as the cloud chambersof the future – technology thatwill allow us to explore further.

C T R Wilson at the CavendishLaboratory

Professor Malcolm Longair, CBEFRS FRSEJacksonian Professor of NaturalPhilosophy, University of Cam-bridge

Professor Longair began withWilson’s work on cloud formation,inspired by his observations onBen Nevis. Paul-Jean Coulier andJohn Aitken had worked on theformation of artificial clouds, andAitken was certain that a solidnucleus was needed for conden-sation to start; in other words,that dust in air was essential forclouds to form. CTR improved

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Aitken’s apparatus and found thatdust was not essential, but thatclouds would not form in air freeof dust unless the air was super-saturated with water vapour. Hesurmised in 1895 that some otherform of condensation nuclei werepresent. In February 1896, CTRused X-ray tubes to illuminate hisapparatus and saw not just a fewdroplets condensing, but a densefog which, he subsequentlyestablished, was a result of the X-rays producing ions, which actedas condensation nuclei.

This significant result, that madepossible the development of thecloud chamber, was the productof C T R Wilson’s meticulousexperimental work and thepatience with which he met failureand carried on. This piece ofapparatus would work only if allparts joined together in a perfectfit, requiring precision glass-blowing and grinding, and was atime-consuming process thatinvolved very many failed attemptsfor each success. Although Wilsonspent the ten years from 1899focusing largely on atmosphericelectricity, he continued with hiscondensation experiments. Hediscovered that air appears to bespontaneously ionised, whereverhe measured it. While staying withhis brother in Peebles, he workedin the railway tunnel there and theresults led him to suggest, in1901, that there might be asource of ions with high penetrat-

ing power, outside the atmos-phere. This was the first mentionof the idea of cosmic rays in theliterature, although he concludedat the time that such a source wasunlikely.

By 1910, CTR was back at work onwhat would become his cloudchamber. He took seriously thepossibility of being able tophotograph the tracks of particlesby photographing the streams ofwater droplets that condensed onthe ions they formed, and deviseda way to do it. It was, as ProfessorLongair put it “a typical Cavendishexperiment, pure string andsealing wax.” The apparatusrequired a flash of light to takethe photograph that was synchro-nised with the movement of theplunger. The solution was to use aweight on a string that brokewhen the plunger moved; theweight fell onto the electricalcontacts, setting off the flash.“The whole thing depended ongravity,” said Professor Longair,“and the original weight usedwas a brass doorknob!” Stringand sealing wax it may have been,but it worked. In 1912, CTR builtthe final version of his cloudchamber and with it obtained thefirst images of alpha and betaparticles, and of ionisation by X-rays. He may also have producedthe first images of cosmic rayswithout realising it; some of his1911 photographs show theircharacteristic straight track.

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Back at the Cavendish Lab,Rutherford and Blackett went onto use Wilson’s chamber todemonstrate the disintegration ofthe nucleus, to find high energyprotons and to show nuclearinteraction, in much the same waythe Higgs boson experiments atCERN do today.

By 1929, Wilson’s chamber wasbeing used to take the firstphotographs of cosmic rays –discovered in1912 by Victor Hess– and the secondary electrons theyproduced. C T R Wilson is recog-nised as a physicist of unusualskill and vision and an experi-menter of genius. His greatachievement – the cloud chamber– arose from his curiosity aboutthe natural world and madepossible so many discoveries inparticle physics and cosmic rayresearch. And, as ProfessorLongair put it, “such a spectaculartechnical achievement does nothappen without special amountsof effort, patience and enthusi-asm.”

The impact of C T R Wilson onparticle physics Professor DonPerkins CBE FRS, EmeritusProfessor of Physics, University ofOxford

Professor Perkins considered thatcloud chamber images of thetracks of charged particles,pioneered by C T R Wilson in1911, were of great significancein the development of particlephysics, playing a significant role

in the discovery and understand-ing of subatomic particles andinspiring the development ofinstruments that used visualimages, such as the bubblechamber.

In 1930, Paul Dirac predicted theexistence of a particle with themass of an electron, but with apositive charge. Blackett and G P SOcchialini (a former researchstudent of C T R Wilson’s) foundpairs of particle tracks that couldbe explained by positively andnegatively charged particles, buttheir mass was uncertain. Meas-urements by C D Anderson atCaltech in 1932 suggested thatthe mass of the positively chargedparticle was less than that of aproton; but it was not untilAndersen and then Blackett andOcchialini, independently in 1933,were able to show that thepositive particle had the samemass as the electron, that the firstanti-matter particle – the positron– was detected.

The visual images of particles andtheir tracks were also instrumentalin the discovery of mesons. In1935, H Yukama suggested thatthere were particles acting ascarriers of the strong force withinthe atomic nucleus, with massesof around 200–300 times theelectron mass.

Yukama’s particle could, in theory,be detected in the interactions ofcosmic rays with atmosphericmolecules, although it was

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expected to be very short-lived(10–8 seconds). It was not until1947 that the pion was found,using particle tracks caught inphotographic emulsion.

Professor Perkins recalled theadvent of nuclear emulsion, whenhe was a graduate student. Ilfordproduced photographic platesusing silver iodide which, whenhit by charged particles, ionisedand when the plates were devel-oped, led to a trail of tiny blackdots along the tracks. Stacks ofsuch plates recorded the paths ofcharged particles in three dimen-sions. In 1947, the speaker sentsome stacks of plates to highaltitude on photoreconnaissanceflights from RAF Benson. “While Inever saw the flight logs and so Ididn’t know how high they flewor for how long,” said ProfessorPerkins, “the plates did showevidence of nuclear disintegration.I wondered if the light particle Isaw was the Yukama particle (thepion), but had to wait for furtherexperiments with better emul-sion.” His work, along withfurther detections by C F Powelland Occhialini in 1949, estab-lished the existence of the pion.Professor Perkins noted thatPowell and Occhialini referred tothe cloud chamber as the “WilsonChamber” throughout their work.

Wilson’s invention led to majordiscoveries in cosmic ray scienceand initiated the global progres-sion of detector and accelerator

development that led directly tothe current standard model of theUniverse. But the standard modelapplies to the 4% of the Universethat is made of matter, antimatterand electromagnetic radiation; therest is dark matter and darkenergy.

Professor Perkins concluded that“the work that Wilson started 100years ago gave us a new under-standing of the Universe, but wehave got a long way to go,because we are only 4% of theway there.”

C T R’s contributions to atmos-pheric electricity

Professor Giles HarrisonDepartment of Meteorology,University of Reading

CTR’s work on atmosphericelectricity was most productiveand important in the period1920– 1925, but he had beeninterested in the origin of the fairweather electric field from 1903,when the prevailing view was thatthe upper atmosphere had a staticelectric charge. Wilson realisedthat if the air was continuallybeing ionised, as it appeared tobe, there had to be current flow;the fair weather field could not beentirely electrostatic. If currentflow occurred – and Wilsonmeasured it in 1906 – how was itsustained and how was thecharge conveyed? CTR’s work onions and cloud condensation ledhim to consider how raindrops

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could convey the charge to theground during thunderstorms.

Understanding the verticaldistribution of charge on electri-fied clouds was needed todevelop a theory of the currentflow. C T R Wilson and Sir GeorgeSimpson disagreed about theinterpretation of the charge onraindrops and the position ofpositive and negative charge inthunderclouds; both of themdeveloped instruments to meas-ure the arrangement of charge inthunderstorms. The tripolar modelof thunderclouds that eventuallyemerged includes elements ofboth men’s work.

CTR was very interested in chargetransfer from clouds downwardsto the ground and upwards to theionosphere. He adapted hisinstruments and set them up inwest Cambridge where, from1915 to 1917, he carried out kiteexperiments, hoping to learnmore about the changes in chargeassociated with lightning strikes.By 1921, Wilson was describing aglobal circuit deriving currentfrom thunderstorms. By 1925, hehypothesised that thunderstormsoperated as particle accelerators,citing dielectric breakdown abovethunderstorms as a dischargemechanism. The idea of a globalcurrent flow preoccupied Wilson;he developed ideas on limitingpotentials, on the growth ofpotential in thunderstorms andon the production of ionisingparticles, all of which have been

proved sound with moderninstrumentation.

Upper atmosphere dischargeswere finally unambiguouslyobserved from photographicevidence in 1989. These transientluminous effects, known as spritesand jets, include charge transferbetween the top of clouds andthe upper atmosphere. Wilson’ssynthetic global circuit conceptinvolved the current generatedduring storms flowing upwards tothe ionosphere, via sprites, anddownwards to the Earth via rain.In his notebooks, Wilson madecalculations to balance the globalcircuit. He saw thunderstorms asbatteries separating charge toyield a potential at the ionosphereof +300kV relative to the surface,permitting current flow fromdisturbed weather regionsthrough the ionosphere to therest of the planet – ideas subse-quently confirmed by closeagreement between variation inthunderstorm area and the fairweather field elsewhere on theglobe.

In summary, CTR Wilson’s legacyfor atmospheric electricity lies inthe influential students he taught,the establishment of meteorologi-cal physics, his instruments, hisglobal synthesis of atmosphericelectricity and the power of hisapproach that linked the micros-cale to the macroscale. He was, as

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Professor Harrison put it “remark-ably right about a lot of things”.

Climate change and the Cosmos

Professor Sir Arnold Wolfend-ale FRSEmeritus Professor, Department ofPhysics, Durham University

In common with many of thespeakers, Professor Wolfendalehad been inspired by C T RWilson; in his case by the experi-ence of using a cloud chamberwhen he started research at theUniversity of Durham in 1956. “Iwas astonished that he got suchgood results – he really was anexcellent experimenter!” Durhamat that time had Alan Chambersworking on cloud physics, and itwas there that the speaker cameacross the idea of an array ofelectric field mills to pick up airshowers, but the noise was toogreat.

These early interests meant thatProfessor Wolfendale was in agood position to assess the idea,put forward by Henrik Svensmark,that cosmic rays may have a role inclimate change, through theformation of clouds. Whilesceptical, he supported anexperiment at CERN (CLOUD) toinvestigate the interaction ofradiation with aerosols, but wasalso able to apply some of thecommon sense and globalthinking that C T R Wilson usedso successfully. The suggestionwas that the cloud cover at low

levels should correlate with cosmicray intensity. Observational datashow that it does, in some cases,but the effect is not reproducibleand not replicated. And such acorrelation does not imply causeand effect. But the effect ofionisation on cloud formationrequires air that is supersaturatedwith water vapour at 25%; thelevels measured are around 1%,which is far too low.

Professor Wolfendale stressed theimportance of taking a criticalapproach. For example, the overallmeasures of temperature risewhen cosmic ray intensity falls,leading to suggestions of causeand effect. But when the solarcycle moves on and cosmic rayintensity increases, the tempera-ture still goes up. There is also theopportunity to think laterally:there was, for example, noincrease in cloud cover followingthe 1950s bomb tests or theChernobyl reactor accident.Chernobyl released some 2 Mt offallout, but the processes involvedin going from ionisation to clouddroplets have at most 3%efficiency.

In addition, if cosmic rays were toaffect clouds, then there shouldbe some variation over the surfaceof the Earth, because of thestructure of the magnetic field.The cloud cover data shows a dipthat correlates with the solar cycle,but the magnetic field means thatthe effect should be smaller at the

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Equator, and larger at the poles.There is no such signal in thecloud cover data. Where there is astrong effect is in the strato-sphere, where solar proton eventsaffect aerosols, ozone andtemperature, noctilucent clouds,the polar mesospheric clouds ataltitudes of 56–85 km thatinclude water ice, also containheavy cosmic ray nuclei, whichmight have an effect. It would alsobe worth considering Neptune,for example, a cloudy planetwhere solar modulation is lesssignificant, and thus cosmic rayeffects on clouds may be clearer.Overall, around 1% of cloud coveron Earth is affected by cosmic rays– the effect of cosmic rays onclimate change is negligible.

The many uses of the rareisotopes produced by cosmicrays

Professor Finlay StuartIsotope Geosciences Unit, ScottishUniversities EnvironmentalResearch Centre

Primary cosmic rays are dominant-ly extremely high energy protons.When they penetrate the Earth’satmosphere, they cause a cascadeof secondary particles that bathesthe Earth surface. The high-energysecondary neutrons interact withatomic nuclei in the atmosphereand shallow Earth, forming anarray of daughter products.Spallation reactions result in theformation of isotopes. Where thecosmogenic isotopes are naturally

in low abundance, but thecosmogenic contribution can bemeasured, they can be used aschronometers and tracers ofprocesses at the Earth’s surface.

The best known cosmogenicisotope is 14C, commonly calledradiocarbon. It is formed fromnitrogen in the atmosphere andincorporated into living things –plant and animal tissue – alongwith the dominant stable carbonisotopes during life. The 14C isradioactive, with a half-life of5,730 years. When the animal orplant dies, 14C ceases to beabsorbed, and that present startsto decay – the radiocarbon clockstarts ticking. The amount of 14Cin organic compounds providesthe most common way of deter-mining age. It is useful for datingup to about 50,000 years ago,making it especially useful forunderstanding environmentalchange on a timescale that is veryrelevant to climate change.Because the cosmic ray flux toEarth varies, the rate that 14C isproduced in the atmosphere alsovaries. Consequently the radiocar-bon clock needs to be calibratedagainst absolute chronometers.As a result of considerableinternational effort using treerings, sediment layers in lakes orspeleothems, in which there areannual markers, the radiocarbontimescale is now calibrated forthousands of years into the past.This means high precision dating.

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For example, radiocarbon datinghas shown that the Turin Shroudoriginated in medieval timesrather than 2000 years ago.

A range of cosmogenic isotopes isproduced in rocks and soils at theEarth’s surface. Both stable (3He)and radioactive (10Be, 26Al and36Cl) isotopes are used to providepowerful techniques for measur-ing the time rocks or artifacts havebeen exposed at the surface of theEarth; for example, dating whenglaciers retreated or landslips tookplace. Application of thesetechniques requires measuringvery low concentrations ofcosmogenic isotopes (a few tensof thousands of atoms) andrequires state-of-the-art massspectrometers. They are particular-ly useful for determining the timeof eruption of lava flows, forexample. These in turn can beused to determine the exposure offault scarps, revealing the historyof fault movements over longertime periods than the earthquakerecord.

Astronomy with dustbins andlight buckets

Dr Paula ChadwickDurham University

Despite the ubiquity and energyof cosmic rays, we don’t knowwhere they come from. The Sunproduces plenty at low energies,but the rest must come from otherobjects within our Galaxy or, atthe very highest energies, outside

it. The galactic cosmic rays do nottravel in straight lines; becausethey are charged particles, they aredeflected by the galaxy’s magneticfield.

But any process that can acceler-ate particles to the energiesobserved will also producegamma rays, which, as electro-magnetic radiation, travel instraight lines. “If we can catch thegamma rays”, said Dr Chadwick,“we will know where the cosmicrays come from.”

Efforts to do this over the pastquarter century show that it is notso simple. Gamma rays do notpenetrate the Atmosphere, sothey are detected with orbitingobservatories such as Fermi.

However, very high energy (VHE)gamma rays, which provide thebest tracers of cosmic rays, are sorare that it would take a detectorthe size of a football stadium inSpace to detect enough of them –and this is not technically orfinancially feasible. VHE gammaray astronomers have had to tryalternative approaches, and theyuse the Cherenkov radiation thatarises when a charged particlemoves at speeds faster than thespeed of light in the Atmosphere.

Patrick Blackett suggested thatCherenkov radiation should bevisible in the Atmosphere, and WGalbraith and J V Jelley built thefirst ground-based detector byplacing a photomultiplier at the

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focus of an army-surplus search-light mirror, which was put in thebottom of a dustbin to keep outthe background light. This isessentially the design of modernground-based gamma ray tele-scopes, albeit with much moresophisticated mirrors, detectorsand electronics. However, there isconsiderably more Cherenkovlight from cosmic rays than fromhigh-energy gamma rays, whichmakes picking out the gammarays from the cosmic ray back-ground difficult. However, the airshowers are distinct in each case.That distinction also means thathigh-energy gamma rays can bedetected on the ground and theirsources identified. Imagingatmospheric Cherenkov tele-scopes use arrays of detectors tomap the elongated pool of lighton the ground arising from agamma ray air shower. Its longaxis corresponds to the long axisof the shower, giving an indica-tion of the direction of origin ofthe shower and hence of thegamma rays. This is what tele-scopes such as VERITAS, MAGICand HESS are designed to do, andtheir detections are leading tonew science in fields such ascosmology, pulsars and blackholes. These instruments havedetected 140 sources of gammarays in our Galaxy and beyond(compared to the ten sourcesknown in 2004). The sourcesinclude many different types of

objects such as binary star systemsinvolving neutron stars, or blackholes with jets.

Yet the basic question of wherecosmic rays come from remainsunanswered. Supernova remnantsare detected by VHE gamma raytelescopes and are thought likelyto provide the shocks thataccelerate particles to suchprodigious energies, but conclu-sive proof that they are the mainsource of the galactic cosmic raysremains elusive. It will take newinstruments to find out, and thereare two being planned: HESS IIhas added a much larger tele-scope to the HESS array, collectingmore light but also more of thelower energy gamma rays; and theCerenkov Telescope Array, will bebigger still and will detect more ofthe really highest energy radia-tion.

The future of astronomy athigh energies

Professor Jim HintonDepartment of Physics & Astrono-my, University of Leicester

C T R Wilson’s pioneering instru-ment to detect ionising particles,the cloud chamber, has a directlegacy in two current instruments,the ATLAS detector on the LargeHadron Collider at CERN, and theFermi gamma ray telescopeorbiting Earth. Both these instru-ments detect relativistic ionisingcharged particles, although Fermiworks at much higher energies

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than are achievable at CERN. Andboth are making discoveries. Fermihas found enormous structuresassociated with our Galaxy thatappear to be bubbles 40,000 lightyears across, inflated by thesupermassive back hole at thecentre of our Galaxy and filledwith cosmic rays.

These enormous structures are onour cosmic doorstep, yet we haveonly just discovered them. High-energy astrophysics has enormouspotential for astronomy, applyingthe technology that has beendeveloped for particle physics andcosmic ray detection to astronomy.Astroparticle physics – usinggravitational waves, fundamentalparticles and high-energy gammarays – offers an opportunity toexamine extreme physical environ-ments. The innovative approachesdemanded to detect gravitationalwaves, dark matter and neutrinosmake gamma ray astronomy, withits successful current instruments,look fairly easy. But improvingdetection from current levelsdemands bigger arrays with moretelescopes – very much a bruteforce way forward, but one that isachievable in the next decadethrough the Cherenkov TelescopeArray.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array(CTA) will combine a few largetelescopes to work at low lightlevels, with a large area of smallertelescopes to capture the rarerhigh-energy events. The project

builds on the instrument heritagebuilt up in this field, includinghow best to deploy small tele-scopes over large areas. CTA willsurvey large patches of the sky fora census of particle accelerators inthe Universe and it will do so 300times faster than HESS has done.HESS was limited to the nearestfew thousand light years; CTA canlook anywhere in our Galaxy andwill see blazars out at redshifts of4 or 5. CTA will also bring anincrease in precision, seeingstructures as small as an arc-minute across. The CTA willinvolve two sites, more than 100telescopes and more than 1000people in, so far, 27 countries,including everyone from HESS,MAGIC and VERITAS. Construc-tion is expected to be complete in2020. The science that CTA willaddress ranges from the origin ofgalactic cosmic rays and their rolein the Universe to fundamentalparticle physics, the nature of darkmatter, the behavior of matter athigh energies, cosmology andsigns of quantum gravity. Some ofthe biggest bubbles in theUniverse, five times the size of theFermi bubbles, have recently beendiscovered around an activegalactic nucleus at the centre of agalaxy cluster. It is thought thatcosmic ray protons and neutronsare holding these bubbles up; ifthis is the case, CTA will see them.In summary, this is a very excitingtime for the new field of astropar-

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ticle physics and the messagefrom the past is to expect theunexpected.

Meeting overview and thefuture of high-energy cosmicrays

Professor Alan Watson FRSEmeritus Professor of Physics,University of Leeds

Professor Watson counted himselfamong those people influencedby C T R Wilson, not directly, butthrough two people who knewCTR well, George Evans atEdinburgh and J G Wilson atLeeds.

George Evans lectured on physicaloptics, and somehow insertedsome meson physics within it. Heenthused him through discus-sions of CTR’s work related to thesubject and cosmic rays.

Watson studied many cloudchamber pictures taken by Evansin high-pressure argon and thusgained an important insight intocosmic ray processes. He showedone photograph in which anargon nucleus was shattered by acosmic ray with the outgoingparticles leading to the build-upof a cascade of particles, just ashappens in an air shower in theatmosphere. In 1964, ProfessorWatson moved to the University ofLeeds to work with J G Wilson,who had been a research studentof C T R Wilson’s, and to helpestablish the Haverah Park water-Cherenkov detector array, of

which J G Wilson was the founder.The major effort at this time wasto try to discover whether therewere excesses of particles fromsome regions of the sky, but thefocus changed when, followingthe discovery of microwavebackground radiation, it waspredicted that the abundance ofthe highest-energy cosmic raysshould fall rapidly above5x1019eV.

By the end of the 1980s, a rangeof different techniques to detectthese high-energy cosmic rayswere producing a range ofdifferent results. However, mostagreed that less than one particlereached the surface of the Earthper square kilometre, per century,the equivalent of roughly ten perminute reaching the outside ofthe Earth’s atmosphere. Thissuggested that a detector muchbigger than Haverah Park (12km2) would be needed to meas-ure sufficient events to find outmore. In 1991, Professor Watsonand Professor Jim Cronin of theUniversity of Chicago started aninternational collaboration todesign and build a much biggerinstrument, eventually 3000 km2.They used the water-Cherenkovtechnique that had been success-ful at Haverah Park and combinedit with fluorescence detectors topick up the ultraviolet, auroral-likeemission from the air shower.They found the large flat area withclear skies they needed in western

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Argentina, which is now home tothe Pierre Auger Observatory,completed in 2008: an array of1600 water- Cherenkov detectors1.5km apart, plus four fluores-cence telescopes, spread over anearcircular area with a diametersimilar to the distance fromEdinburgh to Glasgow.

Collecting and combining thedata from all these detectorsproved critical to the success ofthe Observatory, solved in part byusing GPS and adaptions ofcellular telephone technology. Thedetectors fire 20 times per second,and each time they send a timesignal to a central location wherea computer is used to search forcoincidences from three or moredetectors that fire simultaneously.The footprint of the showerdefined by the tanks shows theorientation of the shower, and thelight curve from the fluorescencetelescopes indicates the energy.

The signalling used to coordinatedata collection for this bluest ofblue skies research was developedby Paul Clark at the University ofLeeds; he now heads his owncompany, with an early contractbeing to use his Auger technologyto improve the safety of single-track railway lines in the ScottishHighlands. Another parallel thatcame out of the meeting wasCTR’s observation of sprites in1927, but which was largelyignored at the time; the PierreAuger Observatory also has an

interest in elves, a related form ofemission, which are common inthe data but which were foundquite unexpectedly. Despite theaudacious size of the Pierre AugerObservatory, it is too small toanswer the biggest questionsconcerning the directionaldistribution of the particles andthe details of the flux reductionnow clearly observed. While theObservatory has been successfulin locating events, around 30 thatoriginate close to active galacticnuclei, few of these lie close to thegalactic plane where the high-energy gamma ray sources arefound, and there are no strongsignals from astronomical objectsthought likely to accelerateparticles to high energy. There ispotential for the future in combin-ing data with the CherenkovTelescope Array, to look atCentaurus A for example, or withtelescopes in Space. The alterna-tive would be to build an array 30times the size of the AugerObservatory, something that hasbeen proposed for the nextdecade.

In discussion, questions andcomments focused on ways thatthe legacy of C T R Wilson couldbecome more recognised, andused to promote interest inphysics amongst school studentsand the general public. There wasgeneral agreement that CTRdeserves better national recogni-tion. Professor Watson focused

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first on the visual appeal of theimages produced by the cloudchamber. Professor Harrison andothers noted that they have beenpivotal to the development ofsimilar techniques in otherbranches of physics, as today’sspeakers have shown, but they arealso very appealing to peopleoutside science – artists, forexample. Perhaps, ProfessorWatson suggested, we should allnow refer to the cloud chamber asthe Wilson Chamber, as is com-monly done in France, and gainrecognition for CTR in the waythat Geiger’s name is widelyknown from the Geiger Counter.It would be useful to improve thedisplay in the National Museum ofScotland, where refurbishment isplanned for 2016, and to haverecognition of CTR in the room

devoted to Scottish Nobel Laure-ates in the Scottish NationalPortrait Gallery. It might also beworth investigating initiativessuch as getting his image on theback of a banknote. Questionerswondered if the lack of recogni-tion over the past few decadeshad something to do with CTRnot having a memorial in West-minster Abbey, or in the Scottishequivalent. It was noted that thereis a blue plaque on a dyke byGlencorse Farm, CTR’s birthplace,but something in central Edin-burgh would be seen by manymore people. The meeting placeof the Alcovian Club was suggest-ed as suitable location, while theplacement of blue plaques on thehouses lived in by CTR Wilson andMax Born in Grange Loan areunder discussion.

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Glasgow-born Katherine GraingerMBE first took up rowing duringher student days at the Universityof Edinburgh. Since then, she hasgone on to win six rowing WorldChampionships, three silverOlympic medals and, mostrecently, a gold medal at the 2012London Olympic Games. Theseremarkable achievements makeher an inspiration to all, and theRSE was delighted to haveKatherine deliver the RSE Christ-mas Lecture 2012 in which shetalked about the challenges shefaced along with the successesover the past 12 years.

As a child, Katherine Grainger hadno inclination that one day shewould become an Olympicchampion. She describes her firstexperience in a rowing boat as“not particularly memorable; itdidn’t move me or grab meemotionally as a sport…I justwent with my neighbours andsister because I was told to”.Katherine recalled her mothermentioning, years later, that,following this excursion, theirneighbour had remarked that herdaughter had a talent for rowing.Katherine had questioned why hermother had never told her this,thinking she could have started

Katherine Grainger MBE Olympian

The Journey to GoldThe Royal Society of Edinburgh Christmas Lecture 2012

11 December 2012Lochaber High School

her rowing career earlier and wonmore medals; only to be told byher mother that the neighbourhad actually been talking aboutKatherine’s sister!

Katherine, inspired by a quest fortruth and justice and the book ToKill a Mockingbird, enrolled at theUniversity of Edinburgh to studyLaw; however, felt “a bit dupedwhen I turned up to my first taxlecture”. This university experi-ence, however, started herimpressive rowing career. Kather-ine admits that she was initiallyattracted to rowing by the sociallife that comes with joining auniversity boat club. “The friend-ships I made at university aresome of the most long-lastingand best I have to this day. Thedriven, motivated, fun people…attracted me far more than thesport initially. The people and theteam atmosphere are what keepyou striving to achieve and beingpart of the sport”.

In her first year at university,Katherine participated in rowingbecause it was enjoyable and wasfun but challenging; she neverconsidered a sporting careerbeyond university rowing. Howev-er, this was to change when, inher second university year,

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Katherine believed, due to hercompetitive nature and desire toparticipate, that she would beautomatically selected for thesenior team. She admits to beingdevastated when she didn’t makethe first sixteen, but instead wasallocated to “a special boat forpeople who would come alongand train and enjoy the socialaspects of rowing but perhapswouldn’t go any further. I wasobviously not considered as anathlete who was going to becomeOlympic champion”! Katherinesaid “That night I left the lecturehall and I was very upset. I wentaway and climbed Arthur’s Seat,on my own, in October, at night. Iremember having this momentwhere I was so frustrated andupset and realised for the firsttime that it wasn’t just going tohappen for me, not just becauseyou want it and you’re competitive– it’s not going to just fall intoyour lap. I made a promise tomyself that I was going to dowhatever it took to avoid everbeing in that situation again”.

This experience changed Kather-ine’s attitude to the sport; “Icompletely stopped thinking that Iknew it all and started to learneverything from the beginningand took on all the teachingavailable to me – soaking upeverything I could”. After a lot ofhard work and commitment, inher third year at university,Katherine was selected to row forScotland and in her fourth year

was invited to try out for the GreatBritain squad. She commented,“At that time the internationalteam felt unreachable and on apedestal. These were the heroesand felt way out of my reach”. TheGreat Britain trials were an eye-opening experience for Katherine,leading her to realise that “thepeople who are running the sportat that level do not expect you tobe the finished article, they wantpeople with potential. They wantpeople they can mould and getthe best from and improve.”Katherine was successful in thetrials and was selected for the GBsquad training camp.

Katherine’s first Olympic experi-ence was at the Sydney Games in2000. She describes these as a“brilliant, fun, friendly games”.Rowing was a major focus of theSydney Olympics, as this was theyear when Sir Steve Redgrave wascompeting for his fifth GoldMedal. Katherine recalled that itwas very exciting to be part of theteam. However, up to this point,the women’s rowing team hadnever won an Olympic medal; andneither were they expected to in2000. Indeed, Olympic rowerMatthew Pinsent, when inter-viewed, suggested that ifsomething went wrong with allthe other teams, the Britishwomen’s quadruple sculls teammight scrape a third place.Katherine considered that this wasprobably a fair summing up of thesituation. Describing a team

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meeting the night before theirrace where their psychologistasked them to say what the racemeant to them on a personallevel, Katherine explained, “at thispoint sport starts to transcendthings, it becomes more than justa race. It becomes an opportunity;that for 6.5 minutes you canmaybe do something special”.The women’s quad team allstarted their race knowing that ifthey could stay level with theUkrainian boat, which waspredicted a third place, they mightbe able to achieve a medalposition. Katherine said “we allwent into the race wanting to dosomething special and sometimesyou have to go against all thepredictions and do your ownthing”. Having never raced in theOlympics before, Katherinerecounted that she spent the first200m of the race praying shewouldn’t mess up! For the first1500m the team’s structured raceplan unfolded exactly as rehearsedand they were in third position. Inthe final 500m Katherine de-scribed entering the crowd area,“the noise is something youcannot prepare for; we went froma very structured crew to fourwomen screaming at each other”They crossed the line knowingthey had achieved the bronzemedal position; experienced hugecelebrations and even MatthewPinsent proclaimed he knew theycould do it!

Olympic officials were unable toaward the medals immediately asthere was a ‘photo-finish’ enquiryfor silver and bronze position –between Russia and Great Britain.Katherine remembered thinking“don’t be daft, I don’t care aboutthe photo finish, it’s an Olympicmedal, I don’t care what colour itis”. She continued by offering aword of warning about howquickly your standards can changeas, “six minutes later I startedthinking silver would be amazingand, twelve minutes later, actuallyI might be disappointed withbronze if the photo finish wentthe wrong way”. Thankfully theGreat Britain team won the silvermedal by eight one hundredths ofa second. Katherine sums up theSydney Olympic Games as being“all about having incredible hopeand a dream; about getting achance and taking it”. Katherine’sOlympic career continued inAthens in 2004. She describedhow Sydney 2000 had changedthe belief in what was possible forthe women’s rowing team. In2004, they competed at theOlympics not just to take part, butto win medals. Indeed, thischange in belief and mentalityresulted in every boat in thewomen’s team winning anOlympic medal; however, none ofthese was gold. Katherine de-scribes the step between silverand gold as huge; “everythingneeds to go right. Now the GBteam was consistently performing,

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the four years between Athensand Beijing in 2008 was aboutwhat differences could be madeand how. The team looked toimprove everything by tinymargins: technical aspects, tactics,strength and conditioning,nutrition, psychology and physio-therapy. All these tiny marginsadded together can make a bigdifference”.

Despite an incredibly successfulrun up to the Beijing Games,including winning world titles, theGB women’s team could do littleto plan for the Chinese desire totop the medal table at a homeGames. The Chinese had intricate-ly planned their approach towinning the Olympics, targetingmany sports, including thewomen’s quad rowing event, forwhich they had trained a very fastteam. In their race heat, the GBteam broke the Olympic record;however, in their heat the Chinesebroke it by a little bit more. TheGB team knew they wouldn’t racethe Chinese boat until the finaland had talked through the racemany times; concluding that ifthey could get a quick start and beahead, in the final stages theywould be able to hold off every-one. In the Olympic final thisseemed to be going to plan; theyled for most of the race. However,in the final stages, China started asprint for the line and drewahead. Katherine describes thismoment and the aftermath as“utterly the most devastating part

of my career. Winning and losingis very emotional. You buy intothis life and these races witheverything, it’s your heart and souland the reason you breathe. Everydecision you make for years isfocused on this moment. Youhave so much support fromfriends, family and coaches andthe one thing that cuts throughthe moment you cross the line,mentally and physically exhausted,is that you’ve come second andyou’ve failed”. Whereas eightyears earlier Katherine felt she hadwon silver, in 2008 she felt thatshe had lost gold. “Beijing alwaysrepresents a failure to me. All thecelebrations for silver felt likeanother twist of the knife. I felt asthough I had let everyone down;nobody says this, it’s just how youfeel. It’s difficult for people tounderstand this…but it’s likegrieving”.

Katherine described the pointwhere she realised her attitude tothis ‘loss’ had to change. Whilstspeaking to a group at one of herformer schools, the teachershowed a clip of her ‘winning thesilver medal’ to a delightedaudience of young children. “Irealised that I couldn’t give themthe message that if you lose it’sthe end of the world. I thought Ihave two choices; you either buryyourself in depression and miseryor you pick yourself up and youlook for something to go for-ward”. Following manyconversations with ex-athletes

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who thought a home LondonOlympics would be somethingspecial, Katherine decided to lookforward to London 2012, consid-ering she still had more to give.Katherine remarked that “evenSteve Redgrave was jealous”.

Prior to London 2012, Katherineand her rowing partner, AnnaWatkins had experienced a fewyears of amazing unbeatensuccess. She describes it as“brilliant partnership and teamwork; it just felt right and wereally enjoy racing together”. BothKatherine and Anna knew that theLondon Olympics would be thebiggest pressure they could everexperience. “The expectation andthe focus; the question, can thisreally be the one? The mostunbelievable opportunity anathlete can have”. In summer2012, a sense of expectationabout the Olympics was buildingin Britain, despite some sceptics.Katherine stated that she couldfeel the pride of the nationfollowing the Olympic OpeningCeremony. However, the fact thatit took a few days for Great Britainto start winning medals was areminder that it wouldn’t be easy.As their race got closer, Katherineand Anna became more focused.The biggest pressure was, eventhough they were predicted towin, could they perform anddeliver on that day when itmattered? Katherine described theday of the race; “you arrive at thevenue and everyone is wishing

you the best. All you want to dothen is race, as that’s when youcan be in control. At the start linefive minutes before the race it issilent and there’s nothing left todo. You just wait and try not to letyour brain wander. You have toput all your thoughts away andjust focus. The race was aboutkeeping it simple and focusing onthe things you can control. Whenthings are overwhelming, scaryand too much, just keep it simpleand go with the first stroke andlet it all come”.

During the race everythingseemed to go right; indeed,following the event, AnnaWatkins said she knew by 1000mthat they would win. Katherinecould not let herself believe thatuntil the very end. “The race wasall about staying in the moment.We got to the crowd area in thefinal few hundred metres and thenoise from them rolled across thewater and was utterly deafening;the boat was alive with the noise,it was inside you and was apressure of noise building. Youcannot block out the noise of30,000 people screaming. It feelslike the crowd is supporting theboat physically and there’s no wayyou are going to fail at thatpoint”. Katherine described thefeeling of crossing the finish linein gold medal position as “utter,unbelievable joy. It was joy,pleasure and happiness”.

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Katherine summed up herOlympic career stating; “theOlympics and Paralympics didchange things in this country andhopefully this will be a long termchange. It changed attitude and itchanged belief. My whole journeyhas been incredible. At thebeginning of my career I had thehope that I could make a little bitof history. In Athens I learnedabout being tested and that howmuch you believe in somethingwill make the difference. In Beijingit was about raising standards andwhen that doesn’t work, it’s aboutcoming back from that; not aboutblaming, not about looking backbut about coming back fromdisappointment and using thosefeelings to improve. The wholejourney to London was about anincredible opportunity, bringingtogether a team and ultimatelymaking it back to a love of the

simplicity of racing. There were noguarantees that it would be myhappy ending, no guarantees thatany of this would ever happen. Foranyone out there doing anything,having an incredible dream thatdrives you through life is soexciting; to have a passion in life isthe best thing you can have,whatever it is. It will inspire youand challenge you and test you ineveryway and it will make you feellike you are living life. That’s whatmy rowing career has done for meand I don’t know what comesnext, but I only hope it continuesin some marvellous way”.

Katherine concluded the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh ChristmasLecture 2012 by passing herOlympic gold medal around adelighted audience, from whomshe received a well deservedstanding ovation.

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The RSE Business Innovation Forum arranged a seminar on the EuropeanUnion Horizon 2020 programme and the research opportunities forScotland that are likely to arise from it. The seminar was addressed by AlynSmith MSP who serves on the Committee of the European Parliament thathas been scrutinising and amending the proposals.

Seminar

The European Union Horizon 2020 Programme

25 January 2013

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Introduction

This was a conference for universi-ty academics, school teachers andmembers of heritage organisa-tions to exchange views and ideason how best to develop profes-sional learning communities tosupport the teaching of historyacross Scotland. The aim was toprovide opportunities for discus-sion about how participants couldhelp to create a history learningcommunity which embracesteachers in early years, primaryand secondary schools, collegesand universities, with researchersand those involved in the heritagesector. The Chair for the confer-ence was Professor ChristopherWhatley FRSE, Professor ofScottish History, University ofDundee.

Session 1

During the morning session, fourspeakers provided an insight intothe various aspects of collabora-tion and how it can benefitprofessionals.

Professor Graham DonaldsonCBUniversity of Glasgow and author,

Teaching Scotland’s Future.

What would a history learningcommunity look like?

Conference

The Teaching of History: a Model for Collaborationin conjunction with

the Scottish Association of Teachers of History

2 February 2013

Continuous and sustainedimprovement in education is vitalto individual, social, democraticand economic wellbeing. IfScotland is to keep pace with theglobal pace of change, driven bytechnological innovation, allyoung people need to have deeplearning and a broad 21st-Century education. ProfessorDonaldson felt that being welleducated for the 21st Century wasmore than being well qualified.Amongst the key factors in asuccessful education system fit forthe 21st Century were highquality teachers, high qualityleadership at all levels and aculture of stimulating andeffective professional learning.The key component to successfullearning within any educationsystem is the quality of teachers.However, research suggests thatteachers are resistant to changingwhat works for them. Some arewilling to change to be moreefficient and a few are willing totry new innovations. This beingso, a culture of accountability willnot transform the system.

In order to meet the requirementsof the 21st Century, teachers needto have high levels of expertiseand secure values which encom-

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pass a personal and professionalaccountability for the wellbeing ofall young people. They also needto be able to ask hard questionsof themselves and others, takepersonal responsibility for theirown development and seeprofessional learning as integralto their professionalism. In orderto support teachers, the systemneeds to create ‘professionalspace’ between teachers’ work inthe classroom with young peopleand other work that takes place atschool. This space can then beused by teachers for professionaldevelopment. There are a numberof key building blocks which willhelp teachers to develop, some ofwhich are: a continuum of teacherlearning throughout a career;strong sectoral partnerships; anethos of coaching and mentoring;a relentless focus on impact onlearning; and a series of vibrantprofessional learning communi-ties.

Professor Dauvit BraunProfessor of Scottish History,Glasgow University

How close are we to a ‘historylearning community’?

Teaching Scotland’s Futurehighlights the importance ofcareer-long teacher education aspart of a vigorous culture ofprofessional learning. Thedemands of Curriculum forExcellence are high, but it is lessprescriptive than previous advice,and provides flexibility for teach-

ers to meet the needs of childrenand young people. This flexibilitybrings with it the need to ensurethat teachers have the profession-al development opportunities theyrequire. The School of Humanitiesin the University of Glasgow isworking with various teachers todevelop a website which high-lights the latest academic researchin various periods studied bychildren and young people inschools. This approach is develop-ing increased collaborationbetween schools and universities.Equally as important is theopportunity for university academ-ics to fuel the thoughts of youngpeople across Scotland.

The Scottish History Society is alsopromoting collaboration betweenuniversities and schools by pairingup academics and school teachersto develop resources for theteaching of Scottish history.Professor Braun argued that this‘hands on’ approach is moreeffective in promoting anddeveloping historical understand-ing than other events whichpurport to engage with the publicabout history. If universities wantto continue to increase theirrelevance and impact to thepublic, they have to consider howthey can share their expertise withothers, including schools. Profes-sor Braun gave as an example, thePeople of Medieval Scotland(POMS) web-site, which is beingdeveloped in such a way that it

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can be used by academics andschool pupils alike.

The ‘POMS’ database is beingdeveloped with outcomes ofCurriculum for Excellence partly inmind and Professor Braunexplained that this gave thewebsite added value for teachersand school pupils. The outcomesfor the curriculum are also muchless prescriptive than the Englishcurriculum, which means thatteachers can make their coursesmore relevant to the youngpeople they teach. It also meansthat they will benefit fromincreased engagement withuniversities as they develop newand exciting resources to meet thespecific needs of their pupils.

Nelson MundellProbationer History Teacher

Where are the growth points?

Mr Mundell had been part of thecollaboration amongst academicsfrom the University of Glasgow todevelop new resources for theteaching of history. The success ofthis had enabled him to provideup-to-date, exciting lessons foryoung people that increase theirunderstanding of the past. It isalso developing his skills andknowledge as a teacher of history.Mr Mundell felt that this wasequally as important as the newresources. His interactions withthe university are part of a career-long learning process whichmaintains his knowledge of the

subjects and increases his skills asa teacher.

Mr Mundell made a plea for thedevelopment of a community ofhistory professionals from acrossScotland, engaging with eachother using a range of technologyand social media. This profession-al learning community is takingshape, but there needs to be anincreased commitment to ensureit impacts positively on all childrenand young people.

David GregoryHM Inspector of Education

What do we do now?

Mr Gregory provided an overviewof learning and planning forlearning within history acrossScottish schools. Whilst planningusing the experiences andoutcomes from Curriculum forExcellence is leading to morecoherent experiences for childrenand young people, Mr Gregoryprovided a number of exampleswhere children and young peoplecontinue to be provided withexperiences that are not coherentand sometimes out of date.

Evidence from the occasions whenteachers have collaborated withuniversity academics suggestsstrongly that it increases the paceand challenge of lessons anddevelops pupils’ depth of under-standing. To develop this type ofcollaboration further, Mr Gregorysuggested that history teachersand academics could learn from

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the teacher learning communities(TLC) that are being established inschools across Scotland. TLCs havea strong positive impact on thequality of learning and teaching.They are based on a set of valuesand it would be important toestablish such a basis for whatevertype of collaboration colleaguesdecide to establish.

The values should perhaps includeactive participation, a commonpurpose, mutual trust, ownershipand collaboration. These are atthe heart of the successful TLCs. Itis irrelevant how the professionallearning communities are organ-ised. Whether they meet in a pubor via Skype, there is a need tohave a set of values up to whichall members of the communityhave signed.

Session 2

The afternoon session was splitinto two phases. Phase one was adiscussion amongst sectors.Groups were asked to considerhow their sectors could supportprofessional learning communi-ties. The plenary provided manyideas which were then taken intophase two, which was held ingeographic groups. These groupswere tasked with taking forwardone approach to the developmentof professional learning commu-nities. The plenary session was anopportunity to provide feedbackon what each group decided totake forward.

Overall, the afternoon sessionprovided opportunities for wide-ranging debates and thinking ona range of issues surrounding thedevelopment of professionallearning communities acrossScotland; not just in history but inall subject disciplines.

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The contests and debates aroundeconomic diversification (inparticular industrial schemes) inthe Highlands during the late19th and 20th Centuries areevident in some form in currentdiscussions over the current andfuture course of development inthe area. Focusing on aluminiumproduction in the Highlands, thislecture explored this subject inrelation to the economic, environ-mental and social ramifications ofindustrial development in periph-eralised regions. It also examinedthe collective and individualmotivations of those involved.

History matters, both in contem-porary debates and morefundamentally in relation toselfcomprehension, as well as inrelation to the human interactionwith the planet and other species.Whilst history is referred toregularly in contemporary de-bates, it tends to be used as littlemore that rhetoric. Views ofhistory are dominated by out-of-date perceptions and themistaken views of personalitiesand ‘great men’. Dr Perchardargued that the prevalence of“persistent, unremittingly dismalhistorical narratives” has exer-cised, over the decades, apowerful influence on the way

Dr Andrew Perchard, FSA Scot, FRHistSUniversity of Strathclyde

For the Benefit of Mankind: Industrialisation, Environmentand the Politics of Highland Development

Monday 4 February 2013Kinlochleven High School

that much government policytowards the Highlands hasdeveloped. The craft of history isnot just about facts relating tospecific events in the past, butalso to the study of change overtime, the social context of events,interpretation and how actions,ideals and notions can impact onthe world around us. Viewinghistory merely as a series of factsignores the interpretation andselection of sources by thehistorian.

In 1897, Lord Kelvin, BritishAluminium’s first scientific advisor,addressed workers at the Compa-ny’s factory in Greenock, stating“that magnificent piece of work atthe aluminium factory [at Foyersnear Loch Ness] was the begin-ning of something that wouldtransform the whole socialeconomy of areas such as theHighlands”. For a natural philoso-pher such as Lord Kelvin, themodern techniques of aluminiumproduction represented a triumphof science and the height ofintellectual revolution arising frompost-Enlightenment thought; thiswas the epitome of the secondindustrial revolution. He consid-ered such developments to havethe potential to aid human

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progress on a global scale. DrPerchard commented that whilstKelvin’s views on harnessing thewater power at the Falls of Foyersmay not sit well with modernaudiences, his biographersobserved that his remarks didhave a powerful logic. In thewords of two of Lord Kelvin’sbiographers: “The pestilence,poverty and overpopulation,accompanying the industrialdevelopment of Glasgow, had astheir counterpart the depopula-tion and decline of the Highlandeconomy. The advancement ofscience and science-basedindustry that was transformingGlasgow into a healthier andmore prestigious second city ofEmpire would equally bringeconomic and human salvation tothe vast region of the Highlands”.

Lord Kelvin’s views were alsoshared and endorsed by manylocal residents and influentialpeople in the Highlands. Indeed,British Aluminium (BA) went outof their way to court support fromfigures such as Cameron ofLocheil and Lord Lovat, who wereconsidered to have a progressiveoutlook on economic diversifica-tion. Dr Perchard suggested thatto understand why such a stronglevel of support existed for the‘Company’, it is necessary toconsider the local and regionalconditions of the time. Contem-porary accounts paint the pictureof a “desolate area with fewopportunities beyond those

employed in poorly-paid agricul-tural labour or trade and cottageindustries”. Furthermore, emigra-tion records for the Highlandsindicate that between 1861 and1911, 17% of people from themost economically active agebrackets left the country. However,in the area around Foyers thepopulation grew by 28%. Assuch, BA contributed positively tothe region through providingemployment and retaining avaluable workforce. In addition tothese real benefits, British Alumin-ium had a carefully orchestratedpublic relations campaign; todaythis would be referred to ascorporate social responsibility.These connections were facilitatedin part by the Highland solicitor,Charles Innes, the uncle ofWilliam Murray Morrison, BA’seventual Managing Director. Inneswas also the Conservative andUnionist agent in the area andthus close to a number of impor-tant landowners.

In contrast to Lord Kelvin’s grandvision, some Victorians wereoutraged by BA’s development atLoch Ness. The campaign againstthe scheme was spearheaded inthe London Times by the NationalTrust for Places of Historic Interestand Natural Beauty. It was sup-ported by a number of importantbenefactors to the organisation.Indeed, the Editor of a popularVictorian travel guide seriesreferred to BA’s developments as“the greatest outrage on nature

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perpetrated in the presentCentury”. The voices of opposi-tion emanating from the earlyenvironmental movement hingedon the effects of the aesthetics oflandscape in an area that hadbecome beloved amongst artistsand poets. The harnessing of thewater power for the good ofmankind represented not only thespoliation of nature but alsopotential moral degradation;“with the influx of alien labourthat would drink, fight, desecratethe land and disappear when thework was finished”. Dr Perchardstated that “by and large thefocus of the criticism of the Foyersscheme was on the grounds ofaesthetics and this allowed BA,who did know of the potentialdamage that these plants couldcause, to avoid some difficultquestions about ecological andsocial impacts. BA were also ableto get round various otherobjections because they hadacquired all of the land aroundthe Foyers water catchment areaand enlisted the support ofrelevant backers, thus limiting theaction of critics.

There were, however, tensions inthe later history of the Companywhich related to its impact onlocal environment and human andanimal health, particularly con-cerning Fluorosis in sheep andcattle in Fort William and wide-scale defoliation on ForestryCommission land. This broughtBA into contest with local environ-

mental groups, and debates overbalancing these impacts withemployment opportunities andregional development ensuedfrom the 1940s onwards. DrPerchard commented that “ulti-mately it was the backroom dealsthat were done that managed tosuppress many of these con-cerns”. The fact that economicdevelopment was a priority formuch of the 20th Century, andnot the environment, is summedup by a remark by an officialspeaking about the Corpach pulpand paper mill in the 1960s;“although there would be muchenvironmental damage, it wascontainable within the politicalequation of Highland develop-ment”. The calculation was that ina peripheralised area, the risks tohuman health and the naturalenvironment had to be consideredagainst the threat of a potentialloss of an employer such as BA tothe region.

Despite these less favourableimpacts, the Company continuedto be a valuable investor in theregion. By 1920, BA were employ-ing nearly 300 people at Foyersand Kinlochleven and paying£170,000 in wages (roughly £5.3million today). By the late 1930s,BA were the largest singleemployer in Argyll and one of thelargest across the whole of theHighlands.

The Company also providedcrofting leave, allowing workers tocontinue in previous lifestyles

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during the harvest and fishingseasons. They also contributedone fifth and one twentieth of therates to Inverness-shire and Argyll.The Company continued to retainpeople in the region and alsoenticed incomers, which wasespecially significant given afurther 13.8% reduction of theHighland population throughemigration between 1921 and1930. BA also invested heavily ininfrastructure and amenities, andleading figures such as WilliamMurray Morrison sat on Govern-ment committees which lobbiedthe Government for betterinvestment in Highland transportand accommodation. Whilst theseefforts were largely driven bycompany interest, they were alsowell-intentioned and once againdisplayed a company willing tosupport the region when otherswould not. Dr Perchard stated“that BA managed to maintain ahigh visibility in the west High-lands, despite state interventionand the growth in public services,the contraction of the workforcesat the Highland smelters andopenings offered by alternativeemployment opportunities, owedmuch to their deep entrenchmentin local civic society and thecollective memory of the region.The endurance of the deep-seatedloyalty to BA illustrates theeffectiveness of the Company’sinculcation of its role as a socialbenefactor, interwoven withHighland history”.

British Aluminium’s pursuit ofcordial relations with the likes ofLocheil, Lovat and Mackintosh,alongside their courting ofelements of the Highland devel-opment lobby (notably Dr LachlanGrant), were vital to their reputa-tion in the region. William MurrayMorrison, in particular, cultivateda sound working relationship withLocheil. He was at pains toimpress upon the Chieftain of theClan Cameron the degree ofpersonal commitment he had tothe developments, declaring in aletter, “I have the enormouspersonal reward of knowing thatthe foundation has been laid for alasting and far-reaching benefit tothe Highlands of Scotland.” DrPerchard commented that “Lo-cheil’s support for the Companywas primarily motivated by hisdesire to support economicdiversification for the region…but he was also infuriated by whathe saw as the further abrogationof responsibility by centralgovernment…BA recognised thatthe frustrations of Locheil andothers with the government inEdinburgh and London could beharnessed for the Company’sadvantage”. In a similar vein to hisentreaties to Locheil, Morrison’scareful choice of message tofigures such as Dr Lachlan Grant,BA’s medical officer and co-founder of the HighlandDevelopment League, played tothe latter’s commitment toregional development and his

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appreciation of what he perceivedto be the socially ameliorativeeffects of ‘paternalism’. “As Grantmade clear in his public utteranc-es, British Aluminium fitted themodel of the social enterprise,and was worthy of his supportand indeed participation in theirmission. This included thephysician also providing publiclectures on social improvement inKinlochleven”. Dr Percharddescribed Grant as a man ofpolitical and social complexity, butabove all someone who waspassionate about Highlanddevelopment. “The advantages ofpersonal contact with Grant werecertainly not lost on WilliamMurray Morrison. Writing to himin January 1935, Morrisondeclared: ‘It is a most pleasingrecollection in my career that Ihave also been able to do somepractical and lasting good to mybeloved Highlands’”. Grantcorresponded with Morrison overa number of years, and became arobust defender of British Alumin-ium. He publicly admonishedcritics of housing conditions inKinlochleven, and roundlydismissed suggestions that themanufacture of aluminium wasaffecting the health of workersand local communities around thesmelters, in spite of evidence tothe contrary. Dr Perchard suggest-ed that “almost certainly Grantwould have been affected to somedegree by the fact that BAemployed him as a consulting

physician. Yet his guiding princi-ple in all of this was undoubtedlywell-intentioned: that of support-ing a Company who had showedthemselves committed to theHighlands, at a time when theGovernment was, for advocates ofHighland regeneration, guilty ofneglect. Morrison was sincere tosome degree in his correspond-ence with Grant, but it wasequally tempered by his audience.Given Grant’s prominence as along-standing and vocal advocateof Highland development, it ishighly unlikely that Morrison wasnot carefully composing hismessage when he wrote in a 1935letter: ‘My feeling is that as moreand more attention is drawn tothese matters and development inother directions, we shall gradual-ly restore better conditions in ournative land, and you are doingyour best in this that connec-tion’”. Grant extolled theCompany’s virtues on manyoccasions, reporting in 1936 thathe had observed a clean bill ofhealth amongst employees atKinlochleven.

Dr Perchard commented, “thoughBritish Aluminium did not activelyseek to court labour and tradeunions, then, especially after1945, it was careful to seek toincorporate them both formallythrough the machinery of collec-tive bargaining and informallythrough social contacts with tradeunion officials”. BA was, however,at best, grudgingly tolerant of

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trade unions and the power oflabour. The 1910 strike at Kinloch-leven in support of trade unionrecognition attracted unwantedattention and the later 1936strike, opposing a rise in rents andchanges to working conditions,resulted in a major ‘social drama’in the Company’s history. DrPerchard noted that from around1945 to the mid 1970s, relationswith labour and trade unionsremained on an essentially cordialbasis, reliant on informal contractsas much as on the formal machin-ery. “From the trade unions’perspective, BA provided valuableemployment in an economy wherejobs of this type were scarce. Withthe collapse of a number of largeindustrial schemes in the High-lands during the 1970s and1980s, the imperative of holdingon to jobs, especially relativelyskilled and reasonably paid ones,in the region became the priorityof trade unions. Moreover, astrade unionists observed, BritishAluminium was one of only a fewemployers in the region whorecognised trade unions”. Thequandary faced by the tradeunions, and employees, wasvividly illustrated by discussionsover improvements to health andsafety within the west Highlandsmelters in the 1970s.

Initially, the plant trade unionslobbied for and backed Healthand Safety Executive demands forextensive capital investment toimprove the atmosphere in thefurnace rooms. When BA threat-ened to close the Highland plants,the trade unions withdrew theirsupport for HSE action. “Fortui-tously, Lochaber was modernisedafter 1975, but this episodeillustrated how industrial relationsand occupational health andsafety in the Highland plants wereovershadowed by the politics ofregional economic development”

In conclusion, Dr Perchardconsidered that it was BA’s abilityto garner support over timeamongst figures such as Locheil,Lord Lovat and Lachlan Grant,spanning the political spectrum,which set them apart from thosewho failed to understand thesubtleties of the politics of theregion. “This reveals much aboutthe complexities of developmentin peripheral regions, and thecontests to balance social,economic and environmentalconsiderations. It also reveals howwe got to where we are and theimportance of aluminium in thestory of development of theHighlands, while drawing distinc-tions with the past. In the futuredirection of this region, as withothers, an understanding of thepast is critical”.

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In the aftermath of the financialcrisis, questions have been askedof current financial reporting.Advocates of integrated reporting(IR) believe it offers a better wayforward by providing organisa-tions with a concise means ofexplaining how their strategy,governance, performance andprospects combine to create valuefor investors. Critics fear it maysimply become another adminis-trative burden. The forumprovided an opportunity forScottish business to hear thearguments for IR and discuss itspotential. The session was chairedby Jackie Hunt, Chief FinancialOfficer at Standard Life.

Introducing the event, Ms Huntsaid no one looking back to thestart of the financial crisis couldsay that financial reporting hadbeen effective. Today’s financialreports are large, complex,technical, and mainly gearedtowards meeting compliancerequirements. They have becomeless effective at communicating a

Discussion Forum

Paul DruckmanChief Executive Officer, International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)

Russell PicotGroup Chief Accounting Officer, HSBC plc

Jan BebbingtonProfessor of Accounting and Sustainable Development, St Andrews

Sustainability Institute, University of St Andrews

Investments Integrated Reporting: Benefit or Cost?in conjunction with Standard Life

20 February 2013

broad picture of an organisation’slongterm value.

From an investor’s perspective, MsHunt said she was always keen tosee better reporting. This allowsinvestments to be made in a waythat meets clients’ objectives andthat is both ethical and responsi-ble. A personal concern is thatinvestment decisions have becomeincreasingly short-term. What isneeded is clear communication,greater transparency and a widerview of the value businesses bringto society. The question is howthis can be done. Ms Hunt said:“How do we talk meaningfully,and not in a ‘by the way’ fashion,about what we contribute to thecommunities in which we operate,and more generally about what isour business model, how sustain-able is it and are we still going tobe here in another 100 years? Thebenefit from an investor perspec-tive is clear – better informationleads to better decision makingand ultimately that will feedthrough into returns.” Companies

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are already producing hugeamounts of detailed informationon everything from financialperformance to CSR. Ms Hunt saidshe was keen to hear ideas about“how do we move this debateforward but without just addingto the burden, size and complexi-ty. How do we do this in a waythat is meaningful as opposed tojust becoming another frame-work, another complianceobjective?”

Paul Druckman

“If integrated reporting is justmore reporting then we havefailed, let’s be clear from theoutset that this is not the idea,”said Mr Druckman. Companies tellstories every day – and thesestories affect investors, customers,suppliers, staff and many others.IR will allow companies to telltheir story in a concise andeffective way. IR will build onfinancial, sustainability and otherreports to represent the strategy,governance, performance andprospects of a company within itsfull context. Mr Druckman said:“The goal is to give shareholders,and other stakeholders, a truerpicture of how a company createsvalue over time.” The IIRC isworking with 87 companies(including Microsoft, HSBC andTata) in around two dozencountries on pilot projects. It alsohas an investor network. On April16th it will launch a 90-dayconsultation on a new proposed

IR framework which can beapplied to business across theworld.

Mr Druckman gave five reasonswhy business leaders and inves-tors need to pay attention to IR:

- Integrated reporting leads tointegrated thinking: Smartboards fight silo thinking byencouraging staff to thinkabout the connectivity ofbusiness strategy to the wholeorganisation. IR encouragesmanagers to think in terms ofthe business as a whole.

- Investors want better not moreinformation: Companies do alot of reporting. One problemfor investors is that the report-ing streams are not connected;another is that they tend to lookbackwards when the need is tolook ahead. “With a sharperpicture of both the risk and theopportunity, investors are morelikely to provide capital withconfidence.”

- Stakeholders are rarely silent:While economic power hasbecome more concentrated incorporations, communicationspower has shifted to stakehold-ers. Strategic company leadersknow that increased transparen-cy means they mustacknowledge problems andsolutions in a clear context. IRmakes this possible andpotentially powerful in mitigat-ing the risk.

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- Brands must be protected: Anycompany that loses control ofits brand is at high risk and IRhelps avoid this. Customerswant authenticity and forproducts to genuinely reflectbrand values. Confidence in abrand influences our decisionsto buy products, believecompany claims and makeinvestments.

- Integrated reporting needsintegrated communication:There are few risks greater thanlosing touch with shareholders,customers or stakeholders.“That’s when even a successfulbusiness finds itself vulnerableto disruptive innovation,reputational damage and lostvalue.”

IR allows companies to show howall their capitals – financial,manufactured, social, intellectualand other – work combine tocreate value. The phrase used bythe IIRC is “Better reporting forbetter business”. As the momen-tum towards IR builds, businessesneed to decide whether to lead orlag. Given the link between betterreporting and greater resilience,Mr Druckman argued that it isbest to be in the vanguard. IR isfor all stakeholders, but theinvestor or provider of financialcapital is the primary audience.This reflects the realities of aworld where the top 500 fundmanagers oversee US $42 trillion(with the top ten accounting for a

third of this) and 79 of the top144 economic entities are compa-nies, not countries. The IIRC istrying to drive the evolution ofcorporate reporting, and this is aprocess which is getting supportfrom all across the globe, not justfrom businesses and investors butalso from bodies such as theInternational Federation ofAccountants.

Russell Picot

As a preparer for a large interna-tional bank with a balance sheetof US $2.5 trillion, Mr Picot saysHSBC is “steeped” in work tocommunicate with the market.Part of this is done through theannual report, which is anunwieldy and increasingly compli-ancebased document. The 2012Annual Report and Account willrun to over 500 pages. Regulatorypressure has pushed up theamount of reporting required andmany different bodies, such asstock exchanges, also requireinformation. The effect has beento increase the burden on compa-nies. “My team in Londonproduces many checklists, I have achecklist of checklists to makesure I have completed all thechecklists.” The HSBC AnnualReport has a short statement atthe beginning of each sectionwhich says what happened duringthe year, what the impact was,how it affected risk, and what thebank is doing about it. The aim isto be clear and simple. Some

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reports are not so helpful. MrPicot said they “tell a story whichis ‘this just happened to be andmanagement didn’t do any-thing’.”

Mr Picot envisages IR as a secondreport because so much wouldhave to change to allow theannual report to be done differ-ently. It could be a distillation ofthe content of other reports, withinformation about what makesthe business model sustainablefor the long term and how thevarious capitals at its disposal areused. Mr Picot is optimistic aboutthe prospects for the future and isproud that the UK is a leader inadvancing IR. Voluntary privatesector initiatives, such as theEnhanced Disclosure Task Forcewhich has looked at how banksdisclose risk, have demonstrated adesire and capacity for changewithout the need to wait forgovernment action. IR, which isstrategic in its approach, would bea valuable counter to short-termism. It also resonates with thedesire for investors to have better,not more reporting. IR drivesboards to explain why they believethey will be around in the longterm by making them discuss howthey will deal with risk. Mr Picotcited the examples of breweriesthat faced water shortages andmanufacturers who use preciousmetals of which there are finitesupplies – investors need to knowhow the business will adapt. Atpresent, such issues are rarely

addressed in a consistent andcoherent manner. The outcomewill be improved business prac-tice. Mr Picot said: “There is nodoubt that, when directors realisesomething is going to getpublished, they start to payattention. I do think this will drivebroader, more balanced discus-sion and will allow appropriateinformation to be given to themarket.” Mr Picot concluded bysaying that he hoped to see IRprogress over the next couple ofyears and that the idea of asecond report could point the wayto the future.

Jan Bebbington

Professor Bebbington offered aconceptual framework withinwhich IR could be understood,stating that the debate over IR isnot new, as arguments over therole of organisations withinsociety are perennial. At theirheart is often the issue of a socialcontract – that is, “what is thedeal between organisations andsociety and how do we agree onthe deal?”

“Any scandal you care to think ofis usually about a social contracthaving fallen apart in some way,or having been misunderstood byrelative parties.” Such argumentsafflict everything from policingand healthcare to industrialissues.

Since 2008, one of the bigdebates has been over the kind ofstability and probity that can beexpected from banks.

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Once the issue of responsibility isagreed, accountabilities andaccounts come into play – andhave to be fit for purpose. Withsmall organisations, ProfessorBebbington said that simple wordof mouth can be highly effectivein determining if they wereresponsible. For other bodies,such as large for profits, there isoften the need to ascribe formalduties and to create formalaccounts about what they havedone. In recent decades, there hasbeen an insistence on accounta-bility and responsibility in agrowing number of areas, such asfair employment, economicstability and environmentalintegrity. Some of these aspectsare discussed in separate arenasfrom financial reporting. ProfessorBebbington said IR brings allthese relevant aspects together inone place and puts a strongcontext around the various issues.

Effective accounting is valuablenot just for the stakeholder orinvestor, but for the enterpriseitself. Professor Bebbingtonargued that the relationshipbetween the parties can be farmore complex than just theirformal contractual arrangements;there are implicit as well as explicitagreements. The latter can besubtle and subject to change – asmany firms have discovered in thepast.

Indeed, many organisations onlyfind out they’ve got it wrongwhen it’s in the public domain ...sometimes the social contractchanges without firms noticing. IRprovides a mechanism throughwhich organisations can keep themore subtle and fragile aspects oftheir relationship with the worldin view. In doing so, it not onlyhighlights future prospects butcan help to secure them.

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Food and environmental policymakers – and those advising them– have their work cut out in aworld beset by challenges. In alecture that covered serious issuesincluding food security, bovine TBand the – alleged – decline of thebumble bee, Professor Ian Boyd,the Chief Scientific Adviser toDefra, made the case for a shift toputting science at the heart ofpolicy.

Defra (the Department for Envi-ronment, Food and Rural Affairs)is the most important departmentin government: if governance ofcivil society has one function, it isto make sure its public has thebasics of life – food, water and aclean environment. That, saidProfessor Boyd, is what Defradoes. “Other things are impor-tant, but if you don’t supply theabsolute basics of life, you arefailing as a government.” Deliver-ing the Peter Wilson Lecture,Professor Boyd outlined some ofthe challenges facing Defra –where he has been Chief Scientistfor six months – and looked at theways it is addressing them. Healso gave a glimpse of thedepartment’s future strategic

Professor Ian Boyd FRSEChief Scientific Adviser to the Department for Environment,

Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

The Evidential Basis for Food and Environmental PolicyJoint Annual Peter Wilson Lecture with the Scottish Consortium for Rural

Research and the Society of Biology, Scotland

21 February 2013

direction. Defra is working on anew research strategy, he said,which will be published this year.It is likely to focus on three areas:food and water security; disease(including animal disease such asbovine TB, and plant disease suchas ash die-back); and environmen-tal stress.

These issues will be tackled in avariety of ways, including systemsand data analysis and modelling.Professor Boyd’s lecture coveredfive broad areas: science ingovernment; global stress; UKresponse and building resilience;environmental issues; and acuteissues, including bovine TB, treedisease and pollinators (inparticular the bumble bee).

Science in government

Professor Boyd said he was inalmost daily contact with minis-ters, who live in a world wherethings happen very quickly. Hedescribed the policy cycle –essentially from recognition of anissue, through to coming up witha solution and putting it in place,then evaluation. Today, sciencetends to sit in the latter part of thecycle (evaluation), whereas itshould rightly be at the start, at

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the strategic stage, to ensure thatpolicy is evidence-based. He wantsto see a shift from policy-ledscience, to science-led policy. Atthe same time, it’s important to beclear about what science can –and cannot – do, and to be openabout limitations in knowledgeand about uncertainties. Failing tobe honest about uncertainties canlead to poor decision making, anda subsequent loss of public trustin science as an objective sourceof information.

Professor Boyd described his ownjob under three main areas ofoperation: risk management; cost-benefit trade-offs; and stimulatinginnovation. There are variousconstraints; for example, thedifficulty of communicatingcomplex ideas – including themeaning of risk. Regulation canalso be a constraint, as can thelong timescales involved; persuad-ing people to make decisionstoday when the pay-off may bedecades away is challenging. Butif a bright young scientist has anidea today, it might be 20 yearsbefore it translates into practice.For example, bovine TB will takefour decades to deal with, butpeople want solutions “tomor-row”, he said. He spoke aboutregulation, which, although well-intentioned, was not alwaysevidence-based and could haveperverse consequences. Inparticular, he referred to the EUHabitats Directive, which he said

had idealised objectives, butwasn’t evidence-based, and wasinflexible – the ingredients forpolicy failure. He quoted Kuznets’theory that as we become morewealthy, our environmental impactincreases, but then levels off andbegins to decline – the idea beingthat wealthier nations have morecash to plough into environmen-tal policies. Critics of this theorypoint out, however, that asnations become wealthier theywill ‘export’ their environmentalimpact to poorer countries, whichsimply involves transferring one’scarbon footprint, rather thanreducing it.

Global Stress

We live in a world in which thereare risks, some of them veryserious. Even if we are geographi-cally distant from many of theserisks (of volcanoes and tidalwaves, for example) the globaleconomy means that we will likelybe affected. We have to be alive toglobal challenges, and recognisethe impact that something whichhappens thousands of miles awaycan have on us.

Global challenges include worldpopulation growth, decliningavailability of oil (and risingenergy costs), climate change,inadequate water supply andfalling natural resources, especial-ly for agricultural purposes; e.g.phosphates. There are alsoincreasing levels of disease,affecting humans, animals and

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plants, exacerbated by interna-tional trade and growingresistance to treatments. Essential-ly, if we don’t act, then thesechallenges could engulf us.

Food security is a very real issue,and we have to consider whetherour own house is in order. Europeused to be self-sufficient in termsof food – now it isn’t – and the UKhasn’t been selfsufficient for along time. All of the challengesmentioned above (e.g. populationgrowth) are only going to makefood security more challenging asstress in the system is increasing.

UK response and buildingresistance

So how do we deal with thechallenges? There are technicalsolutions, and we should beencouraging innovation – forexample, with a research focus onincreasing production andefficiency. Other key solutionsinclude waste reduction at allstages of the supply chain,including in our own homes.Another solution could be“making the average into thebest” – that is, encouraging allproducers and others to performas well as the top few, in terms ofefficiency. “This is a particularbugbear of mine – it’s abouteducation, and encouraging earlyadopters,” Professor Boydexplained.

Environmental management

Professor Boyd referred to the UKNational Ecosystem Assessment

(2011), which warns againstundervaluing our ‘natural capital’and calls for a move to moresustainable development. Butthere are difficult trade-offs: bypursuing a ‘greener’ agenda, wemight harm food production. “Dowe want to eat, or do we want agreen environment?” he asked,acknowledging that the answerwould be somewhere in themiddle.

Acute issues

Part of Professor Boyd’s jobinvolves making judgments basedon future scenarios – what’s theworst that can happen? Theplausible worst-case scenario forbovine TB is “not pleasant”, hesaid, and the disease could, in thefuture, infect humans. The sadthing is that we had it undercontrol in the 1980s, but let it goagain in the 1990s, he added.Testing stopped for a short periodduring the 2001 Foot and Mouthoutbreak, which showed how fastthe disease could spread ifcontrols are removed; but evenwith those control in place, ratesof infection continue to grow.

There are four main areas ofactivity in trying to get a grip onthis disease: tuberculin testing,vaccination, biosecurity, andwildlife control. It’s this last whichis the most controversial, withDefra’s decision to proceed to abadger cull attracting widespreadcriticism. Although vaccination (ofcattle) is likely to be the most

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effective preventative tool, thereare challenges – you can’t tradevaccinated cattle with Europe,because they can’t be testedeffectively. An alternative has beenfound, but will take a minimum often years to get a usable vaccine,and it is only likely to be around60 per cent effective. A badgercull is a “blunt instrument”, butpilot culls have shown it iseffective, although only around16 per cent so. Even if cattle werevaccinated, it wouldn’t be analternative to culling badgers,because the reservoir of infectionwould remain – and in any case,the route of transmission isn’tclear, he added.

Tree disease is another acuteproblem which, while it is impor-tant, is not something that can beeradicated, he said. “We can doour best to stop it, but we’llcontinue to get tree disease.”Professor Boyd ended by talkingof the decline in numbers ofpollinators, because, he said, itillustrates the dilemmas facingpolicy makers and scientificadvisors. The evidence that thereis an actual decline is poor, butthe assumption is that it’s hap-

pening. Pesticides called neonico-tinoids have been blamed, andcampaigners have been calling fora ban. Banning these pesticideswould mean a loss of up to 30 percent in productivity of some crops.Although there have beenlaboratory-based tests whichshow that these pesticides aretoxic to bumble bees, this isn’tsurprising, as they are designed asinsect neurotoxins. There isn’t,however, good evidence that thepesticides have an impact in afield situation. Testing hasn’t sofar shown an impact – so do youkeep testing and testing to lookfor an effect, or do you walkaway? Bees have become a single-issue iconic case for thosewanting a ban, but there’s a poorevidence base for it, he said.What’s more, it would cost thefarming industry up to £400million – and we might end upexporting the problem if a banwere to be introduced here. Thereis, of course, however, a chancethat the campaigners are right.“Let me leave you with onethought,” said Professor Boyd.“How would you advise theminister?”

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Meteorology expert, Marjory Roy,told the story of why the weatherobservatory was set up on BenNevis by the Scottish Meteorologi-cal Society, what it was like towork there and what the observa-tions tell us about mountainweather.

Ben Nevis, the highest mountainin the British Isles, is located 50kilometres from the west coast ofScotland in the Lochaber region. Itoverlooks the long sea-loch ofLoch Linnhe and is surrounded bymountains. The mountain itselfcomprises cliffs to the north andsteep slopes to the south intoGlen Nevis; the summit plateau isextremely narrow. Today, the ruinsof the Ben Nevis Observatory canbe seen on the summit plateau,where the plaque inscriptiondescribes how hourly meteorolog-ical data was observed on the‘Ben’ between 1883 and 1904.

The Ben Nevis Observatory wasestablished at a time whenmeteorologists wanted to gain abetter understanding of weathersystems in order to improveforecasting. A good network ofland observations existedthroughout Europe, with dataexchanged daily via telegraph;

Marjory RoyThe Royal Meteorological Society Scottish Centre

The Weathermen of Ben Nevis 1883–1904

27 February 2013Lochaber High School

however, prior to the developmentof radio, it was virtually impossibleto get real-time observations fromships at sea or from higher up inthe atmosphere. In 1877, aged73, David Milne Home, Chairmanof the Council of the ScottishMeteorological Society (SMS),climbed the Ben and, confirmingit would be possible, proposedthe establishment of the BenNevis Observatory. Ben Nevis wasconsidered particularly well suitedto house a mountain-top observa-tory as it is situated in the track ofAtlantic storms. The SMS tried togarner government support withlittle success, although theMeteorological Council offered£100 a year towards the Observa-tory’s running costs. It was notuntil 1883, however, that thefunds required to build theObservatory were finally secured.

Prior to the building of theObservatory, having heard aboutthe SMS’s plans for Ben Nevis, agentleman named ClementWragge offered to climb BenNevis daily during the summer of1881 to record meteorologicalobservations. His offer wasaccepted and he duly carried outhis duties between June andOctober 1881. At this time there

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was no formal path to the Bensummit and his route took him,partly on horseback, north ofMeall an t’Suidhe to the lochanthen straight up Ben Nevis besidethe Red Burn. He left home eachmorning just after 4.30 am andmade timetabled observations atvarious locations as he climbed.He then spent two hours on thesummit before returning at 3.30pm. Meanwhile, his wife madesimultaneous observations at nearsea-level in Fort William. Hisequipment on the summit,including thermometers, washoused in a purpose-built ‘cage’,the remains of which can still beseen. He also had a stone hut toprovide some protection andhouse his barometer. Wraggeclimbed the Ben in all weatherconditions, leading to his inevita-ble nickname ‘inclement rag’,since he frequently returnedsoaked to the skin. Wragge’sobservation books, stored in theBen Nevis Observatory collectionat the National Records ofScotland, show a flamboyant butvery conscientious character.Wragge continued his observa-tions in 1882, but this time hehad two assistants named Whyteand Rankin, who also carried onthe observations in the summer of1883. Rankin’s observations fromJune 1883, stating he was blownoff his feet on the plateau in aforce ten easterly wind, depicthow severe the weather on theBen can be, even in the summer

months. Wragge and his assist-ants’ experiences over their threeyears on Ben Nevis showed thatthe weather at the summit couldbe more severe than the SMS hadexpected and that a more sub-stantial building would berequired for the Observatory. Theyalso realised that automaticinstruments would probably notwork in such conditions and amanned observatory with a largerstaff would be required. SMSlaunched a public appeal and£4000 was raised in a fewmonths, allowing building workto commence. The Ben NevisObservatory building was openedon 17 October 1883 by MrsCameron Campbell, proprietor ofthe Ben Nevis Estate, who madethe ascent on a pony using thenewly-constructed pony trackwhich followed a route suggestedby the local schoolmaster.

Alexander Buchan, the distin-guished meteorologist, drew upthe schedules of observation,instructed the observers andanalysed the data. Wragge hadexpected to be appointed to theposition of First Superintendent ofthe Observatory. However, twenty-one applications were received forthe post and the Directorsunanimously decided to appointRobert Traill Omond, a far lessflamboyant character, consideredto be better suited to the crampedconditions in the Observatory.Following this, Wragge departedto Australia and continued an

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interesting meteorological career.Angus Rankin, one of Wragge’soriginal assistants, did, however,continue to work at the Ben NevisObservatory.

The building was completed in1884 with the addition of a towerand the enlargement of theobservatory room. The towerprovided an alternative exit whensnow blocked the main entrance;this had caused major problemsduring the first winter. The toweralso housed the anemometer,wind vane and lightening conduc-tor. The inside of the Observatorywas quite cosy, except during theautumn storms and in early winterbefore the snow provided aninsulating blanket. Meteorologicalrecords show the frequency of hillfog on the Ben (80% of the timein November, December andJanuary); it was common for thesummit to be capped in fog whensurrounding summits remainedclear. Additionally, sunshine totalswere low despite an unobstructedhorizon. Severe icing meant thatthe anemometer could not beused for much of the year.However, on these occasions windforce was measured by theassistants standing on the roofand making scientific estimations;calibrating themselves againsteach other and the anemometerwhen it was working. They foundthat when compared with ane-mometer readings, the actualspeed for a given force is consider-ably higher on the Ben Nevis scale

than the Beaufort scale. Recordsfrom the early Ben Nevis data havebeen compared with more recentwind direction data from Cairn-gorm and show an unusualtopographic effect. Ben Nevis hasa low frequency of north-wester-lies and a very high frequency ofnortherlies compared withCairngorm. It is unlikely that theclimate has changed dramaticallyover c. 100 years and as such it isconsidered that on Ben Nevis thenorth-westerly winds are beingdeflected round the flank of CarnDearg into Coire Leis between BenNevis and Carn Mor Dearg and areappearing as very gusty norther-lies at the summit. The originalweathermen of Ben Nevis at thetime did not appreciate that thiswas a local effect and thoughtthat the rapid veering of the windwith height was a characteristic ofdepressions. The meteorologicalreports were sent daily by tele-graph to the Scottish newspapersbut the Met Office turned downthe offer of daily telegrams on thegrounds of costs; asking only tobe sent telegrams on occasions ofspecial interest and indeed, a fewyears later asked for no moretelegrams. They still receivedmonthly copies of the observa-tions by post, but there is noevidence that they ever studiedthese.

In addition to those made on BenNevis, the local schoolmasteroriginally made observations inFort William five times a day.

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When the Edinburgh InternationalExhibition of 1886 presented SMSwith surplus funds amounting to£1000, it was decided to use thismoney to build a low-levelobservatory in Fort William whichwould provide continuous recordsfor comparison with those takenfrom the summit. The Meteoro-logical Council provided theinstruments and the low-levelobservatory was completed in thesummer of 1890. Temperaturecomparisons from the twoobservatories showed that theaverage fall in temperaturebetween Fort William and the Benwas 8.5°C, equivalent to a changeof 6.4°C in 1000 metres. Themean annual temperature at thesummit was -0.3°C and that at thelow level observatory was 8.4°C.However, during inversions (rise oftemperature with height), the BenNevis Observatory could bewarmer than Fort William. Rainfallcomparisons show an annualrainfall at the summit of just overfour metres, approximately doublethat in Fort William. The Ben Nevisweathermen also experiencedproblems with the accuratemeasure of precipitation at thesummit since much fell as snow. Inthe early years, the observersspent ten months of the year atthe summit, but following theconstruction of the low-levelobservatory, the duties wereshared between the observatories,with staff changing locationsevery three months. Alexander

Drysdale acted as a relief observerfor extended periods at thesummit and bequeathed hisslides, photos and lecture notes tothe Edinburgh MeteorologicalOffice and these are now inNational Records of Scotlandarchives. His notes give a vividpicture of life at the summit ofBritain. The normal hourlyobservation routine took only fiveto ten minutes, but when therewas a storm it could be very adifferent story; making observa-tions during a winter storm couldbe very dangerous, especially witha southerly wind, as the Observa-tory was situated very close to thecliffs to the north of the Ben. Onoccasions when it was consideredtoo dangerous to go out, theobservers used thermometersexposed in a screen attached tothe outside of the tower, whichcould be read from inside. Theobservers frequently had to digout the Observatory doors andwindows following blizzards. Theyalso used a potentially treacher-ous ‘gardyloo’ system to disposeof their rubbish into a gully.

CTR Wilson, Scotland’s firstrecipient of the Nobel Prize inPhysics, acted as a relief observeron Ben Nevis for two weeks from8 September to 22 September1894 and in an article publishedin Weather magazine in 1954, hedescribed his experience there andthe effect it had on all his futurescientific work. The log bookduring Wilson’s time at the

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Observatory contains four pagesof daily notes relating to weatherconditions and describes anunusual period of exceptionallyfine weather with very low rainfall,where anticyclonic conditionsprevailed throughout the north.Wilson’s interest in glories andcorona was aroused during hisshort stay on the Ben. Glories areoptical phenomena, resembling ahalo or rainbow, seen aroundshadows when the observer isdirectly between the sun and acloud of refracting water droplets.Following his visit to Ben Nevis,Wilson started laboratory experi-ments on clouds formed by theexpansion of moist air. Theseeventually led to his invention ofthe Cloud Chamber, one of themost important instruments usedin particle physics research.

Omond, the first Superintendentof the Ben Nevis Observatory,stopped working at the summit in1895 due to health issues, butcontinued to supervise the workfrom Edinburgh. Rankin, firstassistant from the beginning, wasappointed Superintendent inNovember 1897. Another observ-er, named Mossman, worked as avolunteer on the Ben for a longperiod from 1889 and showedgreat potential. He was takenunder Alexander Buchan’s wingand subsequently, around 1897,published a monumental work onthe climate of Edinburgh. He wasalso appointed the meteorologist

on the Scottish Antarctic expedi-tion of 1902–04; during which hisexperience on Ben Nevis stoodhim in good stead when makingmeteorological observations inthe polar region. The leader of theAntarctic expedition was anotherScot, W S Bruce, who also hadexperience of meteorologicalobservations at Ben Nevis in 1895and 1896. During the expedition,the men were stationed in theSouth Orkney Islands and set up ameteorological station there,naming it ‘Omond House’. Thisstation was taken over by Argen-tine meteorologists and remainsthe longest-running meteorologi-cal record in the Antarctic area.

Despite the relatively low set-upcost and modest salaries, the BenNevis Observatory was continuallyfaced with financial problems. Thegovernment funding remained at£350 per year for the two observ-atories; yet, the annual runningcosts were near to £1000. Incomefrom other sources and donationskept things running for sometime. However, in 1902 theMeteorological Council an-nounced that the annual grantwould cease to be paid. Questionswere asked in Parliament and anenquiry set up; but when itreported back in 1904 it onlyrecommended that the £350,should continue. As the observa-tories would not be able tocontinue on the original fundingof £350 the Directors had to make

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the decision to close them in1904. The Fort William low-levelObservatory building was put upfor sale and today is a guesthouse. The Ben Nevis Observatorybuilding and the bridle path tothe summit were made over to theproprietors of the ground. Thedata from the Observatories wasprepared and published in full,along with extracts from the logbooks, in the Transactions of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh. TheObservatory employees continuedtheir careers in meteorology inalternative locations, including the

Argentine Meteorological Service.Today, the Ben Nevis Observatorylies in ruin and the current landowner, the John Muir Trust, haspledged to look after it andmaintain the pony track.

Mountain observations continueto be in great demand in moderntimes. Now, rather than mannedobservatories, many areas, such asAonach Mor, use automaticweather stations. There arecontinued issues with keepingthese operating in severe environ-ments.

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Executive Summary

This two-day conference exploredan important public policy topicrequiring both medical and socialscientific evidence. The researchpresented during the conferenceemphasised the need to focus onthe social context in whichwomen’s reproductive healthdecisions are made, as well astaking into account the biologicalconstraints and possibilities thatinfluence such decisions. Speakerstherefore demonstrated that amultidisciplinary approach towomen’s reproductive health isrequired.

Speakers highlighted that themedical technologies available towomen and their partners aredeveloping rapidly, and thatchanging social expectations ofmen’s and women’s roles insociety, as well as an increase inlife expectancy, have changed thecontext in which women’s repro-ductive decision making occurs.However, as several presentersstressed, the time points at whicha woman’s fertility is optimal, andwhen fertility begins to decline,have remained static. Though IVFis often lauded as a ‘cure all’ for

Conference

Women’s Reproductive Health across the LifecourseImplications for Public Policy

27-28 February 2013

Full Conference Report : ISBN: 978 0 902198 96 8Available on the RSE website.

couples who delay childbearing,the risks of over-reliance upon IVFto treat infertility were highlightedby several speakers.

The importance of a lifecourseapproach to women’s reproduc-tive health was recognised in thisconference, with presentationsfocusing on women’s workinglives, as well as on the reproduc-tive health of older women. Talksexploring women’s reproductivehealth during childbearing yearsincluded those discussing howwomen balance a career withfamily life and the barriers theyface; for example, factors deter-ring women from breastfeedingor from expressing milk in theworkplace. The personal andeconomic costs of menstruationand cycle-related problems werealso considered, along with thecomplex and contextual nature ofwomen’s reproductive decisions.The reproductive health of womenin later life was explored inpresentations discussing theeffect of the menopause onlifestyle and wellbeing, and thesexual health of older people.

It was noted that the issue ofwomen’s reproductive health is

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neglected both in researchfunding and in public policy,despite there being many areas inwhich progress could be made.This may be remedied by a moreholistic approach to women’sreproductive health, as opposedto the issue being spread acrosssexual health, maternal and childhealth, and obstetrics andgynaecology. Areas for potentialchanges to policy and legislationinclude improving the educationof young people about reproduc-tive health as relevant across thelifecourse, including the realitiesof infertility. This may include theuse of social media, and couldhelp to encourage a culture wherethese issues are talked about,rather than seen as taboo. Theneed for a move away frommasculinist work practices,towards a culture in which womenand men can balance theiremployment and family life moreeasily, was also highlighted. Otherareas for potential policy changeinclude the availability of oralcontraceptives, and a call forpublic health approaches to thesexual health of older people.

Key Messages from the Confer-ence

Women’s reproductive health is animportant policy issue

Women’s reproductive health hasimplications for social andeconomic policy. However, theconference highlighted therelative invisibility of some of the

issues raised in terms of publicpolicy debates. There is a need toraise the visibility of women’sreproductive health as somethingrelevant across the lifecourse, andto support health-promotingworkplaces.

Women’s reproductive wellbeinghas implications for Scotland’seconomy

Reproductive health has a signifi-cant impact on work, social anddomestic activities for women atall stages of the lifecourse.Examples include the impact ofmenstrual disorders on days lostfrom the workforce, or thechallenge of maintaining breast-feeding for women returning towork. The inevitable decline infertility with age may require areconsideration of career struc-tures for both women and men.The extension of life expectancymeans that women’s working liveshave expanded beyond “repro-ductive life” into thepost-menopausal years. Thehealth-related needs of olderwomen in the workforce need tobe recognised.

Women’s work, in private but alsopublic spheres, remains relativelyinvisible

Though women form a large partof the workforce, they also oftenperform the ‘uneconomic’ butvital social task of birthing, breastfeeding and caring for children, aswell as caring for their partnersand, increasingly, for their ageing

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parents. A cultural shift is requiredin terms of how we view childrearing, which almost invariablyfalls to women. It is seen as low-status and low-skill, which hashuge implications for a woman’sconfidence and status, not only inthe workplace but also in widersociety. There is a relative paucityof data exploring the experiencesof how women take on roles andresponsibilities that in the pasthave been carried out exclusivelyby men (for example, women incombat roles in the military).Increased recognition of womenas major contributors to theworkforce may consequently raiseawareness of the challengeswomen face in dealing with theirreproductive health, caring forchildren, but also elderly parents,especially at a time when they arealso building their careers andtaking on leadership roles.

Gender inequality persists in theworkplace and domestic sphere

In many ways, it is still a man’sworld whereby women work morein the home and family, earn lessand have to juggle (and hide) thedifficulties they face, especiallywhen related to their reproductivehealth. Interdisciplinary, cross-policy dialogue and action arerequired to achieve change ingender relations at work and athome.

A multidisciplinary and lifecourseapproach to women’s health isrequired

Women’s reproductive health hasmany dimensions, and strategiesto address the scope for improve-ment need to take account ofthese in a fully integrated way.There is a need to understandwomen’s health and reproductionwithin the context of society, andto recognise that in today’s world,social, economic and personalfactors tend to dominate choiceover reproductive timing, suchthat the hard realities of biologicalconstraints tend to be neglected.Perhaps there is a need for aholistic focus on women’s health,as opposed to the current ap-proach which separates this topicinto different areas, such as sexualhealth and maternal health. Thiswould lend itself to a moreintegrated and life course ap-proach to problem management.More research is required toexplore fully the social andeconomic costs of reproductivehealth in general and reproductivedecision making in particular, forwomen across the lifecourse, andto ameliorate any negative effecton women themselves. There isalso a need to extend the conceptof sexual and reproductive healthto include not only adversereproductive health outcomes, butalso wellbeing and satisfaction.

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Improved education and adviceregarding reproductive ageing isrequired

Improved education on reproduc-tive ageing is essential, as isresearch into the social influencesunderpinning current behaviourin terms of decisions on timing ofchild bearing. There is a need toaccept, at an individual level andin policy and practice, the biologi-cal constraints on reproductivechoice and wellbeing. Men andwomen have newly enhancedexpectations of choice in relationto sexual behaviour, partneringand parenting, but the need toaccommodate the impact of

nature as well as nurture inrelation to these experiences isoften neglected. Women need tobe better educated about theconsequences of putting offfertility decisions, including thesuccess rates of treatments suchas in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Sucheducation should also drawattention to pre-conceptionhealth, and must take place at anearlier stage in the lifecourse.Society needs to ensure women(and couples) receive appropriateadvice and support to ensure thatreproductive issues can besatisfactorily balanced with aworking life.

Conference Programme for Information

Day 1

Introductory Session – Reproductive Health: Women, Work and CareChair: Professor David Baird CBE FRSE, Emeritus Professor of ReproductiveEndocrinology, University of, Edinburgh

Raising issues: recent trends and implications for policyProfessor Sarah Cunningham-Burley AcSS. Professor of Medical and FamilySociology, University of Edinburgh

Life expectancy and reproductionProfessor Tom Kirkwood CBE. Director of Newcastle Initiative on ChangingAge (NICA), Newcastle University

Work and health: contemporary issues and future prospectsProfessor Linda McKie. Professor of Sociology, Durham University

Family FormationChair: Dr Catherine Calderwood. Medical adviser for maternity and wom-en’s health, Scottish Government

Debate: When should a woman have a baby?

Who benefits from women ‘delaying’ childbearing?Professor Susan Bewley. Professor of Complex Obstetrics, King’s CollegeLondon

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Fertility decisions are complicated and contextualProfessor Sarah Cunningham-Burley. Professor of Medical and FamilySociology, University of Edinburgh

Combining work and family – perspectives from experienceProfessor Susan Wray. Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology,University of Liverpool

Does policy and legislation meet women’s needs?Clare Simpson. Project Manager, Parenting across Scotland

An employer’s perspectiveDr Stewart Irvine. Director of Medicine, NHS, Education for Scotland

Panel Discussion – Policy implications of afternoon session

Chair: Professor Alice Brown CBE FRSE. Then General Secretary, RoyalSociety of Edinburgh

Participants: Speakers and Chair from afternoon session, plus: Dr MarionSlater, Co Chair, Trainees and Members’ Committee, Royal College ofPhysicians, Edinburgh

Day 2

The Reproductive YearsChair: Professor Iain Cameron. Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Universityof Southampton

Epidemiological evidence and socio-economic costs of reproductiveproblems in UK

Professor Siladitya Bhattacharya. Professor of Reproductive Medicine,University of Aberdeen

Menstruation and cycle-related problemsProfessor Hilary Critchley FRSE. Professor of Reproductive Medicine,University of Edinburgh

The maternal body in the workplace: a focus on breastfeedingexperience and practicesDr Caroline Gatrell. Director of Doctoral Programmes, Senior Lecturer,Department of Management Learning and Leadership, Lancaster University

Sex and health

Professor Kaye Wellings. Head of SEHR and Professor of Sexual & Reproduc-tive Health Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

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Fertility regulation – changing policy to improve accessProfessor Anna Glasier Honorary Professor, University of Edinburgh andLondon School of Hygiene and Medicine

Post-Reproductive YearsChair: Professor Jonathan Seckl FMedSci, FRSE. Vice-Principal (Planning,Resources and Research Policy) The Queen’s Medical Research Institute,University of Edinburgh

A lifecourse approach to women’s health and ageingProfessor Rebecca Hardy. Professor of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics,University College London and Programme Leader, MRC Unit for LifelongHealth and

Ageing

The menopausal transition: its effect on lifestyle and healthProfessor Anna Glasier OBE Honorary Professor, University of Edinburghand London School of Hygiene and Medicine

Panel discussion - Overall policy implicationsChair: Professor Neva Haites OBE FRSE. Vice-Principal for Development,University of Aberdeen

Participants: Chairs from Day 1 and Day 2 of the Conference

On 27 February, Dr Ngozi Dufty, Consultant in GU Medicine, BirminghamHeartlands Hospital gave a public lecture entitled Sexual and ReproductiveHealth Issues for Women in Combat

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Ian StevensCEO, Touch Bionics

Growing Healthcare Technology Businesses – Bringing EngineeringInventions to Market with Limited Resources

RSE/RAE Joint Annual Lecture

4 March 2013

Ian Stevens was born in 1963 inBelfast and educated at the city’sRoyal Academy and then at theUniversity of Edinburgh, graduat-ing in economics in 1985. AfterUniversity Ian spent six years inThe Royal Air Force and thenjoined KPMG, trained, qualifiedand worked as a CharteredAccountant in Oxford and Pragueending up back in Edinburgh in1998 with his wife and two (nowfour) children.

Between 1998 and 2007 Ian wasemployed by Optos plc, a medicaltechnology company specialisingin the imaging of the retina, firstlyin the roles of CFO in Dunferm-line, Scotland, and then from2003 as General Manager, NorthAmerica in Boston, USA.

From 2007 Ian was CEO ofMpathy Medical, a surgicalmedical device company and in2011 he joined prosthetic handmanufacturer, Touch Bionics, asCEO.

Ian counts himself fortunate tohave been associated with thedevelopment of three disruptiveand leading healthcare technolo-gies over the last 14 years. Firstlythe Optomap retinal scan fromOptos, then Smartmesh for pelvic

floor restoration with MpathyMedical and, most recently, the I-limb multi-articulating prosthetichand from Touch Bionics.

In the 2013 Annual Joint Lecture,Ian explored how these inventionswere brought to market, describ-ing some of the challengesovercome and discussing how theproducts evolved to meet theneeds of their users. The main aimof this lecture was to illustratesome of the key decisions sur-rounding the introduction andgrowth of:

- the Optomap retinal exam fromOptos

- Smartmesh for pelvic floorrestoration from Mpathy

- the i-limb bionic hand fromTouch Bionics

Ian discussed the impact of thesedecisions on the engineeringdevelopment of the products,especially in relation to theirphysical appearance, range offunctionality and, where appropri-ate, in the software andmechanical interfaces used tocontrol them. He showed how thetechnologies were adapted tomeet their users’ needs, to surviveand then flourish as businesses.

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Optos

The crucial career moment camefor Ian in the summer of 1998when he went work at Optos,with Douglas Anderson, in a cold,damp portakabin in Dunfermline.He had met Douglas a fewmonths earlier, who had thenshared the Optos fledglingbusiness plan. At that time therewas one prototype imagingsystem, ten (mainly R&D) staff andabsolutely not a sniff of anyrevenue. Ian had been working incorporate finance and part of hisjob was to assess the businessplans of young companieslooking for equity funding. TheOptos business plan was the mostcompelling that he had ever seen:a massive unmet need, combinedwith clear intellectual propertyand a technology which was tricky,but possible to manufacture.

Optos was founded becauseDouglas’s young son, Leif, wasunfortunate enough to sufferfrom retinal detachments. Theseleft him blind in one eye and withreduced vision in the other.Douglas was determined thatother patients and parents wouldnot have to go through what heand Leif had. As Ian said, “it’s somuch better to invent somethingwhich solves a known problem,rather than stumbling across aninteresting technological discoveryand then thinking, ‘well that’sinteresting, now what shall I dowith it?’” It took the third team

hired by Douglas to solve hisproblem. -To get an image of theretina, you have to shine light onit and then get that light back, inand out of an opening, the pupil,which fundamentally does not liketoo much light interfering with it,and constricts in those circum-stances.

Douglas’s team reminded him thatan ellipsoidal mirror has two focalpoints. The solution to theproblem was therefore to placethe eye at one focal point, fire alow energy laser beam into it andthen place the collection device atthe other focal point to collect thereflected energy. This gave no timefor the pupil to constrict, meaningthere was no need for uncomfort-able contact with the cornea.- Ianobserved that the thing aboutclever inventions like this one isthat they always seem obvious,just after they have been invent-ed!

From an engineering point ofview, there were some significantissues to be solved, such asscanning that laser light aroundthe entire surface of the retina.That challenge required the use ofa spinning polygon rotating atexactly 27,356 revolutions perminute.

Then there was an ergonomicrequirement to position the eye ofthe patient in precisely the rightplace to get the laser beamthrough the pupil in the firstplace. In addition, there were

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extremely demanding manufactur-ing tolerances relating to theperformance and positioning of15 or so mirrors and lenses todirect and collect that returninginformation. The bigger questionwas as yet unanswered. Once thetechnical problem was solved,“well then, so what really – howdoes it all get paid for – how doyou make it a business?”

The highly skilled ophthalmolo-gist had not, via his manualexamination, obtained enoughinformation to satisfactorilydiagnose Leif’s condition. He hadadmitted that he was only ‘gettinga glimpse’.

By inventing the Optomaptechnology, Douglas solved thosetwo problems – they could getlots more information and couldrecord it digitally so it was therefor review, rather than accessibleonly via the practitioner’s memory.But the technology needed to dothis was very expensive – tens ofthousands of pounds for eachdevice, even after manufacturingvolume reductions. So how coulda viable business be created?

The answer relates to our desire tobe reassured about our health.Conditions of, or evident in, theretina, such as diabetic bleeding,macular degeneration, retinaldetatchment, glaucoma, highblood pressure leading to strokeand (more rarely, but even moregravely in terms of consequences)ocular tumours, are often a-

symptomatic and can be detectedat an early stage via regular andcomprehensive examination of theretina.

Essentially, when we have our eyeschecked – and this should be-annually – we want to be toldonly one thing – that we are fine.But we also want to have confi-dence that if we are not fine thenour doctor will identify andrecognise the visual signs prompt-ing an adverse diagnosis. SoOptos made several decisions veryearly on, before it ever earned asingle dollar in revenue.

Optos determined:

- that it would sell the Optomapimage, rather than the deviceitself, giving the practitioner themeans to carry out the screen-ing exam and building theconfidence of the patient;

- that the Optomap would beeasily reviewable, saveable andavailable for comparison withsubsequent images each year;

- that huge resources would gointo the software to deliver thateducational experience to thepatient and the performance;

- that usage levels of the practicewould all be recorded andtransmitted daily to Optos, sothat they could proactively helpthose practitioners who werenot being successful in gettingall or most of their patients tohave an annual Optomap exam;and • that it would do all this

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mainly in the USA, where themedical side of optometry wasalready a service that patientswere prepared to pay for, ratherthan in this country, for exam-ple, where we expect to get thisfor free. Subsequent engineer-ing was focused on thebusiness objectives of highusage levels, precise and easyimage-taking by the patientthemselves, and modularequipment design, for example:

- the Patient software, called V2vantage, was designed withminimum data input time andmaximum educational opportu-nity, utilising libraries of diseaseimages for comparison, allow-ing zoom and pan features toreview areas of interest ingreater detail;

- the alignment system wasconsistently refined so that thepatient would know when theywere exactly in the rightposition to get that tiny laserbeam through the tiny pupil,first time, saving time;

- the original whole system unitwas modularised in order toextend the lifetime of theequipment indefinitely. Rentalcontracts could be extendedafter the initial three-year termexpired, without the need forexpensive equipment replace-ment – both the equipment andthe software were ‘evergreen’.

And all of this went alongside thenecessary continuous improve-ments to the repeatability,shortening and cost-effectivenessof the manufacturing process.These engineering policiesallowed the stakeholders andfinancial backers to feel confidentin the future of the company. Theshareholders could see thenumber of Optomaps andplacements rising, thus justifyingtheir investment, the bankproviding leasing finance couldsee that each system was finan-cially self-sufficient, i.e., thepractitioner was selling enoughOptomaps to his patients to coverthe lease payments, and theinvestment bank handling Optos’seventual IPO could see that thisrevenue could continue well intothe future without the need forexpensive equipment replace-ment.

To summarise, Optos raised itsfirst invoice for $94.50, that’s sixOptomaps at $15.75 each, on 31August 1999, and floated on theLondon Stock Exchange 6½ yearslater in February 2006 at a marketcapitalisation of c$250m, bywhich time revenue was up to$65m annually, with over 3,000locations selling Optomaps.Renewal percentage rates were inthe high 90s, remain high today,and the company continues togrow, with revenue now headingtowards $200m annually.

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Dave Nelson, President of theAmerican Optometric Association,who in 2006 was leading Ameri-ca’s 35,000 Optometrists,recognised how critical the earlydetection capability was to hispatients and he remains a custom-er today. Optos tended to findthat once a customer had this sortof experience, and they did often,that they would never give theequipment back – they were withOptos for the long run. And ofcourse they were making signifi-cant revenue for their practicethrough the sale of the Optomapexam – and that also helped!

The final comment relating toOptos was that it was the proximi-ty and regular contact of staff withcustomers and patients thatprompted huge amounts offeedback, driving the direction offurther hardware and softwaredevelopment. Optos built a directsales force and as many clinicalconsultants, constantly visitingand training in the locations inAmerica. Since daily usage andperformance data came from everysingle system, the company couldact quickly to rectify any customerissues. Ian said that these werebig lessons for him. Ian hadmoved to the USA in 2003 asGeneral Manager and stayed for ayear after the float to help keepthe growth going. But his wifeand children headed back toScotland in 2006 for schoolingreasons, so in April 2007 he left

Optos and a couple of monthslater was lucky enough to meetanother brave and visionaryinventor.

Mpathy

James Browning is a consultantgynaecological surgeon who lefthis hospital post and joinedEthicon, a division of Johnson &Johnson in the mid 1990s. At thetime, Ethicon were introducing anew surgical product for women’shealth and James was recruited tolead the product development.Ethicon had adapted the poly-propolene mesh used for malehernia repair, which by then wasbecoming the norm rather thanrepairing hernias using sutures. Itwas planning to use the samemesh for pelvic floor prolapse inwomen, a condition often causeddue to old age, obesity or follow-ing child birth.

James was concerned that thehernia mesh was too heavy for themore delicate area it was nowbeing asked to be effective in, andthat problems would ensue werethe body to reject this implanta-tion. So in 2001 he quit his joband a secure future, raised somemoney from Archangel andScottish Enterprise, and set aboutinventing a lighter stronger mesh.

James did invent his lighter mesh.He invented a way to promotemuch higher new tissue growthafter implantation. Below is animage of the material. Compared

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to Ethicon’s mesh there was muchmore space and the mesh consist-ed of carefully woven fibres withtiny distances separating them.

James knew the size of the tinyparticles, called macrophages andneutrophyls, which are togetherresponsible for new tissuegrowth. He believed that if thespaces between individual fibresmaking up the strands of themesh could be restricted toapproximately 100 microns, thenthis would be an ideal location fornew tissue growth to commence.

Since the spaces between thestrands could now be bigger,there could be more air and lessmesh per square metre. Mpathy’smesh was therefore able to bepatented at less than 19 grammesper square metre – less than halfthe weight of that of the leadingcompetitors, but in clinical trialsapproximately 60% stronger.

Having come up with the idea andprototype, James and a couple ofcolleagues spent six years invent-ing, literally weaving, mesh,protecting his invention byregistering his intellectual proper-ty, conducting clinical trials andobtaining the necessary CE marks,and FDA approvals. But by 2007,he was out of money, and the bigcompetitors in the market place,billion-dollar companies such asEthicon, Tyco Covidien, Bard,Coloplast, Boston Scientific andAmerican Medical Systems, werehappy with their less effective

products and didn’t want to buyJames’s technology.

So the first phase of the engineer-ing was complete. The next phaseinvolved setting up a US Corpora-tion, branding the new companyand products as ‘advanced’ and‘market leading’, and going head-to-head in a very focused way withthese huge corporations. MpathyMedical had a limited range ofproducts, and chose to sell only inthe US, to carefully targetedleading urologists and urogynae-cologists, with again a direct salesforce.

Just as with Optos, Archangelagreed and funded this furtherbusiness development, and inearly 2008 Mpathy Medicallaunched a range of pelvic floorprolapse and stress urinarycontinence implantable medicaldevices, all manufactured inPrestwick, Scotland from this new,lightweight, physiologically-compatible material called,Smartmesh. Unusually for a newproduct in this area of medicine,at the time of final FDA approvaland product launch, Mpathy hadsubstantial and very positiveclinical evidence on Smartmesh’sresults. There was otherwise ageneral absence of favourableoutcome data for polypropolenemesh used for this type of surgery.It appeared that James had beencorrect in his reason for leavingEthicon. The other meshes werenot performing very well. But

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Smartmesh had achieved out-standing results in over 200 fullydocumented cases performed byrespected surgeons before asingle piece was sold. Mpathy hadlearned that in addition toSmartmesh’s low density persquare metre, there were otherimportant success factors for thistype of surgery; such as thesurface area of mesh left in thebody, the means of securing themesh within the body, and theactual shape of the mesh inrelation to the actual location ofthe prolapse.

Historically, this type of surgeryhad typically involved the surgeonpopping down to the back of theoperating theatre with a pair ofscissors, needle and thread andfashioning a bespoke device forthat particular operation, with thepatient already in the theatreunder a general anaesthetic.Women were being cured ofprolapse, but often sufferingcomplications and rejectionbecause of the intrusiveness -ofthe heavy mesh.

In bringing Smartmesh to UShospitals, Mpathy focused on apractical and timesaving approachfor the surgeon – customisedmesh. Different shapes of mesh,and different means of fixation.Over the next two years, Mpathyannoyed their huge competitorsso much that one of themeventually sued for alleged patentinfringement. This was code for

‘we would like to buy you so thatwe can use your technology toadvance our business’.

As a result Mpathy was sold to theDanish wound management andmale urology company Coloplast.With access to their wider distri-bution capability, product saleswere able to grow faster and thusoutsourced manufacturing stayedin Scotland. So In March 2011, Ianwas out of work again. Wherenext?

Touch bionics

Next for Ian came the chance towork with the amazing inventionthat is the i-limb hand, with theaim of bringing its benefits to asmany suitable recipients aspossible. Ian again was luckyenough to be associated with thebest product in the world in itsfield – and again the challengewas, and is, to develop thatproduct and its supportingorganisation so as to encouratewide adoption.

Ian stated that our hands are trulyamazing things. He invited theaudience to consider the range ofmovement possible, the precisionwith which objects can begrasped, the sensory feedbackfrom touching something, theassistance to balance and posi-tional awareness. And humanstake them for granted. Ianencouraged the audience to tryputting their hands in theirpockets and keeping them there

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for even a few minutes minutes.He suggested that this demon-strates how the entire means ofdealing with the world immedi-ately changes. He then asked theaudience to imagine that to bepermanent, and reminded themthat “everyone you meet willnotice this and form a view of youbased on how you are different,not necessarily in a malevolentway, but just because we noticethese things.

So how can an advanced electron-ic hand provide a conforming gripand dexterity? Invention, shrewdobservation skills and innovativeengineering were required…”--Ian had known about TouchBionics before 2011. It wouldhave been hard not to have beenaware of David Gow’s inventionwhen the first i-limbs came tomarket in 2008. At that stagehowever, he didn’t know anythingabout the history.

The roots of the Touch Bionicsproject went back to the early1960s and to the tragedy that wasThalidomide. The project wasevolved over many project teams,twists and turns, to eventuallybring to patients who hadsuffered upper limb loss, a multi-articulating, variably-gripping,self-esteem-elevating, prosthetichand.

Electric hands have been aroundfor decades, but they have beenclawlike in appearance. They werevery strong in their grip, but their

digits lacked the ability to con-form around an object, to gripwith sufficient force or to inde-pendently articulate. Thosefeatures are necessary to trulyconfer to the user a significantrestoration of their ability toperform -a wide range of theactivities of daily living. One day inthe late 1980s, David, an engineerworking for the Scottish NHS, wasworking out on his wife’s exercisebicycle. He noticed that thespeedometer on the bicycle wasloose, that the mechanism thattransmitted the speed readingwas going round and roundinstead of being fixed, and that ithad a particular combination ofgearing called a worm wheelinside it, and he spotted asolution to the manufacture ofthose ‘pesky’ prosthetic digitswhich he had been trying toperfect for ten years.

It was that problem-resolvingdiscovery that allowed David tocontinue his research work,inserting a small motor into eachdigit, thus achieving sufficientgrip strength combined withminiaturisation. That advance,along with gaining funds fromArchangel & Scottish Enterprise,eventually allowed him to foundTouch Bionics just over ten yearspreviously.

The Royal Society of Edinburghhad last heard about the i-limbfour years previously, at the RAE/RSE Joint Lecture in March 2009.

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At that time, Touch Bionics hadintroduced its prosthetic digits inthe form of a full hand, called thei-limb hand, and also for patientswith partial hand loss. At thattime around 500 patients hadbeen fitted.

By the time of this lecture over4,000 patients had been fittedwith i-limbs and this was now thethird generation of i-limb calledthe i-limb ultra. The main aim ofTouch Bionics is the provision of ahand of which the patient can beproud, thus encouraging thatperson to use it for a wider rangeof activities.

Ian said it was constantly evidentthat if patients feel less selfconscious, more empowered andconfident, and if they have beenproperly trained, then they wearand use their replacement limbmore often, especially whencompleting normal everyday livingtasks such as holding a cup, usinga camera, playing with a ball orpicking up small objects. It hadbeen focus on everyday taskswhich was the defining featuresof the development of the i-limbover the previous four years.

Some of the tools for productivityare obvious which, he said, is thewhole point. Touch Bionics seeksto simplify the use of the i-limb,believing that the wearers alreadyhave enough challenging situa-tions with which to deal. And thatsimplification and learning startsbefore the device is fitted. It has

been found that practising how touse the muscles which control thehand and getting used to theBiosim software before actuallybeing fitted, improves familiarityand encourages faster and morepermanent adoption. Patientsimply connect up to their pcs andoff they go – the virtulimb issimply another blue tooth device.And all of the control softwareavailable on the pc can also beprovided on an ipod touch.

Tapping favourite grips andfeatures in a couple of secondsallows i-limb wearer more flexibili-ty in what they can do – so theycan easily pick up a plate in arestaurant or type on a key boardusing an extended index finger ortie their shoelace. In fact thelimitation of the usefulness of ani-limb hand is not in the range ofmovement possible, but in thewearers physical ability to controlthose movements.- There are 14commonly available popular grips,although in practice the hand canmove to any combination of digitpositions. The ipod, and lots oftraining help, but the new frontieris to come up with ways toprovide the brain and the bodymore ways actually to access andcontrol these features quickly. Ianthen described two recentimprovements that came about inresponses to the wishes of thepatients just to be ‘more normal’.The first is called Autograsp.Because the hand does not confer

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a sense of touch to the user, someassistance is required to stopobjects which have been graspedbeing dropped accidentally. Thiscan happen if the user sends anaccidental ‘open’ command to thehand. If this happens then themotors will instantly operate,reclosing the fingers around theobject.

The second feature is the Varigrip.This was introduced to increasethe strength with which thefingers can grip, essentially byproviding an extra portion of gripforce through each finger, one ata time, much as we would whenwe grasp an object, our fingersconforming around it, tighteningjust enough to hold it securely. Byapplying the force sequentially tothe fingers, the hand can becontrolled much more sensitively,more power can be available toeach finger, and battery life can beconserved. So there is less anxietyabout running out of battery,plenty of power available, butcontrolled and applied one digitat a time.

A lot of time is also spent comingup with simple little things to‘humanise’ the hand. For instance,allowing the hand to return to itsnatural position, “as you and Iwould do involuntarily, after if hasbeen used, without having tocommand it to do so”. All that’sneeded is to set the time delay,and this will happen every timeautomatically.

The wrist is a very useful adden-dum to our hands, providing uswith enormous positional flexibili-ty for our hands and digits tograsp, press, point etc. But mostwhole hand amputations meanthe loss of the wrist. To try tobring back some of that function-ality a flexible poweredmechanical wrist is supplied andalso one which can continuouslyrotate. These wrists can flex in alldirections, and their introductionreduces the types of repetitivestress injuries which otherwiseoccur when the shoulders forexample are forced into awkwardmovements just to get the handsin the right position.

Ian went on to talk about i-limbdigits. Whole hand amputation ordeficiency is less common thanpartial hand loss. Thus, TouchBionics has introduced a ‘1 to 5’digit solution for those patientswith partial hand loss. It’s a verydemanding prosthetic challenge,with a unique solution for eachpatient, because every injury ispotentially very different from thenext. But an incredible degree offunctionality can be restored, fromworkplace or DIY activities to theubiquitous playstation and theindependence of operating amouse. And using the ipod,together with good rehabilitationtherapy, can make all these dailyactivities a reality again.

During and after the fitting of thefirst 200 or so patients with i-limb

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digits, Touch Bionics receivedsignificant feedback, which led toa set of criteria for the nextiteration of i-limb digits. The mostvisible improvement needed,related to the size of the digitsthemselves, or more accurately,the distance from their base to thepoint of rotation of the digit. Thatneeded to be reduced and, oncethat was done, because the digitsrotate around a point much closerto the base of the amputation,they look much more natural andits much easier to get the fingersand thumb to oppose easily. Thatis, for example, how we pick upobjects. And they learned otherthings about partial hand pa-tients. For example, that they wishto have full wrist movement, thatthey want their partial hand -to belighter, and therefore less sweaty –we perspire a lot through ourhands – and that they want thesoftware to be increasingly easy touse and for the batteries to beeasily swappable so that there isno anxiety about running out ofpower.

Thus i-limb digits were developedwhich are lighter, smaller, strongerand with all the software featuresand manufacturing robustnessimprovements built in. In additionthey are controllable with an ipodand have removeable and replace-able batteries.

Ian reiterated that self confidenceand reduced self consciousnessare the keys to usage, and that

this is an important feature of thecosmetic appearance of i-limb.Whilst Touch Bionics is happy toprovide the terminator look-alike,tattoos, bright red, etc, mostpatients are satisfied with accessto over 400 skin colour tones,matched freckles and hairs, andnails that can be painted. In2008, Touch Bionics actuallypurchased a company whichmakes these cosmetic coveringsand has spent a lot of time andmoney in developing new cover-ing methods, anti-slip coating toallow the covering to be put onand off easily, as well as morerobust and consistent formulaefor the consistency of the silicongloves. The i-limb user cantherefore be unnoticed in public,just as we all are normally.

In earlier mentions of Optos andMpathy, Ian referred to the needto ensure that, as well as beingfocused on the needs of thepatient, product developmentmust also take into account theneeds of the stakeholders,whether investors, bankers orcorporate financiers.

This is all also true at Touch, and afurther dimension is added by therequirement for outcomesevidence by the funders of thesedevices, who are most often likelyto be an insurance provider orpublic health authority. How arethe patients actually doing; arethey using the hands regularly; arethey able to perform an increased

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number of everyday functionalacitvities of daily living?

So having manufactured thehands, another crucial activity is toensure that their use is recordedand measured, in order to justifythe expense to the payer. Highlevels of usage can be monitoredby a combination of methods –including seeking regular andcomprehensively documentedpatient feedback on how they areachieving their goals, on howmany of the features of the handare in use, on how soon and easilythey have got back to work andon how well the hands aremaintained by enabling themalways to be available for use andnot in need of repair or service.The development of the reportingcapability software and databasesto hold this data has and willcontinue to be a focus. This isdone by getting ilimb wearers toconnect over the internet, so thatthey can report in a consistentdocumented manner on how theyare progressing. When they dothat, the hand sends a log of everymovement of the hand duringthat time, enabling a rich bank ofdata to be built up of whatfeatures they have been usingmost often, and also how well thehand is working.

All of this information is key tojustifying the expense andproviding input for future productdevelopment.

And so to the future ....

The i-limb is capable of doingmore than the human body cancommand it to do. No matterwhat TV or the newspapers mightsay or hope, we will never, wellnot in our lifetimes, make some-thing as wonderful as a humanhand. But we can do lots more toredress that balance. Ian describedthree contrasting examples ofdevelopments, each of which hastheir importance, in controllingthe hand, in improving dexterityand in making it easy to switchbetween the different features, sothat the dexterity can be accessedquickly and effortlessly. Control

It has been discovered that goldplating the electrodes which carrythose tiny electrical signals fromthe arm muscles to the hand’smicroprocessor, telling it what todo, improves the reliability andclarity of those signals enormous-ly. And it was also recognised thatlower profile electrodes allow themanufacture of a less obtrusiveprosthetic socket – wearers justwant not to be noticed. So thesevery low profile electrodes are veryuseful in both function and inimproving appearance.

Dexterity

Ian had talked about how incredi-ble our hands are, but he went onto point out that 40% of ourmanual dexterity is estimated tocome from our thumb. Until thenit had been very difficult to makethumbs that are electronicallyrotatable as well --as open and

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close. - But now the solution hadbeen found. This means that thewearer can now automtically andprecisely use powered rotation ofthe thumb for those fine motoractivities. So, for example, justgetting the thumb out of the wayto put on and take off clothes, orto carefully pick up small objectsbetween thumb and index finger,can now happen with one i-limbhand movement followed by useof the other hand to get thethumb position just right. It seemsunimportant but, Ian explained,“if you had one hand, werecarrying a briefcase in it, and thenwanted to use your i-limb to pickup a set of keys, well you wouldn’twant to have to put down yourbriefcase in order to position yourthumb to do that would you?”

Ease of use

And finally, thanks to the bril-liance of the Apple corporation itis now possible to pull all theelements together, the responsive-ness of electrodes, the choice ofgrips for different activities, all in asimple app available in the appstore. The objective is to makeprothetic devices a ‘normal’feature of our everyday lives – soamputees are comfortablewiththeir adoption – not inhibitedor under-confident in using them.Ian stated that this was what wascoming out at that time orimminently from the Touchengineering group led by HughGill. They were building on the

key invention – prosthetic digitswhich are independently articulat-ing, robust and strong, and tryingto get them used as easily andunobtrusively as possible, becausethe users demand it! Beforeclosing, Ian mentioned some keydevelopment areas that are thenext frontier for upper limbprosthetics. What if surgeonscould reposition nerves in activemuscle. Then the body could thinkit was moving a real hand andthat information could be relayedto the i-limb. This work is under-way in various research locationsaround the world by externalorganisations and Touch Bionicswere hopeful that the results willeventually be accessible bypatients using i-limb. The organi-sation itself was working andcollaborating with leadinguniversities in the areas of PatternRecognition and GyroscopicControl.

To explain – If microprocessorsand software could togetherinterpret certain signals from theelectrodes, and/or related physicalmovements and gestures, asunique to certain, grips orfeatures, then the hand could becommanded to respond accord-ingly – “think of an advanced Wiiand you have the general idea”.

And of course we would like toget closer to the original intent ofthis whole project, to make asmaller hand, perhaps notsuitable for very young children,

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but certainly aimed at smallerhumans, whether they are ofschool age or from for exampleAsian countries. With the smallerdigits, neater electrodes andsmaller pcbs this is perfectlypossible. Ian Stevens could not bemore enthusiastic about thefuture course of these develop-ments. The company is motivatednot only by its founder’s vision,but also by witnessing thehardships overcome by theamazing patients who restoretheir functions, not fully, becausethe human hand is a truly won-drous tool, but by very significantamounts.

Sigmund Freud said, in his bookCivilisation and its Discontents,published in 1929:

“Man has, as it were, become akind of prosthetic God. When heputs on all his auxiliary organs heis truly magnificent. But thoseorgans have not grown on to himand they still give him muchtrouble at times.”

I am not sure about the prostheticGod, statement, but those lasttwo sentences could very neatlysum up our ambition at TouchBionics. Raise the self esteem ofthe wearer – make them feelmagnificent, we all deserve thechance to feel good aboutourselves don’t we? But at thesame time my colleagues recog-nise the limitations of aprosthesis, and we seek tominimise those limitations bywringing every bit of utility fromthe ilimb by training, by making iteasy to use, by making its move-ments mechanically better.

Ian concluded by thanking theRoyal Society of Edinburgh andthe Royal Academy of Engineeringfor inviting him to present thisLecture and repeated howprivileged he felt to have had theopportunity to work with thesegreat inventions. “I know that forall of these inventions there ismuch more to be done”.

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In 1876 they wiped out GeneralGeorge A Custer and his 7thCavalry at the Battle of LittleBighorn. Chief Sitting Bull and hisSioux people then fled from theUnited States to Canada. A youngman followed White Bird toSitting Bull’s camp. This youngman’s name was Duncan McDon-ald. Descended from chiefs of theNez Perce and from chiefs of oneof Scotland’s most formidableclans, Duncan’s family – first asLochaber Highlanders, then asNative Americans – were twicevictims of massacre and disposses-sion. This lecture told their story.

Professor Hunter’s story began inJune 1876 when, near to the LittleBighorn River on the Great Plainsof eastern Montana, war brokeout between the United StatesGovernment troops, led byGeneral George Custer, and theSioux and Southern CheyenneIndian people. General Custerexpected an easy victory, butdidn’t account for the fightingcapabilities of the men led byCrazy Horse and Sitting Bull. TheBattle of Little Bighorn wasperhaps the most spectacular ofvictories by Native Americans intheir many conflicts with theirwhite neighbours. However,following this initial battle victory,

Professor James Hunter FRSEProfessor of the History of the Highlands and Islands

University of the Highlands and Islands

A Lochaber McDonald in the Camp of Sitting Bull

12 March 2013Mallaig High School

the war continued well into thewinter months and, faced with thegreater resources of the USGovernment, Crazy Horse finallysurrendered. Sitting Bull left theUnited States and moved hispeople across the border toCanada, which at the time wasBritish territory, and here hefounded an encampment inrelative safety.

Meanwhile, further west in Idaho,another Indian people, the NezPerce, were also involved in similarongoing battles with the whites.The Nez Perce were naïve in theirexpectation that their war wassolely with the whites of Idaho,and having defeated the USsoldiers on many occasions, theyset out on a long trek throughMontana, Wyoming and acrossthe Great Plains, headed forCanada to link up with Sitting Bulland the Sioux. During theirjourney of many hundreds ofmiles, accompanied by theirfamed Appaloosa horses andfamily members, both young andold, the Nez Perce fought andwon several battles, incurringcasualties along the way. However,their trek was to have a tragicoutcome when, just 42 milessouth of the Canadian border,they were overwhelmingly

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attacked by the US troops,including artillery. After severaldays, Chief Joseph of the NezPerce decided to surrender,stating, “From where the sun nowstands, I will fight no moreforever.”

Although Chief Joseph hadsurrendered, another Nez Percechief, White Bird, distrusting thepromise the US Government hadmade regarding safe passage backto Idaho, made a desperate lastbid for freedom. Under the coverof darkness and in a blizzard, heand about one hundred Nez Percepeople successfully broke throughthe US Army lines and made forCanada and Sitting Bull’s camp.Chief White Bird was joined inSitting Bull’s camp by a youngrelative who was later to write upthe story of the Nez Perce warfrom their perspective – his namewas Duncan McDonald.

Professor Hunter first came acrossthis story when researching hisbook A Dance Called America. Hewas intrigued by Duncan McDon-ald, a Nez Perce Indian with aname that was redolent of theHighlands of Scotland. Furtherresearch established that Duncan’sfather, Angus McDonald was a furtrader for the Hudson Bay Compa-ny who had crossed the RockyMountains in the 1830s and hadmarried into the Nez Perce people.Duncan’s mother belonged to aleading Nez Perce family. ProfessorHunter contacted a friend inIdaho, Jim McLeod, who also had

an interest in the Highland-bornfur traders who were amongst thefirst white people to reach thePacific northwest of the UnitedStates. They arranged to visit someof the places where AngusMcDonald had been based.Meanwhile, Jim McLeod received atelephone call from a colleaguewho knew a young Indianforester, named Tom Branson,from the Flathead Indian Reserva-tion near Missoula. Tom hadmentioned to Jim’s colleague thathe was part Scottish by descent.Jim telephoned Tom and, duringthe conversation, was told thatTom’s great-great grandfather wasa Scottish fur trader, namedAngus McDonald. In December1994, Professor Hunter made thefirst of several trips to the FlatheadReservation and met with TomBranson. Tom introduced him tohis now late great-uncle, CharlieMcDonald, who at the time wasone of the tribal elders. Charliewas the grandson of Angus andnephew of Duncan. He remem-bered his Uncle Duncan very well.Professor Hunter recalled meetingCharlie at his home situatedamongst some of the mostspectacular scenery in the world.The Rockies in this region rise to10,000 feet and their mostprominent summit is McDonaldPeak, named after Angus. To thenorth is Glacier National Park; itscentrepiece being McDonald Lake,named after Duncan. During thisfirst meeting with Charlie,

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Professor Hunter was shown oldphotographs, letters and docu-ments belonging to Angus. Someof these letters dated back to the1840s and were written byAngus’s sister, Margaret, and sentfrom Dingwall in the ScottishHighlands. Professor Hunter wasfurther intrigued by the familyand, with the permission of theIndian family, set about furtherresearch with the aim of writingthe story of the two very similarsocieties, the Scottish HighlandClans and the Indian people ofthe American West.

Professor McDonald establishedthat Angus had been born at asmall settlement called Craig,Torridon, in 1816. Craig was avictim of the Highland Clearancesand today there remains only onesurviving building. Angus’s father,Donald, registered his birth acrossthe loch at Applecross. Angus’sgrandfather, another Angus, hadfamily connections linking him toMunial in Knoydart, but lived inGlencoe in the late 18th Centuryat a place called Inverigan. ThisAngus, as a teenager, was asoldier in the Highland army that,in 1746, was defeated at Cul-loden. And this Angus’s father,John MacDonald, had fled intothe snow-covered Glencoe hills, asa small boy, on the night, inFebruary 1692, when Scottishgovernment soldiers massacredhis McDonald clan. This, notedProfessor Hunter, is in parallel

with White Bird’s escape from theUS army in blizzard conditions.

These Highland roots in them-selves are impressive; however,Professor Hunter discovered thatthe ancestors of Duncan McDon-ald and the present-dayMcDonalds on the FlatheadReservation go back much furtherthan 1692. They extend, by way ofGlencoe’s McDonald chiefs, toAonghas Og, Angus McDonald ofIslay who, in the course ofScotland’s 14th-Century War ofIndependence, was a key ally ofKing Robert the Bruce. Theyextend beyond Angus of Islay toSomerled, the 12th-Centurywarrior prince who founded, ineffect, the Lordship of the Isles.They extend, ultimately, toSomerled’s earliest authenticatedancestors, such as Gofraid, son ofFergus, who came to the High-lands from Ireland in the year 835.

Professor Hunter then turned hisattention to how the McDonaldscame to be in North America. Inthe early 1800s, Thomas Douglas,the 5th Earl of Selkirk, becameconcerned with the plight of theScottish crofters who were beingdisplaced by their landlords. Heconsidered that there was littlethat could be done to prevent theHighland Clearances, but wantedto investigate ways in which hecould help them find new land inthe then British colonies. Selkirkspent some time in the UnitedStates and Canada and got toknow the leading men of the

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North West Company, many ofwhom were Highlanders. He wasinformed about the lands knownas Les Prairies, and a watercoursenamed the Red River, and consid-ered that this might be an idealplace to establish his Highlandcolony. By happy coincidence,Selkirk’s wife held shares in theHudson Bay Company and thisenabled him to buy a tract of landfrom the Company. This land wasfour times the size of Scotlandand cost him just ten shillings.Selkirk now had the land for thecolony, but needed to find peopleto move to the area and settle.These people were found in theHighland settlement of Kildonan.Selkirk came up with a schemewhereby, knowing that militarymanpower was needed in Can-ada, he suggested to the BritishGovernment that he would raise aregiment of people from Kildo-nan, take them to Canada and,when the fighting was over, theregiment would be disbanded atthe Red River and the men’sfamilies would be shipped over tojoin them. This scheme wasrejected. However, Selkirk perse-vered and, when the Kildonan folkwere due to be evicted in May1813, he took about one hun-dred, at his own expense, toCanada via Orkney.

Selkirk needed someone to be incharge of his new colonists. Hewas seeking a young man from agood family who spoke Gaelic,and whilst reliable, was also

spirited and adventurous. Hisrequests were fulfilled by a 21-year-old named ArchibaldMcDonald. Archie’s father wasAngus McDonald of Inverigan,Glencoe. Archie left Glencoe andset sail for Canada on one of themost gruelling journeys ever madeby emigrants from Europe toNorth America. Terrible weatherconditions meant that the partyhad to overwinter in Hudson’s Bayand it was Spring 1814 beforethey headed south to the RedRiver colony and set up theirsettlement. Today, this settlementis the city of Winnipeg. Initially,times were difficult at the RedRiver and there was fightingbetween the settlers and theMetis, a mixed-blood people whodepended on the buffalo hunt.Professor Hunter noted the ironythat the Kildonan folk, whothemselves were evicted from theirown homes, in turn evicted theMetis from their land. In time, lifeat the Red River became moresettled and Archie McDonald wasposted west to the Columbia Rivercountry. He eventually took chargeof all Bay Company operations onthe far side of the Rockies. HereArchie married a Chinook Indianwoman and had a son, RanaldMcDonald. Ranald travelled theworld, and after stints in Japan,China, Australia and Scotland, hereturned to the American Westwhere, in his old age, he was wellknow to his second cousin,Duncan McDonald, the man who

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accompanied Chief White Bird tothe camp of Sitting Bull. Duncan’sfather, Angus, was a great-nephew of Archie McDonald ofthe Red River settlement and theBay Company. He made his ownjourney to America in 1838 andwas employed by the Bay Compa-ny and posted in Southern Idaho.Angus married an Indian girlnamed Catherine in 1842 andthey moved north in 1847.

Professor Hunter commented thatto the white people, a family likeAngus’s was ‘beyond the pale’. Awhite, like Angus, married to anIndian, was known as a squaw-man and the children of thatmarriage, such as Duncan and hisnumerous brothers and sisters,were breeds, or half-breeds. Allwere spoken of, and treated, withcontempt. Yet, both Angus andCatherine, in relation to thesocieties from which they came,were people of high standing.Angus was descended from thechiefs of the Glencoe MacDonaldsand Catherine was related to thechiefs of the Nez Perce.

The Nez Perce war of 1876, whichled to Chief White Bird andDuncan McDonald joining thecamp of Sitting Bull, was one ofthe last episodes of its kind. TheIndian West was largely over bythen, just as the Highlands of theclans was also over. Nine yearsafter the Nez Perce war, Geronimoof the Apache surrendered to theUnited States military, bringingabout an end to the Indian armed

resistance to white settlement.Where there had previously beenmany millions of Indians therewere now, in all of the UnitedStates, just over 200,000; all livingon reservations. Today, there aremany more Indians once again,but they continue to live difficultlives where poverty, unemploy-ment, alcoholism and drug abuseare rife on the reservations.However, many Indians, includingthe McDonald family, are makingefforts to put their society backtogether, with some success. TheSalish Kootenai CommunityCollege on the Flathead Reserva-tion provides young Indians withan education that honours theirtraditions, culture and heritage. Ina similar way, the Gaelic-mediumCollege, Sabhal Mor Ostaig onSkye aims to do the same.

Professor Hunter concluded byremembering a visit to theFlathead Reservation when he wastold, “we have a saying hereabout our songs. As long as oursongs are sung, we say, ourpeople will be here. And todayour songs are being sung muchmore than once they were.”Professor Hunter commented thatit “seems appropriate to think ofthe McDonald story as a song towhich all the many McDonaldsthat I’ve mentioned have added,or are adding, their few notes.This song’s been heard for a long,long time already. It will, I hope,be heard for a long time tocome”.

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C T R Wilson made observationsof the ‘glories’ while working atthe Observatory on Ben Nevis. Apassion to reproduce this phe-nomenon in the laboratory ledhim to invent a device called acloud chamber. This apparatus,described by Lord Rutherford as“the most original and wonderfulinstrument in scientific history”,was used in many experiments tostudy ‘elementary particles’,particularly in the 1930s and1940s. These discoveries led tothe creation of the field of particlephysics and, most recently, to thediscovery of the Higgs boson,which was postulated to explainwhy particles have mass. This talkpainted a picture of C T R Wilsonas a scientist and as a person, andshowed how important his workwas in developing one of themost exciting fields of modernphysics. Wilson, Scotland’s firstNobel Laureate in Physics, is muchless well known than he deservesto be and this talk aimed to helprectify this.

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson(also known as ‘CTR’) was born in1869 in Glencorse, to the southof Edinburgh. In 1927, he becamethe first, and indeed the only, Scotto be awarded the Nobel Prize in

Professor Alan Watson FRSEmeritus Professor of Physics, University of Leeds

C T R Wilson, Ben Nevis and the Higgs Boson

14 March 2013Kinlochleven High School

Physics, with the citation “for themethod of making the paths ofelectrically-charged particlesvisible by condensation ofvapour”. A fundamental compo-nent of his work was theinvention of the ‘cloud chamber’,which was inspired by a shortperiod of work undertaken onBen Nevis in his early years. Thedevice was absolutely crucial tothe development of particlephysics, findings from which haveprovided the foundations formany of the significant develop-ments in the field, right throughto the most recent work ofProfessor Peter Higgs and thediscovery of the Higgs boson. CTRdied in 1959, age 90, not longafter becoming, at the age of 85,the oldest Fellow to have pub-lished a paper in the Proceedingsof the Royal Society. ProfessorWatson’s PhD supervisor knewWilson and talked a great dealabout him. This helped inspireProfessor Watson while a studentin Edinburgh and throughout hiscareer, and he believes that thereis an important need to recogniseand promote the work and legacyof C T R Wilson.

Internationally-renowned scien-tists such as Lord Rutherford, who

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discovered that the atom has anucleus by firing energetic alphaparticles from radioactive sourcesat matter, described Wilson’scloud chamber device as “themost original and wonderfulinstrument in scientific history”. JJ Thomson, discoverer of theelectron, provided an insight ofWilson as a man who has “rarelybeen equalled as an example ofingenuity, insight, skill andmanipulation, unfailing patienceand dogged determination”. Thiswas exemplified by the fact thathe did his glass blowing himselfand, though apparatus regularlybroke and needed replacing, hewould set about redoing this withamazing patience.

In 1894, Wilson worked for a fewweeks at the meteorologicalobservatory on Ben Nevis, whichhe cited as an inspiration in hisNobel lecture in 1927, when hedescribed “the wonderful opticalphenomena shown when the sunshone on the clouds, especiallythe coloured rings surroundingthe shadow cast of the hilltop orthe observer, the so-called‘glories’, greatly excited myinterest and made me wish toimitate them in the laboratory”.These ‘glories’, Professor Watsonexplained, are the rainbow-likeeffects that can be seen aroundthe shadows of objects when thecloud is below you when in anaeroplane or on a high mountain.The ‘cloud chamber’ was the

invention that was to achieve thelaboratory replication Wilsonsought. To describe how Wilson’scloud chamber works, ProfessorWatson explained the phenome-non of condensation by means oftwo simple demonstrations, thefirst with audience participation.This entailed members of theaudience first breathing onto theirhands normally and then throughpursed lips. With the latter, the airis cooler because as the airexpands on leaving the mouth, itcools. In the second demonstra-tion, a bicycle pump was used topressurise air in a plastic bottle.When the pressure is releasedquickly, the released air rapidlyexpands and cools, leaving thebottle full of condensation. This isthe essence of Wilson’s technique.In the cloud chamber, where a gasis cooled very quickly in a carefullycontrolled manner, condensationof any liquid vapour present takesplace on particles and dirt in theair and on the surfaces of thecontainer.

John Aitken, from Falkirk and alsoa cloud scientist, had alreadydiscovered that when watervapour condenses in the atmos-phere, it always does so on anucleus, typically the dust particlesin the air, and he speculated thatif there was no dust in the airthere would be no fogs, clouds,mists or rain. CTR improvedAitken’s techniques and built thefirst prototype of his cloud

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chamber. This incorporated a10cm-wide volume containing airsaturated with water vapour. Asystem of tubes and valvesallowed him to cool the air insidevery rapidly, expanding thesaturated water vapour: he wasable to measure the volumebefore and after the expansionvery precisely. By 1896, X-rays hadbeen discovered and Wilson tookan early X-ray tube and shone itinto his apparatus. The conse-quence discovered was that hewould get a dense fog when theexpansion ratio exceeded 1.242,which his precise measurementsdetermined to be one part in1200. Thomson and Rutherfordattributed the conductivity of theair to the production of ions,whereas Wilson concluded thatthe condensation nuclei in hischamber were ions created by theX-rays. This was a fundamentalinsight.

Much earlier, in 1785, CharlesCoulomb was studying electro-static phenomena. He wouldcharge up materials and watchhow they behaved, leading to thedevelopment of an equationcalled Coulomb’s Law, where theproduct of the charge divided bythe square of the distancebetween them tells you the forcebetween two objects. The objectshe used were gilded metalspheres suspended by silk rods,silk being an extremely goodmaterial to prevent charge from

leaking away. Despite this,Coulomb found that there wasalways a leakage, which muchlater became associated with thepresence of ions in the air, withsuch ions being formed when acharged particle rips one of theelectrons off the atom, leaving apositively charged ion and anelectron which usually attachesitself to something very quickly.

Ions are in the air all the time and,indeed, one of the huge puzzlesof physics in the latter 19thCentury related to where theseions came from, as even if youshielded things with lead, the lossof charge couldn’t be prevented.To help study this ionisation,Wilson greatly improved theoperation of an existing device –the electroscope. In 1901, hesuggested that “the continuousproduction of ions in dust free aircould be explained as due toradiation from outside ouratmosphere” – an extraordinaryjump of thought at the time. In astudy designed to try to showwhether this speculation was true,Wilson took his electroscope intoa railway tunnel near Peebles andlooked to see whether the rate ofdischarge was slower in thetunnel than outside. At the time,nothing was known aboutradioactivity in rocks and in fact heactually saw as much dischargeinside the tunnel as he didoutside in the open air. This wasdisappointing, in that his insight

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had seemingly been proved to bewrong, and he turned to his otherinterest, atmospheric electricity,for which he remains very well-known today. This aspect of hisstudies also came from his time atthe observatory on Ben Neviswhen he was caught in anelectrical storm, a phenomenonthat was to occupy him deeply forthe next ten years, and indeed thestudy of thunderstorms was aconsuming interest for the rest ofhis life. By 1910, the nature ofradioactive rays was betterunderstood and Wilson had theidea of seeing and photographingthe tracks of ionisation left by theparticles. This was achieved bymaking the air clean enoughusing an electric field. He hadlearned about photography at anearly age and took the first imagesof the tracks of alpha and betaparticles within his cloud chamber.He also took pictures of electronsby firing X-rays into the cloudchamber. Professor Watsoncommented that, technically, thepictures Wilson published in 1912are superb and it would beunlikely to be possible to producebetter even with modern, moresophisticated equipment. Early inthe 20th Century, others took upWilson’s idea that the ionisationthat caused electroscopes todischarge was coming fromoutside our Atmosphere. In 1912,Victor Hess, an enthusiasticAustrian balloonist, took an

electroscope in a balloon, withoutoxygen, to a height of fivekilometres – he found that thenumber of ion pairs produced percubic volume per second in-creased by about a factor of threeby the time he reached fivekilometres above the Earth. Hessspeculated that CTR had beencorrect and that there was indeedradiation coming from outside theAtmosphere, and it was this thatwas responsible for the ionisation.This radiation came to be knownas ‘cosmic rays’ and one mightargue that Wilson was the firstcosmic ray physicist.

The first use of the cloud chamberin cosmic rays was made serendip-itously in 1929 by a Russianscientist, Skobelzyn, who wasfiring X-rays into a chamber with amagnetic field at right angles tothe direction of incidence; themagnetic field bends the paths ofcharged particles and allows theirmomentum to be measured.Skobelzyn was measuring theenergy of the electrons in a studyof the Compton Effect, but in onephotograph he identified aparticularly energetic particle thatwas very unusual and was notassociated with the X-ray beam.This was the start of the combineduse of cosmic rays and the cloudchamber to study what we nowcall particle physics.

A dramatic finding was made withthe cloud chamber in 1933, withthe discovery of the positive

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electron, now known as thepositron. This was the firstexample of ‘antimatter’ and wasfound using a cloud chambermeasuring about one foot across,with a lead plate in the middleand a magnetic field at rightangles. Whilst most cosmic rayscome downwards, in this inci-dence a particle was identifiedthat went upwards, with the trackbent more after going throughthe lead plate where it lost energy.Although such a particle had beenpredicted theoretically the yearbefore, it was only discoveredusing the cloud chamber; noother technique then availablecould have been used to find thisparticle. The ‘muon’, a particlethat can be thought of as a heavyelectron, was discovered later inthe 1930s using the cloudchamber, with many other‘elementary’ particles discoveredwith it after World War II. Al-though CTR played no direct partin this work, his cloud chamberwas the tool that enabled thesehugely important discoveries inthe field of particle physics to bemade many decades after thechamber was invented.

Moving forward to modern times,Professor Watson described how,by the early 1960s, a hugenumber of particles were known –something like a particle zoo! GellMann had arranged the particlesin patterns in tables, similar to theperiodic table developed by

Mendeleev for chemical elements.New discoveries of differentparticles continued, such asquarks and gluons, which arepresent in such as the proton nowseen as not being ‘elementary’.Often scientists postulated theexistence of particles and thenexperimental work followed inwhich these were often found.Nowadays, there is a StandardModel of particle physics whichcombines quantum mechanics,the special theory of relativity andall the new particles and providesan understanding of the final‘periodic’ table of fundamentalparticle elements. This tableincludes families of electrons,muons, tau-mesons, neutrinosand quarks; all matter is com-posed of these elements. Themodel also explains, by theexchange of what are calledcarriers, the forces that hold theparticles together: the gluon; thephoton which is responsible forthe electro-magnetic force; andthe weak nuclear force concernedwith beta decay. The StandardModel is a very successful descrip-tion of nature, created throughthe work of many people overmany years. Indeed, it is regardedas a crowning achievement of20th-Century physics and un-doubtedly one of the greatintellectual advances that havebeen made.

However, until recently there was amissing element, as evidence for a

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mechanism that gives particlesmass was lacking. The moststraightforward theory andmathematics of the forces andquarks lead to the conclusion thatparticles should have no mass. Toaddress this, Professor Peter Higgsproposed a new idea. Before this,Newton had said that force isequal to mass times acceleration;thus the weight of something isequal to the mass times the localacceleration due to gravity.Einstein used mass to bendspace–time, which led to theprediction of objects such as blackholes. Within these theories, itwas assumed that particles didhave mass, since that was whatwas observed, although it was notknown how the mass arose. Higgsspeculated that there is a field inthe Universe with which particlesinteract and acquire mass; thestronger the interaction, thegreater the mass. From his workcame the idea that there shouldbe a particle with the properties ofa boson, which is now specificallyreferred to as the ‘Higgs boson’.His seminal paper was publishedin 1964, when he was a facultymember of Edinburgh University.To try to convey the very subtleideas postulated by Higgs,Professor Watson used an analogyoffered by Professor David Miller,University College London.Imagine a group of politicianschatting at a cocktail party; theyrepresent the field. However,

when someone such as MrsThatcher enters the room, thepoliticians cluster around her, sothat if she moves around at thesame speed, her momentumincreases as her mass has in-creased, because she has to dragthe other politicians around withher. The more important theperson is, the more people willcluster and the more mass theywill create. This illustrates how afield can be thought of as giving aparticle mass. In the same field, arumour spreading that MrsThatcher is coming can movearound the room such that even ifshe does not appear, the rumourhas mass, with that mass repre-senting the Higgs particle.

By the 1980s, scientists were in aposition to know what they werelooking for to some extent, andthey developed the Large HadronCollider, an enormously complexparticle accelerator constructed atthe CERN laboratory in Geneva.This massive device generateshigh numbers of particles andaccelerates them in oppositedirections around a large circle,smashing them together in certainregions to create a spray ofparticles which can then beanalysed. The number of collisionsinvolved is enormous, with onethousand million (109) happeningper second. Looking for oneparticle in ten million, million(1013), particularly when theparticle isn’t visible as it has a very

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short life, is very complicated, andit is only observed via the associat-ed decays predicted with theStandard Model. The mass of theparticle is derived from its decayproducts. A significant ‘bump’ inthe distribution of measuredmasses shows that a particle hasbeen observed. Despite thecompletely different scale, theparticle detectors at the collideruse the same principle as thecloud chamber, in that the tracksof the particles are bent bymagnetic fields and made visible,but in an electronic way.

Professor Watson concluded witha reminder that much of thisoriginated from Wilson seeing theglories on Ben Nevis, recappingRutherford’s quotation about thecloud chamber as “the mostoriginal and wonderful instru-ment in scientific history”. Hesuggested that the Large HadronCollider and the work going onthere might not have come about

without CTR’s original work. Insupport of this, he cited Blackett’sBiographical Memoir of C T RWilson, written for the RoyalSociety in 1960. There, Blackettlisted the particle discoveriesmade in the cloud chamber, andadded: “There are many decisiveexperiments in the history ofphysics which, if they had notbeen made when they were made,would surely have been mademuch later by someone else. Thismight not have been true ofWilson’s discovery of the cloudchamber. In spite of its essentialsimplicity, the road to its finalachievement was long andarduous. Without his vision andsuperb experimental skill, man-kind might have had to wait manyyears before someone else founda way”. As such much moreshould be done to recognise andcommemorate the work andlegacy of C T R Wilson.

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On the 200th anniversary of DavidLivingstone’s birth, ProfessorMichael Barrett described theman, his life, and his achieve-ments as explorer, doctor andhumanitarian – as well as animportant figure in the Scottishtradition of tropical medicine.

David Livingstone was a remarka-ble Victorian – an explorer, doctor,scientist, naturalist and writer. Hewas, Professor Barrett said, one ofthe most astonishing figures inthe history of humanity. In alecture to mark the 200th anniver-sary of Livingstone’s birth,Professor Barrett focused on thescientific achievements of the millboy from Blantyre, in the contextof his life more generally. Inparticular, he described Living-stone’s contribution to andunderstanding of tropical medi-cine. David Livingstone was bornin Blantyre in Lanarkshire, andlived with his parents and siblingsin a small room in a tenement formill workers. From the age of 10,he worked 14 hours a day in themill, then attended school for twohours and read until midnight. Hewas keen to study science, beingfascinated by fossils, flora andfauna, but his strictly evangelicalfather wouldn’t let him, believingthat science and Christianity could

Professor Michael Barrett FRSEProfessor of Biochemical Parasitology

(Infection Immunity and Inflammation Life Science), University of Glasgow

The Scientific Life of Dr Livingstone

19 March 2013

not be reconciled. The youngDavid, however, found a wayforward: inspired by the writingsof Thomas Dick, an eccentricscientist from Broughty Ferry, whowrote that science and religionwere striving for the same truth,he persuaded his father that hecould study medicine so that hecould ‘save the heathen’ as amissionary. Livingstone studiedmedicine in Glasgow, beforeapplying to the London Mission-ary Society – where he was tomeet the missionary RobertMoffatt, who was home fromKuruman, in South Africa. Living-stone had intended going toChina, but the opium warsintervened, and he decided tofollow Moffatt and go to south-ern Africa instead. Livingstonequickly made a reputation forhard work and derring-do – thefamous episode where he foughtoff a lion, which left him with abroken arm, only enhanced hisimage. He married Moffatt’sdaughter, Mary, who travelledwith him across the KalahariDesert.

It was here that Livingstone was tomake one of his first significantdiscoveries in Lake Ngami; a largebody of water so close to theKalahari was important if his idea

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of opening up Africa to legitimatetrade and agriculture was tosucceed. Livingstone was keen tofind a route into central Africa andwalked many thousands of milesto try to find a way. Walkingthrough Africa was tough – therewere no roads, and there werethreats from wildlife – not just the‘big beasts’ we associate withAfrica, but tiny creatures such asthe mosquito. At the time, itwasn’t known that malaria wascarried by mosquitoes, andLivingstone had repeated attacksof the disease; indeed, he nearlydied. Meanwhile he was showinghis scientific zeal and curiosity.When he first saw the VictoriaFalls, for example (he was the firstto bring this incredible landmarkto the attention of Europeans), itwasn’t enough for him simply towonder at their beauty andmajesty: he immediately took hissextant and other scientificequipment and proceeded tomeasure it and record his observa-tions. Deciding that the Zambeziriver was the answer to finding aworkable route, he went back toBritain and proceeded to raise themoney for what was to be an ill-fated expedition. Livingstone wasfeted as a hero back in the UK,and his ideas and writings wereinfluential. He believed that theslave trade was the biggestimpediment to development inAfrica, for example, and this was aview that gained some momen-tum with his backing.

Interestingly, another eminentVictorian, Charles Darwin, heldsimilar views, and had a similar lifepattern at this point (studyingmedicine in Scotland, theology inLondon, then travelling, althoughin Darwin’s case it was to SouthAmerica). John Murray publishedDarwin’s Origin of the Species in1858, the year after the samepublisher brought out Living-stone’s Missionary Travels andResearches in South Africa.

Livingstone’s writings wereremarkable for the beauty of hisdescriptions, but also for theobservations of natural history. Hediscovered several new species –such as the honey guide, a birdwhich annoys and irritateshumans and leads them to a bees’nest, knowing that the humanswill raid it for honey and the birdcan feast on their leavings.Despite this skill as a naturalist, hedisagreed with Darwin on evolu-tion, saying he had witnessed no‘struggle’ for life on the plains ofAfrica; but this avowal of a‘stubborn Christian’, sticking tothe idea of God as creator, was atodds with his writing, in which hedescribed evolution in practice.

Livingstone’s observationscontributed greatly to humanunderstanding of medicine. Forexample, he observed the associa-tion between the bite of thetampan tick and relapsing fever,and probably gave the firstdescription of an arthropodtransmitting disease. His work was

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followed up by other greatScottish pioneers of tropicalmedicine, such as Patrick Manson,who established that mosquitoesacted as a vector for disease, andencouraged the amazing all-rounder and polymath Sir RonaldRoss to investigate the life cycle ofthe malaria parasite, and establishhow it was transmitted by mos-quitoes.

This discovery had huge signifi-cance; because mosquitoes wereimplicated, people could protectthemselves by sleeping undermosquito nets and by drainingswamps. Of course there werealso drugs for malaria. Livingstonehimself was assiduous abouttaking quinine to ‘cure’ himself of‘African fever’, and worked outthe correct dosage, which was totake it until it caused ‘ringing ofthe ears’. He also invented pillscalled ‘Livingstone Rousers’, inwhich the active ingredient wasquinine. Some of Livingstone’sideas didn’t quite work in practice.For example, he noted that ifdomestic animals in Africa werebitten by the tsetse fly, theybecame emaciated and died, butwild animals didn’t. It would betoo difficult to train wild animals –such as buffalo – in Africa to pullcarts, so Livingstone importedIndian buffalo – which werealready domesticated – thinkingthey too would be immune. They,however, weren’t resistant anddied. “It was fruitless, but he wasalways trying,” said Professor

Barrett. Livingstone won fundingfor his Zambezi expedition on thebasis that it would open upmineral-rich central Africa fortrade, and he also wished toameliorate the lot of the Africanpeople, but he was thwarted by anumber of circumstances. Perhapsthe main barrier was the un-navigable rapids of the Zambezi,which he hadn’t previouslynoticed and which – despite thehorror of his travel companions –he tried to conquer time andagain. Other issues were famine,cholera and the growth of theslave trade, which all told againsthim. He did find a tributary, anddid find what is now known asLake Malawi, but that wasn’t whathe had set out to do. Neverthelesshe reported that the area was ripefor conversion by missionaries,and a number arrived – only to dievery quickly from malaria. His wife,Mary, also died. Livingstone feltvery guilty and responsible for themissionaries’ deaths, because hehad assumed they would takequinine, but hadn’t advised themto do so. The enterprise wasconsidered a fiasco, and Living-stone was profoundlyembarrassed, returning to Britainthis time as a villain, rather than ahero.

By this time African explorationwas all the rage, and Livingstonejoined the latest great debate,which was over the source of theNile. Explorers such as RichardBurton and John Speke were

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competing – and Livingstone, stillwanting to find ways into Africa,thought he’d look for it too. Itwas harder this time to raise themoney, but Livingstone travelledback to Africa, to Zanzibar, andspent his time tracing rivers to tryto find the source. He became veryill, and lost his medicine chest; hewas dependent on Arab traders,and eventually travelled to LakeTanganyika, where his supplieswere stolen. He was in a parlousstate, and rumours of his deathwere already circulating in Britain.

It was at Lake Tanganyika that thefamous meeting was to take placebetween Livingstone and thejournalist Henry Morton Stanley,who had been sent to find him bythe New York Herald newspaper –and who probably didn’t actuallysay ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’.Stanley brought him new life,supplies and medicines, and triedto persuade him to go back toBritain. This Livingstone refused todo, and he continued to try tofind the source of the Nile, buthad lost his scientific instruments.He didn’t know where he was ashe traversed inhospitable swampsand, in fact, was out of his way bymiles.

Livingstone died on 1 May 1873.He was eviscerated and his heartburied in Africa, then his bodywas dried and transported on footfor over a thousand miles by hisattendants, before being returnedto Britain, where he was buried inState in Westminster Abbey.

Although the cause of death isgenerally given as malaria andinternal bleeding caused bydysentery, Professor Barrettbelieves that Schistosomiasis, orbilharzia, an infection caused byparasitical tropical worms foundin water, is a likely candidate –based partly on the knowledgethat Livingstone had terriblebleeding haemorrhoids, for whichhe refused an operation on thegrounds that it would be ‘embar-rassing’. It is likely, then, thatLivingstone fell victim to one ofthe tropical diseases that still killpeople today, despite his contri-bution to our understanding ofparasitology. Professor Barrettfinished by outlining the currentstate of malaria, and neglectedtropical diseases, saying thatefforts were underway to continuethe work of Livingstone, and othergreat Scottish pioneers of tropicalmedicine, in making such condi-tions a thing of the past.

But who is today’s Livingstone?Professor Barrett could onlydescribe a composite: as anaturalist, David Attenborough,whose television programmes areengaging and fascinating, muchlike Livingstone’s books; as anexplorer, astronaut Neil Arm-strong, and as a preacher andhuman rights activist, MartinLuther King. “It takes a collectionof people – an extraordinaryachievement for a mill boy fromBlantyre whose 200th birthday wecelebrate today.”

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Ken McGoogan started his storyabout the heroics of John Rae bytaking his audience back to Rae’sorigins on Orkney, 200 years agoin 1813. The reason he was soexcited by Rae’s achievements, heexplained, was that he went onfrom his island origins to becomeone of the greatest figures of19th-Century exploration. Thereare two main reasons for Rae’splace in history, and they involvedhis role in solving two of thegreatest mysteries of the age. First,Rae discovered the final link in thefabled Northwest Passage fromthe Atlantic to the Pacific; second-ly, he discovered the fate of SirJohn Franklin’s expedition to findthat passage in 1845.

But there were two very differentRaes at work at the time. Oneimage captures Rae as a Scottishgentleman; the other portrays Raein the garb of native NorthAmericans, wearing Cree leggingsand Inuit footwear. With Rae, thelatter image was quite deliberate,as he wanted to be identified withnative peoples. This was one ofthe distinctive things that set himapart from other explorers of thetime.

Rae’s future as an explorer isexplained by his childhood on

Ken McGooganAuthor

John Rae: The Forgotten Hero of Arctic ExplorationPart of the Edinburgh Lecture Series

22 April 2013

Orkney, where his father was theFactor for the Hudson’s BayCompany’s station at Stromness.Orkney was the last port of call forthe HBC sailing ships headingacross the Atlantic to Canada. Itwas where they picked up waterand sustenance for the longvoyage. They couldn’t get anymore until they reached Disko Bayin Greenland, so Orkney was animportant stop in the supply line.

Rae’s father was at the centre ofthis business and many Orcadiansdecided to take jobs with thecompany. They were hardy, toughand disciplined men and werecompany mainstays for manydecades. Rae grew up on Orkney,hunting and sailing, but he alsotrained as a doctor between 1829and 1833 in Edinburgh. When hewas 19, however, he decided tobegin his medical career by takinga job aboard an HBC ship as theship’s doctor. Sailing into Hud-son’s Bay, his ship was trapped bythe ice and Rae’s special qualitiesbegan to emerge. He and the crewlived on the ship while held upand Rae found out he was notonly useful as a doctor but also asa hunter.

The ship eventually arrived at theHBC post at Moose Factory,

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Ontario, and the people heworked with there also began torealise how extraordinary he was.He was a bundle of energy withgreat stamina, who provedhimself time and time again as agreat outdoorsman.

When the Factor at Moose Bayasked him so stay on, and realis-ing that the HBC life suited himwell, Rae let the ship sail onwithout him. He had decided thathe did not just want to be adoctor, but when he did put hismedical training into practice itwas for the natives as well. Onone occasion, he put on his snowshoes and walked 105 miles intwo days to tend to a patient. Itled to him becoming known as asuperhuman figure. His contem-poraries referred to him as thegreatest snow-shoe walker of hisage and he also became knownfor the hunting prowess thatstemmed from his childhood.What set him apart, however, washis willingness to learn and usenative hunting techniques foranimals such as caribou. His bestfriend at the time was a Creehunter, which revealed his veryegalitarian attitude to thosearound him.

At the time, George Simpson wasrunning the HBC in Canada. Hewas known as a real “littleemperor”, McGoogan said, andwhen he arrived at Moose Factoryon his way around the tradingposts, he arrived in a native canoewearing a top hat and preceded

by a bagpiper. Rae laid down achallenge, saying an Orkney crewcould out-row the natives in arace. A bet was placed and thefollowing year, when Simpsonreturned, Rae had built his boatand trained his crew. They set offaround a nearby island and theOrkney crew won handsomely.Simpson became aware thateverything that was being saidabout Rae was true.

The company at this time wasitself trying to find the NorthwestPassage to further its own tradinginterests. The Royal Navy wasattempting to find it in largesailing ships such as the ones thattransported Franklin and his ill-fated crew. Rae, however, figuredthat it might be better to makethe attempt in smaller boats. Hedecided to take an expedition of12 men in two boats and winterabove the Arctic Circle, a feat thathad never been done before.

Simpson agreed, but only afterRae had polished his surveyingand navigational skills. In winter1846/47 Rae and his team set offfor Repulse Bay, on the east coastof the Canadian mainland, wherethey became the first explorers tooverwinter above the Arctic Circle.As well as being the leader, hewas the main hunter, learningtravel and survival techniquesfrom the local Inuit. He learnedhow to make his sleds run faster,how to build igloos so he couldtravel further and stay out on the

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ice for longer periods and how tolive off the land.

Later in 1847, Rae returned toHBC headquarters in England, atthe time when concern wasmounting about the expeditionled by Franklin. It had departedtwo years earlier to find themissing links in the NorthwestPassage along the Canadian coastthat Franklin had charted earlier.But nothing had been heard ofFranklin and his men for two yearsand he was supposed to be back.The Arctic Council – part of theRoyal Navy – determined to findout what had happened anddespatched an expedition underthe command of Sir CharlesRichardson. Looking for aneffective second-in-command,Richardson read about Rae’s featsin The Times. He said that he hadfound his man.

Rae joined the search withRichardson in 1848 and variousexpeditions took place over thenext three years, mapping theland and the islands north of theArctic Circle. Franklin and his menwere believed to be somewherenorth of the mainland coastline inan unknown area called VictoriaLand.

In 1851, Rae mapped VictoriaLand, setting off in his small boatsonce the sea ice had melted. Apiece of timber from what wasthought to be from one ofFranklin’s ships was found andtaken back to London. In 1854,

Rae went back to the Arctic toresume the research. By that time,he was an ice expert and, finding“young” ice – ice that forms everyyear and then melts – he reasonedthat the area he was in (nowknown as Rae’s Strait) was thefinal link in the Northwest Passagethat remained to be found.

While out on the ice, Rae met agroup of Inuit hunters and theystopped to talk. Rae noticed aninteresting cap band that one ofthem was wearing. Asked wherethey got it from, they told him itwas from a place where more than30 white men had starved todeath. Rae decided to continuehis exploration but told the Inuitthat he would pay for any arte-facts they could bring to him.When he met them again theybrought some of Franklin’spersonal possessions. They alsotold him what had happened tothe final survivors, includingevidence that some of them hadresorted to cannibalism in theirfinal days. That wasn’t enough forRae, McGoogan said. He checkedtheir story again and againthrough the best native interpret-er in the area. Eventually satisfiedthey were telling the truth aboutwhat had happened to theFranklin expedition, he returnedto London to submit his report tothe HBC.

Back in London, Rae came upagainst his most implacable foe,Lady Jane Franklin, the wife of Sir

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John, who was deeply offendedby news that her husband and histeam of British sailors might haveresorted to eating human flesh.Although Rae had not intendedthat part of his report to be madepublic, it emerged in an interviewpublished in The Times. LadyFranklin, a formidable character inher own right, then enlisted theliterary might of Charles Dickensto produce several articles repudi-ating Rae’s evidence. Even thoughRae would eventually be vindicat-ed, the combined forces of LadyFranklin and Dickens were enoughto deny Rae the knighthood herichly deserved for not onlyfinding the truth about herhusband’s fate, but also the finallink in the Northwest Passage. Itwas only 50 years later, when theNorwegian explorer Amundsenbecame the first to sail Rae’s Strait,that Rae was finally vindicated.

After his Arctic explorationsended, Rae settled back in Orkneywith his Canadian wife in a housethat is now a B&B. Later, while stillpursuing a life of exploration andsurveying in America, Rae moved

to a house in Kensington inLondon, where there is a plaquethat records that this was one ofhis residences.

In the Arctic, however, there arefew tangible reminders of Rae’srole in opening up the wholeregion. McGoogan said he wasdetermined to correct that and, in1999, he went out to Gjoa Haven,where Amundsen’s ship wasberthed in 1904, and from thereon through Rae’s Strait to alocation where a cairn was built tomark Rae’s presence in the area.He took with him a plaque that heattached to the cairn, which wasstill there when he returned 13years later in 2012. His aim now isto establish the cairn as a viabledestination for the ships that nowply the Northwest Passage and anarea that is now not so difficult toreach as it once was. AlthoughRae has not been forgotten onOrkney – the islands are commem-orating the 200th anniversary ofhis birth this year – his storydeserves to be more widely knownand his feats more widely appreci-ated.

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In April last year, the Royal Societyof Edinburgh published its report'Tapping all our Talents'. In ourreport we drew attention to thehigh percentage of femalegraduates in Science, Technology,Engineering and Mathematics(STEM) who leave these sectors.We made the case for a strategicand coordinated approach totackling this issue and called for aProgramme of Action thatincluded specific recommenda-tions to government, researchcouncils and other funders,

Revisiting Tapping all our Talents

23 April 2013

universities and research insti-tutes, business and industry, andlearned and professional bodies.

Together with the ScottishResource Centre for Women inScience, Engineering and Technol-ogy at Edinburgh NapierUniversity, the RSE hosted aseminar on Scotland’s strategy forlifting barriers to women in STEM.This seminar focused on theprogress that organisations withinScotland have made towards thisgoal, and identified areas that stillneed to be addressed.

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The Scottish Enlightenment iswidely regarded as the nation’smost important and influentialcontribution to the intellectualand cultural life of humanity. Fromscience to philosophy, history tomedicine, economics to geologyand beyond to numerous othersubjects, Scottish thinkers of the18th Century helped create a newunderstanding of the contours ofexistence. Why this happened inScotland is a conundrum; Scot-land seemed a most unlikelyseedbed for such an intellectualrevolution. In the decades beforethe great creative transformation,it was regarded as a desperatelypoor country on the outer fringesof the great centres of Europeancivilisation in the grip of a Tale-ban-type culture of unyieldingreligious orthodoxy fundamentallyopposed to innovative thought.This lecture considered thischallenging question and soughtto resolve one of Scottish history’smost enduring mysteries.

In the mid 18th Century, in themidst of the European Enlighten-ment, the renowned Frenchphilosopher, Voltaire, wrote “welook towards Scotland for all ourstandards of civilisation”. Howev-er, the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’

Professor Tom Devine OBE HonMRIA FBA FRSEUniversity of Edinburgh

A Puzzle from Scotland’s Past:Why did the Scottish Enlightenment happen?

25 April 2013Lockerbie Academy

was not formally articulated until1901. Professor Devine describedhow the concept then “slum-bered” for many years; indeedProfessor Trevor-Roper suggestedin the 1960s that there was adistinct disinterest in the ScottishEnlightenment. Within the pastgeneration, however, the concepthas become ‘flavour of themonth’. Professor Devine statedthat, “it is truly remarkable that asmall country of just over 1.1million people had such anextraordinary impact on thethought of western civilisation.

There can be no doubt that whatwe mean by the Scottish Enlight-enment and all it entailed isScotland’s greatest ever gift tohumanity. It is scarcely believablethat that particular gift will ever bereproduced, given its scale, rangeand quality”. The Scottish Enlight-enment was part of a largermovement which occurred incertain ‘hotspots’ throughoutEurope, including some Germanstates, France, parts of Italy, andthe Low Countries. ProfessorDevine described the essence ofthe European Enlightenment asthreefold. First, it implies, by theterminology itself, a dawn after

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darkness and many of the literatiwho were involved regardedthemselves as having come out ofthe darkness into an age wherethe Sun started to shine in anintellectual context. Secondly, itcomprised a studious and com-mitted opposition to acceptingauthority for its own sake. Theattitude of the men of theEnlightenment period in Europewas that the critical intellect plusevidence should be used againstauthority in order to find out thetruth and establish how far onecould go to known knowledge. Itwas noted that this aspect of theEnlightenment ushered in “aperiod of massive discussion androbust dialogue, including theforensic analysis of old issues thathad long been accepted but forwhich there might be newperspectives and insights”.

Finally, a theme running through-out the entire continentalexperience of this intellectualrevolution was the notion of‘toleration’. Professor Devinedescribed this as truly revolution-ary because, only a century before,Europe had experienced theabsolute horrors of the ThirtyYears War. This was a conflictwhich was based on religiousconfrontation; on the mostvirulent form of sectarianism.“However, the Enlightenmentattitude was one of toleration,namely that human beings,especially those who were willingto consider these critical issues,

should be able to do it in free-dom, without the possibility ofeither State intervention, Statepunishment, or hostility orpunishment resulting from areligious organisation”.

Professor Devine continued bydiscussing the features of theEnlightenment that were distinc-tively Scottish in nature. Duringthe Enlightenment, there was anunprecedented depth and rangeof intellectual activity amongst awide range of subject areas,including economics, history,geology, science, medicine,architecture and literature, all ofwhich were beginning to developas distinct disciplines. Some ofthese developments were associ-ated with the great Scottish ‘hero’figures of the Enlightenment,including Smith, Hume, Ferguson,Hutton and Watt. Furthermore,because of the migratory behav-iour of the Scot from the 13thCentury onwards, individuals ofmiddle class and professionalrank, who had been educated inthe Scottish universities, spreadtheir knowledge across theAtlantic to the United States.Professor Devine noted that, “it isnow more or less agreed byAmerican scholars that at leastone strand in the ideologies thatled to the great revolution of1776 – the Declaration of Inde-pendence and the firstconstitutional documents of theUSA – were firmly grounded onviews of Ferguson, Hutchison and

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Hume”. It was also noted that theEnlightenment in France, which isoften regarded, due to thinkerssuch as Montesquieu and Voltaire,as being at the very top rank ofthe European Enlightenment, wasa distinctively anti-clerical, antireli-gious movement which took placein a broadly loose and secularisedsociety. The Scottish scene wasquite different, as runningthrough the Scottish Enlighten-ment was Christian tradition;indeed, several of the literati ofthe period were ministers of theChurch of Scotland. ProfessorDevine considers Calvinism to bekey to understanding this phe-nomenon, a factor which hereturned to later in the lecture. Asecond institutional distinguish-ing factor of the ScottishEnlightenment was that it wasemphatically lodged in theuniversities of the country. “Somany of the individuals that madeOlympian contributions to thedynamic worked within theprecincts of the Academy and,furthermore, these individualsalso became involved in clubs andsocieties. Scotland’s Enlighten-ment was emphatically convivialand its membership saw noproblem with having a great timeand pursuing the lubrication thatcould result in innovativethought”!

For Professor Devine, ScottishHistory is an analytical subject; itasks questions and tries to answer

the questions such as ‘why?’,‘with what consequence?’ and‘what were the different levels ofcausation?’ The main challenge ofthe Scottish Enlightenment is thatit is a puzzle; the glories of theScottish Enlightenment seem toevolve from a society where theseedbed did not seem to promiseanything like this degree ofintellectual dynamism and thefreedom and toleration of humanthought. Professor Trevor-Roperbrought attention to this particu-lar conundrum, describingScotland in the late 17th Centurypre-Union period as “a societyriven with factionalism, intoler-ance, fanaticism, poverty andirredeemable human insecurity”.

Professor Devine considers thisdescription as “painting a pictureof the Scottish religious establish-ment of the late 17th Century asvery reminiscent of the Talebanrule existing in Afghanistan today,in terms of its fundamentalismand horror of plurality, its horrorof different opinion”. Looking atlate 17th Century Scotland fromthat particular perspective, theredoes seem to be considerableempirical support for suchcondemnation of the pre-Unionnation. Examples include that ofEdinburgh student Tom Aiken-head who, in December 1696,was sentenced to death forblasphemy for referring to theNew Testament as the fables ofthe imposter Christ. Additionally,

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following the Glorious Revolutionof 1688, when the Stuarts wereexpelled, and when Presbyterian-ism became the acceptedestablishment religion of Scot-land, the Episcopalians who hadruled between the Restoration of1660 and the Revolution of 1688were themselves uprooted. TheEpiscopalians became the ideo-logical spine of Jacobitism. Thesewere people who had a deepideological hatred of the removalof the Stuarts, they were intellec-tuals and they lent a cerebraldimension to the Jacobite crusaderight through to the 1740s.Furthermore, the last decade ofthe 17th Century in Scotland wasparticularly difficult; there werelean years of unrelenting harvestfailure due to a mini ice age andclimatic catastrophe, which alsoresulted in Scotland losing 15%of its population between 1692and 1698 from famine-relateddeath and migration. Additionally,Scotland had to contend with thehorror of the Darien Scheme, anattempt to found a Scottishcolony in Panama, which resultedin massive bankruptcy and loss ofScottish life.

This, therefore, is “the stuff ofparadox – the puzzle. How canyou reconcile such a paradoxwhich seems challenging”? In anattempt to solve the puzzle of theScottish Enlightenment, ProfessorDevine asked “was pre-UnionScotland really as dark andnightmarish a country as a

previous generation of historiansassumed and argued? The answeris emphatically no! As with mostsocieties, it is complex, there arehues of light, dark and grey”. Henoted that there has been anhistoriographical revolution in ourunderstanding of pre-UnionScotland. This is because theconventional wisdom from theend of Jacobitism in the 1750sthrough to the 1960s was one ofemphatic Unionism and inevitablythere was a set of assumptionsthat the Union was the ‘sine quanon’ of Scottish advancement anddevelopment and that pre-UnionScotland was inadequate bycomparison. Added to this wasthe fact that the literati of theScottish Enlightenment wereemphatically Unionist; seeingthemselves as global thinkers andassuming in their writings that thehorrors of pre-1707 Scotland, andespecially the horrors of fanati-cism and intolerance, had at leastbeen diluted and finally banishedby the civilising force of a relation-ship with a more advanced societysouth of the Border. ProfessorDevine commented that thisparticular set of assumptions hasbeen substantially diluted byresearchers over the past thirtyyears. The main results of thisresearch dynamic are that whilstthere were undoubtedly disastersin the 1690s, these were untypicaland did not especially representthe last twenty years of Scotlandprior to Unionism. Secondly,

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Scottish mercantile activity wasdynamic in this period. Earlierhistorians have focused on thedifficulties of the Darien scheme,but have neglected the fact thatScottish entrepreneurs were activethroughout the English ImperialEmpire before 1707. Furthermore,there was a revolution happeningwithin the Scottish universitiesand, below the surface, universi-ties were moving towards newthoughts and teaching ideologies.Finally, the elites of the society inScotland, despite the terrorism ofthe Kirk, were in fact steadilymoving in a more secular direc-tion. Material improvement wasvery much on the agenda; Scottishconnections with Europe weredying and new connections withthe USA being forged, evenbefore 1707. In conclusion, thedifferences, therefore, betweenpost-Union Scotland and pre-Union Scotland have now beenmodulated. There is a consensusbetween historians that there ismore continuity, which lessens thereality of the puzzle.

Since the 13th Century, Scotlandhas experienced very high levels ofout migration. Focusing on theintellectual connections throughDiaspora, Professor Devinecommented that althoughScotland had three pre-Reforma-tion universities, it still continuedto send many graduates abroadfor further training. There wereScottish intellectual enclavesthroughout Europe and one of

the forces driving the ScottishEnlightenment was their move-ment into the intellectualcrossroads of the Continent, theLow Countries, in the later 17thCentury, when the whole tide ofthe intellectual migration movedfrom the Catholic countries to theLow Countries. The Low Countrieswere considered the crossroadsbecause, in the 1690s, theHuguenot Protestants expelledfrom France flooded into theregion. The Huguenots weretotally committed to tolerationand also to foundational develop-ments in universities. Thefoundational reforms of theScottish university system flowedfrom the Continent and especiallyfrom the catalytic developments inthe Low Countries.

Professor Devine returned histhoughts to Calvinism stating,“...of all the forces relevant to theScottish Enlightenment, this is atthe heart of the matter”. Previousanalysts have regarded Calvinismas the emphatic constraint onEnlightenment because of its coreintolerance and hatred of diversityand innovation of ideas. ProfessorDevine argues otherwise andsuggested that” if you cannot putScottish Calvinism at the core ofthe analysis, then you have left thecentrepiece out”. He commentedthat the obvious reason for this isthe extraordinary effect of theCalvinist revolution of the 16thCentury on Scottish schooling. Bythe 1670s, it was the normal

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thing for a Lowland parish to havea school. This was not intended tobe an intellectual development,but was a religious developmentby the Fathers of the Kirk toensure the Bible could be readand that lay persons couldbecome trained Elders of the Kirk.This is important, because itmeant that by the 18th Century, interms of elementary schooling, itwas an advancement compared tothe majority of Europe. It alsoshowed that a poor country is notnecessarily backward. The level ofschooling above the parishschools was also powerfullyinfluenced by the CalvinistRevolution; the so-called Gram-mar Schools were established fora talented elite of boys aged 9 to13. These were extremely welleducated boys, a trained cerebralelite who may have then gone onto gain entry to the Universitysystem. Professor Devine considersthis to be a factor in why therewas such a Scottish disproportion-ality in the careers of Empire in the18th and early 19th Centuries.“The heart of the Calvinistexplanation of Enlightenmentcomes from John Miller, whoargued that because of itscontinued hatred for the arts, theCalvinist tradition of Scotland hadmoved the national psyche,especially at elite level, in thedirection of philosophy, scienceand formality of language. It is afascinating conclusion, if you lookat the history of 18th and 19th

Century Scotland, that althoughthere were poets, artists, drama-tists and writers of literature, thewhole dynamic of the ScottishEnlightenment is emphaticallyphilosophical, scientific andhistorical”.

In addition to Calvinism, theScottish University system of the18th Century also contributed tothe Scottish Enlightenment.Leading University academics wereonly paid a modest stipend; theirmain source of income came fromthe size of their classes, whichmeant they had to teach andteach well in order to attractcustom. Additionally, the Scottishuniversities reshaped themselvesfrom the late 17th Centuryonwards, teaching in Englishrather than Latin and, above all,dictation by rote gave way todiscursive teaching and tutorialswere introduced. Furthermore,this period saw the foundation ofintellectual clubs, which werehighly convivial and open tointellectual discussion.

Professor Devine considered that“none of this could have hap-pened if it hadn’t been for thecontextual revolution that tookplace in Scotland in the first halfof the 18th Century. This meantthat in terms of the governance ofthe church, there was a movementtowards Moderatism; a movementtowards the acceptance of adegree of diversity of opinion”.The reasons for this were many,

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partly to do with the new materialemphasis of Scottish society as theeconomy improved and partly todo with the Patronage Act thatmeant that land owners often hadthe final say in the selection ofministers, often selecting thosewho were more compatible withtheir ideals. Furthermore, duringthe 1740s and 1750s, manyhardliners within the Kirk left theestablished church, leaving aharmonious form of governancewithin the Church of Scotlandwhich allowed the latent Enlight-enment of Calvinism to flourish.Moreover, following the finaldestruction of the Jacobite threatat Culloden, “Scottish politicsbecame boring and this meant the

intellectuals didn’t have to takesides; instead they could indulgein a greater freedom of argumen-tative intercourse knowing theywould not be nailed by somehostile establishments. So theenvironment changed and, withthis change, these forces, thecontinuation of a form of intellec-tualism from the late 17thCentury, the force of the Calvinisttradition, and a force for thecerebral and educative mecha-nisms, were allowed to flourish inScotland and to have an influencebecause of the wider political,social, economic and religiouschanges of the period between1700 and the 1770s”.

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July 2013 marks the centenary ofEdinburgh Zoo. Chief Executive,Professor Chris West took theopportunity to look back at how ithas evolved and its role today as a“refugee camp” for endangeredspecies as well as a major visitorattraction. The Professor, who wasintroduced by RSE President, SirJohn Arbuthnott, is an interna-tional expert in animalconservation. He took up hiscurrent post last year after a careerworking in zoos from the UK toAustralia.

Recently, Professor West lookeddown from Corstorphine Hill andimagined what it was like forThomas Haining Gillespie at thestart of his enterprise to create azoological garden for the “abid-ing benefit” of the people ofEdinburgh and Scotland. Hebelieves that while the Zoo’sfounder would be pleased at itsprogress, he would be horrified atthe devastation humanity haswrought on nature. The naturalworld he wanted to share is now“battered and shrunken andunder increasing threat”.

The lecture covered three themes:

- How the Zoo has adapted anddeveloped through two world

Professor Chris WestCEO, Royal Zoological Society Edinburgh

From Gannets to Pandas – 100 Years of Progress at Edinburgh Zoo

30 April 2013

wars, immense social changeand huge technological andscientific progress.

- The present position – challeng-es, opportunities, conservationand education.

- How to make the greatestcontinuing contribution to ahealthy planet.

Reflecting on the speed ofchange, the Professor said that100 years before Gillespie beganwork there were fewer than abillion people in the world. TheIndustrial Revolution was takingoff and an American ornithologistobserved a flock of passengerpigeons so vast it took three daysto pass overhead. By 1913,Martha, the last passengerpigeon, was in a Zoo cage and thewestern world was descendinginto industrialised warfare ofunparalleled scale.

The first resident of EdinburghZoo was a young gannet blownashore at Leith and bought for18d. This was followed by an arrayof animals hired from a travellingcollection which arrived by trainbefore being paraded through thestreets to the Zoo. Among themwere wolves which staff unloadedinto their new home – but soon

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found wandering free, havingfailed to realise they could tunnelstraight through the earth floor.

At around the same time, arelationship began with theSalvesen whaling fleet, whichbegan collecting penguins andseals in the South Atlantic whichwere brought to the Zoo. These,along with a gannet, became partof the Zoo’s coat of arms. It wasalso the origin of Edinburgh’scontinuing position as a worldleader in the understanding andconservation of penguins.

Penguins have become one of themost famous attractions at theZoo. This is in part because of thepenguin parade, which began in1951 when a keeper accidentallyleft the enclosure open and thendiscovered he was being followedalong Corstorphine Road.Affection for them is so great thatone of the king penguins, Sir NilsOlav, has been appointed acolonel in the Norwegian Army.

In its early decades, the Zoo gavevisitors an otherwise impossibleopportunity to meet animals fromthe wild and understand moreabout them. Times have broughtchanges – gone are the chimps’tea parties and the emphasis isnow on replicating naturalisticconditions and encouragingnatural behaviour.

The two world wars broughtpressures, including rationing forthe animals. Many men were awayfighting, but there were still

crowds of visitors – people hadfew holiday options and fun daysout were valued. Demobilisationafter the Second World Warbrought a new arrival and a well-deserved retirement for Wojtek, abear enlisted in the Polish regi-ment which had travelled with thetroops from North Africa to Italy.“There are even some remarkablephotos of him man-handlingartillery shells during the battle ofMonte Casino,” said ProfessorWest.

The Professor then paid tribute toRoger Wheater, “the man whobrought Edinburgh Zoo into themodern era”, putting the focuson conservation and welfare.During his 26 years as CEO, theRoyal Zoological Society ofScotland which runs the Zoo, alsotook on the Highland WildlifePark. During this period, thearrival of high-quality TV docu-mentaries helped nurture publicinterest in animals and theirnatural environments. Figuressuch as David Attenborough, JaneGoodall and Gerald Durrell wenton to become champions of well-run Zoos as centres for educationand the preservation of endan-gered species.

Growing knowledge and aware-ness brought debate aboutconditions and Professor Westsaid Edinburgh made the rightdecision to stop keeping certainspecies because it lacked the

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space – “if you can’t do it proper-ly, you shouldn’t do it”.

The role of the Zoo today is farbroader than in the past andincludes:

- Holding species which areextinct in the wild

- Captive breeding to returnanimals to the wild

- Public education

- Scientific research

- Field support – for examplehelping the Scottish beavertrials

- Technical, veterinary andhusbandry training.

As a charity, receiving no govern-ment money, the Professor saidthe Zoo needs to attract visitorsand financial supporters in orderto pay for its work. One example isits efforts to breed Sumatrantigers. Captive breeding may betheir only hope of survival ascurrent trends mean “it’s likelythat tigers are going to die out inthe wild in the next 10 to 15years”.

One of the biggest changes in thehistory of the Zoo has been thecreation of the Budongu Trail. Thisstate-of-the-art centre offerschimpanzees a high quality of lifefree from hunters and habitatdestruction. Rather than standingalone it is twinned with a fieldstation in Uganda, where the Zoosupports chimps in the wild.

The Zoo is also a leader in geneticresearch, including for Scottisheagles. It is also cooperating withgovernments to combat poaching.Discussing some of the threats tospecies, the Professor describedthe medicinal use of rhino horn as“absurd”, saying it is nothing but“powdered toenail”.

Marketing, weddings, shop sales,sponsorship and other activitiesare all essential to raise funds forconservation. So too is thepresence of animals such asmeerkats, which are not endan-gered but – like having big namebands at music festivals – pull incrowds who then enjoy the lessfamous animals.

Professor West then turned to adiscussion of the current state ofthe planet and the change whichhumans have brought. Whenagriculture first emerged, peoplebuild fences to keep out the wild.The seesaw has tipped and wenow build fences to keep theremaining fragments of the wildin. Around half of all animal andplant species have been lost andthe rest are declining at 1% a year.The cause is the immense andinequitable level of consumptionand a rapidly expanding humanpopulation. Decline in natureendangers humans – around abillion people rely on sea fish forprotein, yet stocks are heading forcollapse.

Despite the sense of detachmentfrom nature which comes from

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urbanisation, we depend on it forsurvival. Its degradation threatensus, whether through the loss ofphytoplankton which clean our airand water, or the loss of trees andenvironments that act as buffersagainst hurricanes and tsunamis.Nature brings benefits estimatedat $3 trillion a year, but is notfactored into human activity.

Zoos, according to Professor West,can play an invaluable role in thefuture by reconnecting peoplewith nature and encouragingthem to recognise their place in anatural world. They are wellplaced to do this because they areat the heart of communities,attracting visitors from across thesocioeconomic spectrum. In orderto fulfil its potential, the Zooneeds to modernise. A review istaking place which is looking atwhich species are kept and theirhabitats. Professor West said it iscurrently a little “fur and featherheavy”, so the future may bringmore emphasis on reptiles,

amphibians and fish. At the sametime, the Zoo wishes to continueto become increasingly active atthe frontline of conservation.

One immediate example is thepanda breeding programme andthe attempted artificial insemina-tion of the Zoo’s female as part ofthe international drive to savethem from extinction. With just1,600 remaining, every birthmatters. The pandas are alsoimmensely popular with thepublic, and the money they havehelped raise has allowed the Zooto improve the penguin pool.Thanks to their presence, the Zooexpects to be able to fund otherimportant projects.

Looking ahead to 2113, ProfessorWest said he hoped people wouldbe able to look down fromCorstorphine Hill on a Zoo whichcontinues to be successful andvaluable, but also on a world thathas transformed its relationshipwith nature.

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Professors Hugh Cheape andDonald Meek discussed the Gaelicculture of the Lochaber region,focusing on the poets andstorytellers of the area. This eventcomprised a bi-lingual approach.

Professor Cheape explained thathe would discuss the Gaelicculture of the Lochaber regionusing images of material culturefrom the distant past. The cultureof the past is often identified bymonuments such as medievalcastles and burial sites, and byindustrial features such as theCaledonian Canal and the leadmines of Strontian. However, themost persistent aspect of culturein the region is the Gaelic lan-guage which, within Lochaber,dates back at least 1500 years.Much of the most useful sourcematerial about Lochaber’s culturecan be found not only in the‘usual’ historical tomes, but alsoin documents detailing studieswritten by local historians andinterested community members;many of these documents arewritten in the Gaelic language.These records of history from an‘insider’s’ viewpoint can beextremely informative and enlight-

Professor Hugh CheapeProgramme Leader, Sabhal Mor Ostaig College

Professor Donald MeekProfessor Emeritus of Scottish and Gaelic Studies, University of Edinburgh

Gaelic Culture of Lochaber: Lifting the Night – A’ fuadach na h-oidhche

7 May 2013The Sunart Centre, Strontian

ening, touching on aspects of lifeand culture not always covered bythe scholarly historical texts.

Professor Cheape’s first imageshowed St Fillan’s bell, a 6thCentury relic typical of the Celticchurch and a symbol of a mission-ary church that carried its messageby hand and mouth withinScotland: a starting point forwritten history and language. Asecond image relating to earlyGaelic culture depicted CilleChoirill church, located in theBraes of Lochaber near RoyBridge. This is a typical example ofa very early phase in Christianity,when the church was named afterits founder; in this case ‘Cairell’,an Irish saint. The buildingstanding on the site today datesfrom the 15th Century, but theoriginal 7th Century ‘church’ wasactually founded on an earlierimportant pre-Christian site,suggesting the location hadreligious significance even beforeSt Cairell. The grave of the Gaelicpoet Iain Lom (John MacDonald ofKeppoch) is situated at the doorof the church. However, ProfessorCheape explained that this isincorrect, as Lom was actually

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buried elsewhere and the grave-stone mistakenly placed here inthe 1890s. Curiously, however,this grave does mark the burialplace of another great Gaelicpoet, Domhnall mac Fionnlaighnan Dan.

In terms of the first Millennium,one of the major upheavals in theregion related to the arrival of theNorse people in the 8th Century.The Norse reign lasted until the13th Century and, in addition tochanged lifestyles and newtraditions, the arrival of thesepeople left a mark on the Lochab-er landscape in terms of language;most often noticeable in placenames. Out of the Norse period ofrule developed the extremelyimportant historical era, theLordship of the Isles. The Lords ofthe Isles were descendants of thesons of Somerled of Clan Donaldand were very powerful andinfluential, both in Scotland andinternationally. They traded withinEurope and their most importanttrading port was Galway, Ireland.Remnants of material culturerepresenting this era includegravestones upon which imagesare carved; not only depicting thewealth and power of the Lordsbut also detailing aspects ofeveryday life. One gravestonedating from the 15th Centuryshows detail of a clarsach (harp),similar to that preserved in theNational Museum of Scotlandwhich belonged to Queen Mary.

Other surviving remnants ofmaterial culture include broochesworn on Highland dress and itemssuch as charm stones; bringinglife to the traditions and supersti-tions of the past.

Professor Cheape showed theaudience two maps which heconsiders encapsulate Highlandhistory in a simple way. The firstillustrates the extent of theLordship of the Isles, the rule ofClan Donald, spreading across tothe east coast of Scotland into theEarldom of Ross and down to thesouth end of Kintyre. The Lords ofthe Isles were a major force,traditionally ruling just over halfof Scotland in the mid 15thCentury. The Kings of Scots,particularly James I, II, III and IV,felt challenged by their presence;even more so when the Lordsformed a treaty with the Kings ofEngland. They sought to changethis situation and, using the law,declared that the Lordship of theIsles no longer existed and sharedits land amongst other people inthe form of charters. ProfessorCheape’s second map depicts the‘new’ boundaries of rule; theKings of Scots empowered theMacKenzies in the north and theCampbells in the south, effectivelymeaning that what little remainedof the Lordship was ‘squeezed’ inthe middle, with Lochaber in themidst of this. Professor Cheapecommented that much of whathappened in the region in the

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following centuries, particularlythe Jacobite uprising, was largelydue to this realignment ofterritory. The Battle of Culloden in1746 signified how successfuland assertive Gaelic Scotland hadbecome, on both a national andinternational stage. Since the1690s, the region had beenrecruited by the Kings of Englandand Scotland to fight their wars.However, the government laterturned against Gaelic Scotlandand, under the guise of Jaco-bitism, which much of the westcoast supported, they crushed theJacobite army at Culloden. Whatwas life like in Gaelic Scotland forindividuals?

Five years after Culloden, whenGeneral Roy was making hisgeographical survey of theHighlands, one of his surveyorsdrew a picture of a character fromFort William entitled Gillie WetFoot (Errand Runner). This shows aman in typical dress of the time;contrary to popular belief aboutHighland dress, he is not wearinga kilt! Other examples of dressfrom the time include the body ofa man from Shetland who wasdiscovered fully clothed andpreserved in the peat. As in theillustration of Gillie Wet Foot, hiseveryday clothes are not thatunusual; he is dressed similarly toanyone from northern Europe.Very few people from the Lochab-er region, or even in Scotland ingeneral, wore tartan or plaid

clothing – in kilt form or other-wise.

Other pictures show differingmeans of transport throughoutthe ages, including sledges andwheeled carts, many of whichtook advantage of the droveroads, tracks and military roads.Gaelic tradition and writingreveals many details abouttransport, including differentterms used in different places. Partof the Highlands’ recovery afterCulloden was the success of thecattle trade as demand grew fromBritain’s involvement in theImperial Wars. Droving trade incattle developed in the 1760s andflourished through to the Napo-leonic Wars, leaving a bigimpression on Scotland; remnantsof the routes are still in existencetoday, for example the restingcairns found on the roadsidebetween Fort William and SpeanBridge.

The woodlands of the area werealso very important to the cultureof the region and evidence of thisis found very strongly in Gaelicsong; one of the names ofLochaber in Gaelic is ‘Lochaber ofthe Trees’. Prevailing opinion fromarchaeologists and other expertsstates that the oak woods werebeing destroyed as soon assettlement and farming began. InLochaber, however, woodlandswere a managed and protectedresource; Clan Ranald’s over-lordship in the area and the

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importance of the oaks forbuilding galleys meant that woodkeepers were appointed to keepcharge of the woodlands. Thewoodlands and associatedgrazing regimes were, however,severely impacted upon by theadvent of sheep farming from the1790s onwards. The ensuingHighland Clearances are thor-oughly studied in history todayand detailed accounts of andperspectives on the impact of thisera are also recorded in the Gaeliclanguage. The period of religiousdisruption in the mid 19thCentury, when the Kirk ceased tobe able to perform the social rolethat it once did, also colours theGaelic voice very strongly in bothliterature and art. ProfessorCheape showed an imagedepicting a minister delivering achurch service from a boat to hiscongregation on the foreshore.

Furthermore, schooling, whichhad largely been the responsibilityof the church, began to break-down. However, with thedevelopment of the Free Churchof Scotland, the Ladies HighlandAssociation was founded and wasextremely important in creatingschools in the Highlands andIslands until the 1872 EducationAct took over.

Professor Meek continued bydiscussing the Gaelic literature ofLochaber, stating that the regionis very significant in the culturalhistory of Scotland, with a vast

body of work to choose from.Many of the principal Gaelicpoets, prose writers and scholarshailed from the Lochaber area andwere prolific in their writing. Heexplained that he would simplyprovide an overview of the Gaelicliterature associated with Lochab-er and deliver this from an ‘owl’seye view’ of the region. The owlhas many associations with theregion; indeed the Owl of Stroneis a protagonist in one of thearea’s famous songs.

Domhnall mac Fionnlaigh nanDan, the poet buried in CilleChoirill churchyard, requested tobe buried here so that he couldsee the land from a particularangle. Gaelic song and verse isclosely related to and inspired bythe landscape. Professor Meekcommented that in current timeswe are obsessed by turningeverything into text. However,much of Gaelic verse and text wasoriginally song; for example, Oranna Comhachaig (The Song of theOwl) by Domhnall mac Fionnlaighnan Dan. Gaelic verse alsocontains lots of harmonies, notjust musical, but those describingthe relationship between land andlandscape, people and environ-ment. Oran na Comhachaig isreplete with this and ProfessorMeek suggested that it is possibleto “see the landscape” as youread the song. In this song, theowl is speaking to an old hunts-man and reminiscing about thegrand old times; “when men were

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men and clan chiefs were clanchiefs”. In this era, the KeppochMacDonalds were a very impor-tant family and are represented assuch within this song. The owland the huntsman talk about allthe people they have seen; theowl has seen all the great folk andis asking “where are they now”?Professor Meek describes thesong as “summarising the wholecultural heartbeat of the area”.The huntsman describes thelandscape, the hills, Ben Nevis andpaints “concise verbal photo-graphs” for the listener. This songhas been recited throughout theGaelic world and has had partsadded and removed over time, asis usual in an oral tradition.However, the song cannot belongto any other part of Scotland; itclearly depicts the Lochaberlandscape. Furthermore, it tunesin to many different traditions inthe Celtic world as well as theGaelic one and as such, summaris-es the character of the area.

The 17th Century was a tumultu-ous time and a time ofretrospection. Domhnall macFionnlaigh nan Dan was thinkingabout great times long past in hispoetry. Other chiefs and powerswere coming into the area – theCampbells, for example, pushingin from the south – and civil warswere commonplace.

Professor Meek commented thatthere was a Gaelic way of seeingall of this; they saw it in the way

that their own kindred alignedwith the new powers, for example,the MacDonalds staying loyal tothe Catholic tradition. One poetwho was very close to thesechanges was Iain Lom (JohnMacDonald of Keppoch). Hispoems are full of battles andwarriors. For example, the Battleof Inverlochy 1645 describes howhe saw the battle. Professor Meekconsidered how “looking back atthese old verses makes you thinkabout what was there before andhow important it is; the history ofthe place and its impact upon theculture; especially when you visitOld Inverlochy Castle today, nowjust a ruin”. There is no doubtabout Iain Lom’s loyalty in thispoem; the Campbells were the‘baddies’ and the MacDonaldsvirtuous in their actions. Hedescribes the horrors of war in alltheir glory and paints amazingimages of his MacDonald heroes,lending life to a past world.

The poets of Lochaber at the timedid not compartmentalise thelandscape into distinct regions aswe do today, for example, distin-guishing between Ardnamurchanand Nether Lochaber; they had amuch more cohesive, largercommunity approach. Gaeldomwas linked in ways other thanterritory, such as systems of kinand kith. These are the sentimentsthat influenced Iain Lom’s writing.The Owl’s flight takes the audi-ence to Keppoch and the

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important MacDonald family.Sileas na Ceapaich (c.1660–c.1729) was one of the femalepoetesses from the region; adaughter of a Keppoch chief andbrought up in the chief’s house-hold.

Her writing gives a female aspectto Gaelic poetry, for example, theaffection for music. Her poemCumha Lachlainn Daill, commem-orates the death of a harper anddescribes the importance of theharp player who travelledthroughout the area and kept thelines of communication open; likean internet of the time. Thebeauty of Gaelic verse is that itopens doors to worlds longforgotten; it gives a context tomany of the objects found in ourmuseums today; for example theharps and the importance ofmusic as a communication tool.

Alastair Mac Mhaigstir Alasdair(Alexander MacDonald) was bornat Dallilea House in Ardnamur-chan. He was a top ranked poet ofthe region; indeed the plaque onDallilea House describes him asthe “greatest of all Gaelic Poets”.Professor Meek described him as a“complex yet extraordinary,brilliant character; you never knowquite what you are going to getfrom him”. He composed poemsin a variety of styles, somewhatschizophrenic in nature. Unlikesome of the other Gaelic poets, hechanged his allegiances manytimes and sided with the Jaco-

bites, Protestants and Catholicson occasion. His poem An Airc (AnArk) describes him deciding tobuild an ark and giving boardingpasses to the passengers. Howev-er, you would only receive aboarding pass if you supportedPrince Charles (Bonnie PrinceCharlie). The poem is a brilliantpiece of satire in which hecomments on the various folkwho did or didn’t support ThePrince. Professor Meek describedit as “almost like a summation ofall of the attitudes and ideas thatwent on during the Jacobite era.He used the ark as a metaphor forjudging the contribution of thechiefs, his friends and his foes tothe cause of The Prince”.

Poets have commented on andcelebrated all the different phasesof development of the Highlands,from rebellions to Clearance, tothe arrival of industry in the formof steamships and the CaledonianCanal. Part of the role of Gaelicpoets in the Highlands was toadvocate what they thought wasthe best cause; what in their eyeswould change the world for good.Whether it was Bonnie PrinceCharlie or the steamship, theywere there to give consultation,advice and opinion, in addition tosimply noting changes andhistorical occasions. Allan Mac-Dougall’s, Song on SteamshipHighland Chieftain, charted thearrival of the steamship andprovided remarkable descriptions

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of the event for a blind poet! Hesaw that the industrial revolutionwas going to change the regionand the world.

Professor Meek also commentedthat his is an interesting exampleof the standard Gaelic praisepoetry that was originally used forthe great chiefs. In this song, the

steamship and the captain are theheroes and Gaelic song traditionis being adjusted to suit theIndustrial Revolution. ProfessorMeek noted that there are manymore examples of great Gaelicpoets from the Lochaber region;however, to cover their workwould take a lifetime!

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Speakers: Dr Christine Knight, Senior Policy Research Fellow, ESRC Genom-ics Policy & Research Forum, College of Humanities and Social Science,University of Edinburgh; Dr Lorraine Kerr, SynthSys Project Manager forExperiments, University of Edinburgh; Mr Martin Clark, Independent filmmaker and Dr Jane Stanley, Lecturer, University of Glasgow & RSE YoungAcademy of Scotland member.

When we think of robots we tend to think of humanoid stereotypes fromblockbuster films. The reality of robots in the twenty-first century scientificlaboratory is very different. Lab Notes is an innovative project that brought aclassical music composer and a film-maker into a modern systems biologylab. This public event launched the resulting piece of music (Streamlines) bycomposer Dr Jane Stanley, Lecturer, University of Glasgow & RSE YoungAcademy of Scotland Member and accompanying film by freelance film-maker Martin Clark. The project team described the creative process ofbridging the arts and the sciences.

Audience members had the chance to discuss the music and film in a Q&Asession, and to listen to more of Dr Stanley’s music in an informal session.

Chaired by Professor Alan Miller, FRSE, Deputy Principal (Research andKnowledge Transfer), Heriot-Watt University.

Discussion Forum

Illuminating Biology and Robotics through Contemporary ClassicalMusic: Launching Lab Notes

14 May 2013

Artistic science or scientific art?

Lab Notes is a 10-minute film andoriginal music work inspired by aspecialist robot used by systemsbiologists for research at theUniversity of Edinburgh. Theproduction is the end result of acollaboration between a scientist,a social scientist, a composer anda film-maker, brought togetherunder the Scottish Crucibleprogramme, which funds innova-tive interdisciplinary projects to

encourage the “research leadersof the future” in Scotland and talkabout science with the generalpublic. So does the film illuminatethe science? And what did theteam members learn from eachother?

The “Robot Lady,” Dr Kerr, wastaken by surprise when she firstsaw the film, and did not recog-nise her familiar assistant. She andher colleagues sometimes speak

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to the robot, affectionately callingit “Armstrong” and treating it asif it has a human personality.“When I come back from holiday, Ihope it’s not feeling neglected,”revealed Dr Kerr. “But maybe thissays more about me than therobot!”

Dr Kerr and her colleagues alsothink of the robot as a helper whoautomates much of their workand frees them up to focus on theother jobs a robot cannot do. Shealso explained that one of thechallenges for many researcherswas processing the masses of dataproduced by the robot – and the“personification” of data, tomake it easier for people tointerpret the figures. “Sometimespeople see or ‘smell’ patterns indata,” she added.

Clark also saw the robot in morehuman terms. “It started to looklike a wildlife film,” he said, “andwe saw all these human andanimal movements.” ComposerJane Stanley also wanted tohighlight the anthropomorphicqualities of the robot and its“organic” characteristics, likeninga cluster of cables to spider’s legsand seeing human faces in partsof the robot.

When Clark and Stanley first metto discuss the project, theydecided to avoid coordinating themovements with sounds. Clarkfilmed the robot at work in the labbefore Stanley started composingthe music, and said he “wanted to

film it so there was a certainamount of punctuation for themusic, to exaggerate the fast andslow repetitive movements.”

Stanley was also fascinated withthe “dexterous movements of thepipettes” and the “iterativemovements of the robot,” but thetwo collaborators didn’t want themusic to “agree” with themovements in a literal way.Sometimes, sounds do coincidewith movements, and energyseems to “transfer” from piano torobot, but these are happyaccidents rather than an attemptto “choreograph” sound andmotion.

Dr Knight explained the back-ground to the project, stressingthe importance of public engage-ment and explaining ScottishCrucible funds 30 projects peryear, to help participants see howtheir research “impacts onsociety” and learn how to “com-municate their work to a wideraudience.” The main aim of LabNotes was to “harness people’sfascination with robots andchallenge common misconcep-tions.” Now that the launch hastaken place, Lab Notes will beentered in experimental music andscience festivals, and uploadedonline.

Dr Kerr outlined the everyday tasksof the robot, which is housed inthe Kinetic Parameter Facility inSynthSys and used by academicand commercial researchers for a

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wide range of tasks in systemsbiology, including high-through-put assays – basically, moving lotsof liquids around to conductdifferent tests. One of the projectsit assists is a study of the CircadianClock by Professor Andrew Millar,who is trying to improve cropproductivity and help plants adaptto different environments.Another project looks at Soaysheep who run wild on the islandof St Kilda, to find out why somesheep live longer than others, byanalysing blood samples forgenetic clues. The key advantagesof the robot – a Freedom Evo 2-150 liquid-handling robot madeby Tecan – are accuracy, flexibility,speed and the ability to automaterepetitive tasks, keeping track ofevery single detail of the process.

Dr Kerr also commented that thefilm maker had interpreted themovements of the robot ratherthan the esoteric details ofexperiments. Clark said he wasaware the robot handled biologi-cal materials, but focused more onthe appearance of the robot andthe way that it moved, rather thanthe science involved. For Stanley,the challenge was to “crystallise”the images in musical form. Shealso said she wanted to conveythe “mood” of the film and wasinfluenced by the “sweeping andgliding” movements of the robotitself, which she also saw as“austere and sinister, alien andother-worldly.”

Stanley was also conscious of theuse of technology in producingthe music, which parallels thehigh-tech nature of the robot,pointing out that the piano itselfis “a highly complex form oftechnology” which is also “pro-grammed” to move like the robot.

“There were numerous out-comes,” said Stanley. “Some wereunexpected – which for me werethe most interesting. Working onthe project has changed the way Ifeel about the musical form,seeing how a film is edited andcoming into contact with col-leagues in other disciplines.”

Professor Miller said that LabNotes brought together peoplefrom the very different worlds ofart and science, but several peoplein the audience wondered if theproject brought different disci-plines closer together orillustrated just how far apart theyare.

Other people also said the filmfocused more on the robot thanscience – and that the film raisedmore questions than answers.

“The music seemed inspired bythe physical aspects of the robot.Did you make a conscious effortto take out the science?” oneperson asked. Someone else alsodescribed the film as “a seventiesrobot sex horror,” asking if thismay have a negative impact onpublic understanding of science.

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Dr Knight, the social scientist,welcomed these comments andsaid she thought this may begood for publicity and stimulatingdebate. “Sometimes it’s good toraise questions,” she said, “andmake people feel uneasy.” It is nota “chirpy film” about robots, sheadded.

Film-maker Martin Clark describedthe star of the virtually colourlessfilm – a liquid-handling robot – as“eerie and sinister,” and thisresponse has clearly influencedthe style of the “dark brooding”

film. Clark also said the robot hadan “undesigned” functionalbeauty and looked quite oldfashioned.

The collaboration clearly made allthe participants think about theirown work as well as learn aboutthe other disciplines involved. Andin some ways, their stereotypicalroles were reversed, with scientistsconfessing that they speak to therobot as if it is human and alsowriting scripts for its performance,and artists who describe this“human” robot as an alien.

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The Antarctic is a remarkablecontinent - remote, hostile anduninhabited. Yet it is of keyimportance to our understandingof how the world works. For theearly explorers, Antarctica was theultimate survival contest. Forscientists, it remains a place ofintellectual challenge. This talkdiscussed the kind of sciencecarried out in the Antarctic, andhow a physics degree took Alisonto Antarctica and what life is likethere.

This talk focused on three mainareas: women working in science;Ms McLure’s own career inscience; and her specific experi-ence in Antarctica. When asked toname famous women who haveworked in science, the onlysuggestion from the audience was‘Marie Curie’. Ms McLure notedthat this is the usual answer andthat very few others are regularlymentioned. More recent wellknown contributors include JaneGoodall and Dame Jocelyn BellBurnell; in the latter’s caseperhaps most ‘famous’ for notwinning the Nobel Prize. BellBurnell made a major contributionto the discovery of pulsars;however, as the junior member ofthe team, was not included intheir award.

Alison McLureInstitute of Physics

Women in Science: Antarctic Experience

15 May 2013Ben Nevis Hotel, Fort William

Why is it that there are so few wellknown female scientists? It wasnot until 1991 that the number offemale physics professors doubledin number – from one to two.Today they number around 36;however, this still only represents6% of the total. There are very fewwomen employed in the higherechelons of physics; indeed, arecent Royal Society of Edinburgh(RSE) report highlighted this andencouraged new ways of thinkingto rectify the situation. Manywomen who study the sciences atuniversity graduate and getrelevant employment. However,many leave early in their careersdue to family and cultural reasons.The RSE report emphasised thecost of this waste of talentedresources; physics significantlycontributes around £9 billion tothe Scottish economy, more thanthe financial services. Ms McLurecommented that science offers aninteresting, challenging andsometimes lucrative career pathand it is a great shame that manywomen continue to miss out onopportunities.

Attitudes to females working inscience are changing and hopeful-ly will continue to do so. Manyorganisations are working toovercome these hurdles; for

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example, Girl Geek Scotland, whoencourage young females toembrace their ‘geekdom’ andpursue their interest in thesciences!

Both Ms McLure’s parents werephysics teachers, but this wasn’tthe only influence to her choosinga career in science. Whilst shealways enjoyed the subject, shealso found a real life use forphysics and maths through herlove of sailing and the navigationinvolved therein. After studyingphysics at university, Ms McLureapplied for and obtained a jobwith the Met Office; she consid-ered that this would be anopportunity to link her interests inoutdoor activities and her physicsdegree. She spent a few monthstraining at the Met Office Collegeand then moved to Bracknell towork on research into meteoro-logical instrumentation. Thisinvolved developing instrumentsthat would work on the tops ofmountains, allowing the installa-tion of automatic weather stationswhich, due to adverse weatherconditions, are preferable topeople doing manual recordings.Many instruments can, however,be seriously affected by weatherconditions such as riming; MsMcLure commented that some-times it is the simple adaptationsto instruments that work best inthese conditions, rather thancomplicated technologies. Afterthree years working on thisresearch, she moved to weather

forecasting. Following anotherstint at the Met Office College fortraining, Ms McLure spent timeworking in both the LondonWeather Centre, alongside wellknown figures such as MichaelFish and Ian McCaskill, and theAberdeen Weather Centre,fulfilling an ambition to return toScotland.

During her time in Aberdeen, sheworked closely on forecasting forthe oil industry. This required newskills such as wave forecasting.Whilst semi-submersible rigs cancope with small choppy waves, aswell lasting more than 16seconds could cause big problemsand require the use of extraanchors. As such, meteorologyinvolves a lot more than the visibleaspects of television and radioweather forecasting. Additionally,utility companies, such as gas andelectricity providers, requireaccurate forecasts in order to meetcustomer supply and demand;indeed Ms McLure stated that theelectricity companies require aforecast within two degreesCelsius every hour to ensure thereis enough electricity available. MsMcLure also worked closely withthe RAF; in this role she was oftenasked for forecasts, but when sheasked for which location, some-times she was informed it was topsecret!

After ten years working for theMet office and a five-monthsecondment to Antarctica, MsMcLure decided to consider other

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career options. She commentedthat physics gives you a certainflexibility in thinking, transferableskills and a confidence to try otherthings. She spent time workingfor the Dunstaffnage Marina,which was a completely differentenvironment to the Met Office; forScottish Water, mapping pipelinesand water treatment plants; withthe Scottish Executive as a policyofficer advising Ministers onsheep and beef farming duringthe Foot and Mouth crisis; andwith the Scottish LeadershipFoundation, helping to developleadership skills in the publicsector. Her current employmentwith the Institute of Physics bringstogether her science backgroundand policy and business experi-ence. The role involves promotingphysics in many different ways,from engaging youngsters toadvising ministers on policy workand public engagement. This jobhas also allowed her to undertakefurther expeditions with theBritish Schools Exploring Society(BSES), taking youngsters to Polarregions to conduct scientificexperiments and projects.

During her ten years with the MetOffice, Ms McLure experienced avery varied career. One of thehighlights of this was the oppor-tunity to take part in a five-monthsecondment to the Antarctic withthe British Antarctic Survey (BAS).However, she commented that shenearly didn’t get the job becausethe base didn’t have a ladies

toilet! Britain spends a lot ofmoney being in the Antarctic andcynical opinion suggests that itspresence there relates to ‘landgrabbing’ and future mineralrights. Ms McLure commentedthat, in reality, the presence of theBAS offers the opportunity toconduct some vitally importantscience; for example, the hole inthe ozone layer was originallydiscovered by an Antarcticscientist. Current research focuseson, amongst other aspects,climate change and sea-levelstudies and the potential impacton human life.

Science is also intrinsically impor-tant and fulfils a basic humanneed to discover and understand.Many other countries are alsoinvolved in Antarctica and areoften working in partnership onvarious projects. People have hadan interest in exploring Antarcticafor many years, as demonstratedby the famous expeditions led bythe likes of Scott and Shackleton.Whilst these forays were largelyabout discovery and exploration,they also involved some scientificendeavour. Ms McLure comment-ed that Scotland has its ownAntarctic explorer and scientist.William Speirs Bruce led anexcellent expedition in 1902 andestablished the first permanentweather station in Antarctica.However, as his expedition wassuccessful and he brought all hismen back alive, he didn’t achievethe fame of Scott and Shackleton!

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(In fact one of Bruce’s men died ofa heart attack but this was theresult of a precondition).

The Antarctic is a huge continentwhich, unlike the Arctic, isfounded on a land mass. This landmass is sinking under the weightof the ice which, on average, is10,000 feet (3,000 metres) deep.Working in the Antarctic involveshuge distances between locations;for example, the distance betweenthe British bases Rothera andHalley is around two thousandkilometres. These distances andthe intense conditions require anon-site meteorologist to forecastweather in order to meet theunusual logistical demands of thelocation. Needless to say, theAntarctic continent is very cold;the coldest temperature everrecorded there was minus 89degrees Celsius. To put this incontext, at minus 40 degrees acup of coffee will turn instantly toice crystals. The Antarctic is alsotechnically a desert, due to thelack of precipitation; in the regionknown as the ‘dry valleys’ it hasn’tsnowed for several thousandyears.

Ms McLure was based at Rothera,an area quite far north and adifficult place for weather fore-casting, as it is on the cusp ofdiffering weather systems. Herwork involved taking measure-ments, installing automaticweather stations and forecastingconditions. Equipment usedincluded weather balloons, which

enable data to be transmittedrelating to air temperature,pressure, wind direction andspeed. This information is particu-larly important for forecastingweather conditions for theaeroplanes travelling to theRothera base. For planes comingfrom the Falkland Islands, thenearest airport to Rothera is in theSouth Orkney Islands and, afterpilots reach a certain point, theyhave to be sure of having enoughfuel. As such, if the conditions atthe base mean they would not beable to land, this could bedangerous. There are also othersmaller research stations locatedin Antarctica, often consisting ofonly a scientist and mountaineerstaying in a tent. Accurate fore-casts are vital for ensuring theseremote parties stay safe and alsoto enable them to plan their workschedule. On occasion, however, itwasn’t only Antarctic weather thatwas necessary to forecast; withmany of the supply ships travel-ling onward to Montevideo inUruguay, they would receive a‘warmer’ outlook!

Life on the Antarctic base is quiteutilitarian. Workers live in barrackhouses with generally one roomshared between four. However, asMs McLure was the only femaleon base, she had a room toherself. This wasn’t always ideal,as it was located next to the noisybar and as she had to be up earlyto prepare the forecast, it wasn’tparticularly conducive to sleep;

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indeed on occasion she went tosleep in a quieter area of the base,in an empty shipping container!

Because the base is inaccessible inwinter, food and fuel supplies arespread throughout the variousbuildings. If supplies were kept inone location, a disaster such asfire at this time could create severehardship and even cause thoseoverwintering on the base toperish. Ms McLure commentedthat although the base feels verymodern and safe, it cannot beforgotten that it is also a verydangerous and isolated place.Employees also assist in thecleaning of the base and assistingthe cook. Most of the food eatenis pre-packaged and it is always anexciting time when the supplyplanes bring in fresh fruit andvegetables. Free time is spentclimbing, walking, taking photo-graphs and spending time inexplorers’ huts. One of thelocations of the huts, Fossil Bluff,is full of fossils of tropical ferns;remnants of a time when theclimate on the Antarctic continentwas very different. The wildlife ofthe region is also fascinating,particularly the penguins andseals. Ms McLure commented thatthey are very inquisitive; they don’t

get the same brief as the BASemployees about not approachingthem! However, there is also muchevidence of ‘nature in the raw’; inthe form of bloodied and scarredanimals.

Skidoos are the main form oftransport in and around the baselocations. Ms McLure noted that itcan be difficult to get a perspec-tive of distance in the Antarcticdue to the white environment andair quality. Because of this and theother dangers of the region, thereare many safety routines to follow,both at the base and whentravelling further afield.

Environmental impact is also anextremely important considerationfor workers in the Antarctic and,whilst some impact is inevitable,many procedures are in place tokeep this to a minimum. Forexample, all human excrement ispackaged up and flown out ofAntarctica back to the FalklandIslands. Workers are also some-times involved in helping to clearrubbish from sites associated withmuch earlier expeditions.

Ms McLure finished by comment-ing that a career in science canlead to life-changing experiencesand opportunities that could nototherwise be realised.

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In the eyes of central government,Scottish and British, the Lochaberdistrict was regarded as theepicentre of Highland disorderand disloyalty from the 15th tothe 18th Centuries. How justifiedwas this reputation? Mitigatingfactors such as the mountainousenvironment, overlapping jurisdic-tions and religiousdenominationalism have to bebrought into the equation. But wecan reverse the question. Wascentral government the realproblem, through its incapacity tocope with clanship, with itslevying of unsustainable taxes,and with its deliberate confusionof banditry with Jacobitism?

Professor Macinnes commencedby stating that, “much of thehistoriography about banditry andJacobitism can be reduced to asimple equation: Lochaber is fullof bandits, Lochaber was verysupportive of the Jacobites;therefore, Jacobites are banditsand bandits are Jacobites”. TheHighland bandits, or caterans,have a longstanding associationwith clanship. Clans were formedfrom the 11th to the 14thCenturies and revolved aroundties of kinship. Clans werecommon in both Scotland and

Professor Allan Macinnes FRHistS FRSEProfessor of Early Modern History, University of Strathclyde

Lochaber: Bandit Country or Jacobite Heartland?

21 May 2013The Sunart Centre, Strontian

Ireland, but Scottish clans differedin that they aspired to havecharters which gave them rights tothe land on which the clan hadsettled. Most clan chiefs did nothave full title to their estates and,furthermore, land titles could begiven to other landlords, who inmany cases had rights of heritablejurisdiction, meaning they hadpowers of mutilation and death.During the time of the Lords ofthe Isles, this was reasonably wellregulated. However, following thecollapse of this reign in the late15th Century, competing inter-ests, and new families moving into the region, could lead topartiality and had very severeconsequences if, for example, youwere a Campbell in a MacDonaldjurisdiction. As such, to enforcethese rights of property, it wassometimes necessary to keep agroup of ‘hard men’; the caterans.This complicated situationcontinued through the 15th intothe 16th Century but, at the sametime, the clans further afield fromLochaber were becoming moresettled and in these other areasthe caterans had largely disap-peared.

Professor Macinnes commentedthat it was mainly in Lochaber that

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there remained concentratedgroups of bandits. Governmentstatistics show that in 1587 therewere 95 clans with a banditproblem and of these 34 hadserious issues; all of these clanswere located in the Lochaberregion. Seven years later, figuresshow there were fewer clans withbandit issues; only 11 wereseriously affected. However, again,these were all within Lochaber.Some of the explanation for theprevalence is afforded to theterrain of the region being limitedin terms of pastoral and arableland, but this doesn’t explain whyother similar areas didn’t havesuch a problem. In any predomi-nantly agrarian region, there willbe peak times for labour; forexample, harvesting and sowingand, in between, people need tobe gainfully employed. In theLowlands of Scotland this led to ahuge problem of vagrancy, but inthe Highlands during these ‘quiet’times, people mounted cattleraids as an almost competitivesporting endeavour. Additionally,Lochaber was also an attractivearea for inmigration.

In the 16th Century there was acustom that if a chief married intoa family, then that family couldsend up a contingent of people.One of the most famous contin-gents that came and stayed inLochaber was the Kennedys fromCarrick. Having little else to keepthem occupied, they became the

most notorious bandit clan inLochaber.

The pacification programmeintroduced to the Highlands andIslands by James VI led to theexpropriation of various clans,including the Macleods fromLewis and the MacDonalds fromKintyre. This led to smaller familiessuch as the Macmillans andMacphees coming into Lochaberwho also needed to make careersfor themselves, and an easy way todo this was to act as bandits.Furthermore, Lochaber peoplealso played a major part in theWars of the Three Kingdoms inthe mid 17th Century, which ledto huge-scale devastation anddisplacement, putting a premiumon bandit activities as a means ofliving and survival. The prevalenceof banditry in the region cannot,however, be simply explained as aresult of unfortunate events andhardship. Certain people in thearea revelled in the ‘sport’ ofbanditry and cattle rustling; theyenjoyed stealing things or ‘lifting’as it was known at the time.Professor Macinnes quoted theexample of Allan Cameron ofLochiel who, aged 104, wrote toSir James Grant of Freuchie in1645 in words to the effect,“terribly sorry, we didn’t realise itwas your lands we were stealingcattle from, if only we’d known,we’d have stolen them fromsomewhere else”. Banditry by thecaterans in Scotland, similarly by

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Ireland’s rapparees, was also usedas an expression of social protest.

In the 1650s, Scotland wasoccupied by Cromwell’s forces andLochaber, due to its terrain,became a major centre forguerrilla resistance or freedomfighting. At this time, the High-land clans were joined in theiractivities by groups of people whocame from Ireland, the Bordersand the north of England andfurther embellished Lochaber’sreputation as bandit country.Professor Macinnes recalled onestory arising from the memoirs ofSir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel,grandson of Allan, who led theresistance to Cromwell in the areaand was captured near LochArkaig. As a gun was held to hishead, he bit the officer in the neckand killed him. This enhanced theLochiel Camerons’ reputation asbandits and savages so stronglythat when the Jacobites invadedEngland in 1745, with Lochabermen at the fore, English newspa-pers reported stories saying thatnursemaids were frighteningchildren by telling them thatCameron of Lochiel was comingand that he would eat the babies.

Despite this enhanced reputation,the association of caterans withthe clans was diminishing, with agreater emphasis on enforcingpacification and imposingdifferent systems of justiceemerging alongside the growth ofcommercialism. There was an

increasing emphasis on clan chiefsbecoming landowners andworking their estates commercial-ly. Moreover, cattle droving wasalso becoming commerciallyviable; it was more profitable tosell your cattle than to eat all ofthem. The traditional ritualisticcattle raid held as a virility test foryoung men was a dying tradition;the last one was carried out by theMacDonalds of Keppoch in 1670.More commonly, what developedwere freelance bandit activities,involving 10 to 14 people,compared to the traditional ritualwhich could involve hundreds. Insome areas outwith Lochaber, thepeople who undertook this hadno connections at all with specificclans; they had left the structuredorder of clan community. Profes-sor Macinnes stated that wellregulated systems of dealing withthe banditry were well establishedin the region; the most importanttradition being that, if you wereable to establish that cattle hadbeen stolen by a family in Lochab-er or the Highlands, a process ofarbitration could be entered into.This justice system was based onreparation rather than retribution;in return for returning the cattleand paying a fine, everything wascleared and mutilation or hangingavoided. Lowland landlordsentered into this arrangementquite frequently with Highlandlandlords; it was well organised,with, depending on the size of

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family, six to twelve peoplerepresenting each side, with apanel whose decision wasbinding. However, frustrationsarose because there could be longdelays. A system of informationmoney, known as ‘tascal’ money inGaelic, was also operated,whereby messengers were sent tofind out who was involved in thebanditry and paid for their work.Other landowners paid for‘watches’ on their property andHighland clans often hired outtheir surplus men to work aswatchers in other areas. Mostfamous were the MacFarlanes,who operated in the southernhighlands, controlling access toGlasgow, and the Farquharsons,operating in the northeasttowards Aberdeen. Both of thesefamilies turned these watches intoblackmail operations or protec-tions rackets and, as such, themain racketeers were not locatedin Lochaber but on the Lowlandperipheries to the south and east.

The cateran situation in Lochaberwas not helped by the murder ofthe young chief of the MacDon-alds of Keppoch and his brotherin 1663, by their uncle. The youngchief was trying to wean his clanaway from banditry and, as such,the murder was perceived asconfirming that Lochaber wasindeed a centre of uncontrolledbanditry. This event was used bycentral government to tar all theclans in Lochaber with the samebrush and they began a huge

campaign promoting the notionof the Highlands as a centre ofdisorder that had to be sup-pressed militarily. ProfessorMacinnes notes a dichotomy inthe historiography of Scotland inthis period. Studies of the Cove-nanting era focus on how thegovernment victimised this groupof people using the excuse of theexistence of hardliners in themovement to impose fines andtaxes on Presbyterians. Historianshave been happy to berate thegovernment of the time for theperceived attack on the Covenant-ers, but are very reluctant toacknowledge that it was the samegovernment people dealing withthe situation in the Highlands. “Itis doubtful that if the governmentwere vicious, mendacious officialsin their dealings with the Low-lands, they suddenly became thegood guys in the Highlands”. TheHighlands is not an area with astrong Covenanting history;Protestantism in the region ismainly Episcopalian and there arelarge numbers of Catholics. Witha lack of hard-line Presbyterianismin Lochaber, historiographers havehad to find an alternative reasonto explain the government’sactions in the region; predomi-nantly that the clans and thecaterans were indistinguishable.

Professor Macinnes commentedthat many of the difficulties arosefrom how Britain was run at thistime. Charles II was a very able butlazy monarch, who left Scotland to

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be run by the Duke of Lauderdale,who created the beginnings of afiscal military state that involvedraising taxes but required themilitary to enforce them. Lauderd-ale didn’t want to use armies toundertake this and, instead,started taking militias from theLowlands to the Highlands to dealwith bandits, and Highlanders tothe Lowlands to deal with Presby-terianism; a sort of ethnic contest.Above all, he was focused onraising taxes. In 1670, a characternicknamed the Hawkit Stirk(Donald MacDonald from Kep-poch), who was engaged inbandit activity, led a contingentinto Rannoch to occupy estatesheld by the Menzies and, as aresult, the government decidedthat they had to be forciblyevicted. However, the orders givento the troops as they left Stirlingstated that they should deal withthe Hawkit Stirk when theyreached Rannoch but, moreimportantly, they should deal witha long list of defaulting tax payersbetween Stirling and Rannoch.“This was just one example ofhow the government was abusingits position, exploiting a situationand developing it beyond what itactually stood for”.

In Professor Macinnes’ opinion, ifthe government seriously wantedto bring order to Lochaber, theyshould have sought to imposelocal government through aSheriffdom and created a shire ofLochaber. Strategies for dealing

with government intervention,such as brinkmanship, developedwithin the region. When occa-sions arose such as the threat oftroops being sent into theHighlands to collect unpaid taxes,commercial networks fromLowland cities would forewarn theclan chiefs, enabling them to paya portion of their taxes andavoiding this situation. A cat andmouse game ensued for much ofthe late 17th Century and brokedown on only three occasions,two of these within Lochaber. In1669, troops were brought in tocollect the excise and were‘escorted’ out of Lochaber by theCamerons of Lochiel and theMacDonalds of Keppoch. Again,in 1682, Cameron of Lochielattacked the government forces;his justification being that theywere collecting the taxes unjustlyas they had killed a femalecowherd in the process. He wassummonsed to Edinburgh for thisand avoided anything but a smallfine because he took with him acontingent of Lochaber clansmenwho liberated the witnesses fromprison, plied them with alcohol,and because they were inebriatedin court, he only got a fine.

The whole notion of endemiclawlessness and banditry in thearea was largely dispelled whenJames VII, then Duke of York,established the Commission forPacifying the Highlands in 1682.The Commission’s reports showedthat there was, in fact, very little

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banditry in the Highlands and itwas certainly not endemic.Professor Macinnes maintains thatthis can be explained by the subtlechanges in society at the time.Cattle droving had becomeenormously profitable, mainly dueto the growth of London intoEurope’s largest city and the RoyalNavy’s burgeoning demand forsalt beef, and this increasedwealth enabled people to acquiresmallholdings, which led to moreresponsibility and a focus oncommerce in place of banditry.However, as the situation startedto improve, rebellions broke outwhen the Catholic James VII tookthe throne in 1685. The closestrebellion to Lochaber was that bythe Earl of Argyll. The Earl ofAtholl mobilised the clans in theLochaber area to put an end tothis rebellion. Government troopswere sent to Lochaber and weremet with resistance from Lochiel.This was, however, an unusualoccurrence in a period of moreresponsible behaviour.

The last clan battle was fought bythe MacDonalds of Keppoch andthe Mackintoshes at Mulroy in1688; battles among clans werefading out and disputes moreregularly resolved by law. Follow-ing this, King James VII outlawedthe MacDonalds of Keppoch a fewmonths before he was removedfrom the throne. The incomingKing, William of Orange, alsooutlawed them and thus, at thetime of the first Jacobite uprising

in 1689, the Keppoch MacDon-alds were actually outlawed byboth sides. Furthermore, theybehaved very much as a ‘clanapart’, not taking part in any ofthe major campaigns and insteadextorting money from Invernessand destroying the lands of theMackintoshes. Professor Macinnescommented that the “MacDon-alds of Keppoch were very muchagainst the grain in the area, butfor Lowland polemicists they fitthe perception that if you areJacobite you are a bandit. This is aprevailing feature of the 18thCentury, an equation based on afew aberrant activities”.

Jacobitism stands for two things;first, a dynastic support based onclan values of protection, prestigeand tradition projected onto theStewarts as the high chief ofScotland; and secondly, a confes-sional element based on theStewarts’ Catholic faith. Only 5%of the Scottish population wereCatholic, but a high proportion ofthese were based in the MacDon-ald clans of the Lochaber area. Themajority of clans in the area wereProtestant, but Episcopalians,including Cameron of Lochiel andMacDonald of Glencoe who, fortheir reluctance to give up theStewarts, became known as non-juring Episcopalians. Furthermore,Lochaber is only one part of theHighlands, and the heartlands ofJacobitism were not exclusively inthe Highlands; there were alsostrong connections in the north-

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east and the Borders. In theseareas a third factor came into playfrom 1707, that of anti-Unionism,or patriotism; at the core of thebelief in Jacobitism.

At the same time as Jacobitismwas becoming entrenched in westHighland society, there is alsoevidence to suggest there was ahuge increase in bandit activity inthe early 18th Century. ProfessorMacinnes noted that, whenexamined forensically, this wasactually a polemic increase inbanditry; not necessarily anincrease in bandit activity but anincrease in the polemical associa-tion of Jacobites with bandits.One of the best illustrations ofthis is the account of GeneralWade, who on being sent to theHighlands to maintain the peacein 1725, produced a list of banditclans. This list matched exactly theclans who fought for the Jacobitesin 1750 at Sherrifmuir andincluded the Earl of Breadalbane,whose grandson was a leadingBritish diplomat. It would be astrange situation whereby theleading British diplomat to thecourt of Louis XV was actually abandit, and made the list appearslightly specious. Moreover, post-1745, the Reverend AlexanderMcBain wrote that “Jacobites arePopish bandits”, despite evidencethat many Episcopalians wereinvolved. Additionally, EdwardBruce, a government surveyor,concluded that the Jacobites’lands deserved to be forfeited as

they were all Popish and thereforebandits.

Professor Macinnes concludedthat, despite the opinion of thepolemicists, the Highlands weredefinitely changing at this time,sometimes in very subtle ways.The impact of cattle droving andits associated wealth enabled thechange of settlement patterns,particularly in terms of townships,and brought about an increase inpopulation. This was compound-ed by seasonal migration, theadvent of consumerism andchanges in traditions and, withthis, attitudes. For example, thereplacement of the repatriationsystem by a process of straightfor-ward retribution, resulting inbandit acts formerly described as‘lifting’ becoming theft.

These social changes resulted inbanditry largely continuing as aform of social protest; in certainareas due to loss of land broughtabout by early Clearances and alsodue to the growth of extractiveindustries which required amigrant workforce, which broughtabout some objections. After1745, some major gangs alsobegan to operate in Lochaber forsurvival reasons. ProfessorMacinnes noted that “in all thebrutality imposed by the Duke ofCumberland and his acolytes inthe aftermath of Culloden, it isthe Lochaber area that resists themost”. The last example made ofany Jacobite was the case of DrArchibald Cameron, who was

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assassinated in 1753 for hisinvolvement in the last Jacobiteplot. His testimony, smuggled outfrom the Tower of London, statedhe was going to his death for acause he totally believed in and, asan Episcopalian, was totallycommitted to.

Things, however, weren’t quitethat simple. Archibald Cameronwas a committed Jacobite, as werethe Camerons of Lochiel, but theywere also very much committed tothe belief in property andprogress and the wealth associat-ed with it. The Camerons wereinvolved in colonial activity as earlyas the 1680s and were veryentrepreneurial. Following theJacobite Wars and by 1749, the

Camerons were once more fullyengaged in the workings andcommerce of Empire. “Certainlythere is a legacy and tradition ofJacobitism and banditry, but longbefore the last Jacobite campaignhorizons were changing. Commer-cialism was growing and newhorizons brought about throughUnion and Empire. Lochaber’sreputation for banditry has beensomewhat over-emphasised inhistoriography. Whilst organisedbanditry died out in the 1750s,other forms of illicit activity,including poaching and distilling,continued and probably stillhappen today”. Professor Mac-innes is unconvinced that banditryhas actually ended in Lochaber!

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The character and distribution ofthe languages of present-dayBritain derive from their complexhistories. This talk explored howpresent-day speech and writingcan be used to find out howpeople spoke in the past, and anattempt was made, using evidencesuch as place names, to linklanguage development to geogra-phy as well as history. The focuswas on English and Scots, but thediscussion was relevant for otherlanguages as well.

Professor Smith started bycommenting that, as a languagehistorian, it was exciting for himto be speaking to an audience in alinguistically complicated location.He explained that his talk wouldfocus on language, linguisticphenomena and how currentlanguage can reveal interestingthings about its history. During hisdrive to Kilchoan, Professor Smithhad the opportunity to see manyroad signs, which containedevidence of many differentlanguages, including varieties ofCeltic, Gaelic and Norse. Celticand forms of the Gaelic languagewere once widespread acrossEurope and evidence of this canstill be seen in references toGalicia in Spain, Gaul and even

Professor Jeremy Smith FRSEProfessor of English Philology, University of Glasgow

English and Scots: Using the Past to Explain the Present

24 May 2013West Highland College, Kilchoan

the Turkish football clubGalatasaray. Place names can takeon their own life and remain inthe landscape, even when thepeople who first used them havelong since moved on and theoriginating language is no longerspoken in a place. Consideringthe local Gaelic place names inmore depth, Professor Smithexplained that Kilchoan is formedfrom two parts, ‘Kil’ originatingfrom the Gaelic word for Church,‘Cille’, and ‘Choan’, relating to anindividual named ‘Chòmhghain’,who founded the church in thislocation. Other words found inplace names in the area also haverecognisable elements: the ‘Ach’in Acharacle means field; ‘Allt’relates to burn; ‘Ard’ meaningpoint or high place, found inplace names including Ardgourand Ardnamurchan; ‘Bal’ referringto farm or township; and ‘Ben’meaning Hill. However, somewords found in Gaelic placenames, such as ‘Corrie’, ‘Larig’ and‘Meall’, do not actually have anequivalent in English. ProfessorSmith commented that it is usuallyobvious from a mountain’s namewhat shape it will be; thosenamed ‘Sgurr’ or ‘Stob’ willusually have pointed peaks,whereas those described as

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‘Meall’ are more rounded inshape. Gaelic place names canalso be quite poetic, for example‘Buachaille Etive Mor’ in Glencoetranslates as ‘The Great Shepherdof Etive’. However, many of theplace names are also descriptiveand once translated into Englishare not quite so poetic; forexample Ben Mor or Beinn Mhorsimply means ‘Big Hill’.

Professor Smith commented thatit is also interesting to considerthe way in which languagesinteract with each other. Languageis not a pure entity, it borrowswords and becomes corruptedover time and place. An exampleof this is found in the Scots word‘dreich’, which many wouldassume is authentically Scottishbut is in fact derived from an OldNorse word. Norse has left itsmark on many Scottish placenames and other aspects of thelanguage. For example, the placename Dingwall, relates to theNorse word meaning a place for atraditional assembly. Other placesusing this Norse term are foundthroughout Europe in locationswhere the Norsemen settled;Þingvellir or Thingvellir in Iceland;Thingwall on the Wirral nearLiverpool, Tynwald, the ManxParliament; and Tinwald inDumfriesshire. Furthermore, theYorkshire Ridings were originallyreferred to as the ‘Thrithings’ andhave now developed into the‘Three Ridings’. Kirkcudbright insouth west Scotland is an excel-

lent illustration of how a placename can incorporate differentlanguages and cultures. ‘Cud-bright’ refers to the Northumbriansaint, Cuthbert; the Northumbrianhegemony spread from the northof England to southern parts ofScotland. ‘Kirk’ is the Norse for‘church’ and therefore, the wordKirkcudbright means the churchof Saint Cuthbert. The thirdinteresting cultural element ofKirkcudbright refers to thesequencing of the two words‘Kirk’ and ‘Cudbright’ which is in aCeltic format. In Germaniclanguages, names are usuallyordered with the specific elementfollowed by the generic part, forexample, Jeremy (specific) Smith(generic). This is the opposite toCeltic names, for example,Edinburgh was formerly known asthe Celtic Dunedin; the ‘Dun’referring to ‘Castle’ and ‘Edin’being the specific part, ‘Edin’sCastle’. In the current Germanicformat ‘Edin’ has been brought tothe front and ‘Dun’ has beenreplaced with ‘Burgh’, changingthe meaning from ‘Castle’ to‘Town’ or in the German lan-guage, ‘fortified town’.Kirkcudbright, therefore, bringstogether three cultures of theregion; it has a Celtic ordering, aNorse generic and includes thename of an Anglo-Saxon saint.Existence of such place namesusually indicates an area with arich history of settlement bydifferent cultures.

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Following the discussion aboutplace names, Professor Smithcontinued by considering thehistory of the English and Scotslanguages. English has existed formany centuries and is found, in itsearliest forms, carved on stonesand depicted in runes andinscriptions dating from 7thCentury. The earliest printedbooks in English date from the15th Century, and from the 16thCentury onwards scholars beganto consider that English itself wasworth studying and books werewritten detailing how the lan-guage was pronounced. At theend of the 19th Century, technol-ogy was developed and used torecord people’s speech oncylinders. The Scots language isvery closely related to English, buthas a complicated relationshipwith it; some people regard it as adistinct language and others as adialect or sub-variety of English. Alanguage akin to Scots has beendocumented since the 14thCentury. Materials and resourcesfrom the past are known aswitnesses and scholars todayspend much of their time interro-gating these witnesses. ProfessorSmith commented that a majorresource for the study of thehistory of language, other thaninscriptions and text, is thepresent-day language. Its currentformat is the result of history andthe things people say and writeand their accents are receptaclesof history. “Just as place names

are markers of historical develop-ment, so is the speech and writingused by everyone, everyday. Thepresent can explain the past justas the past can explain thepresent”.

The history of English is typicallydivided in to four periods: OldEnglish, also known as Anglo-Saxon up to around 1100AD;Middle English, the language ofChaucer; Early Modern English,the language of Shakespeare; andLate Modern English, whichcontinues to this day. Scots andEnglish in Scotland also has adistinct set of periods: Old Englishup to 1100AD, a particular versionof Anglo-Saxon known as OldNorthumbrian; Older Scots toabout 1375, of which onlyfragments of information remain;Early Scots from 1375 to 1450;Middle Scots from 1450 to 1700;and Modern Scots, 1700 topresent day. Professor Smithexplained that from around theperiod of Modern Scots, it is alsopossible to distinguish a form ofthe language known as ScottishStandard English. People startedto write about this in the 18thCentury and referred to it as‘Scottish purged of vulgarity’.Languages and their developmentcannot be formatted in to a rigid‘family tree’-style diagram with setboundaries and specific dateswhen changes occurred. Lan-guage development is a morefluid process with ongoing subtlechanges; for example to vocabu-

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lary, altering it over time andplace. Professor Smith likenslanguage to a “river picking upand depositing material as itmoves along”.

Scots vocabulary is formed fromvarious different sources. Wordsoriginating from Celtic oftenrelate to cultural objects, animalsand topographical features. Othersources include Low German, withwords such as ‘golf’ and ‘scone’and, as previously mentioned,Norse words, for example, ‘dreich’.There are also words derivingfrom French, such as ‘fash’, fromthe verb ‘facher’ (to be irritated)and words relating to Latin, whichare largely found in Scots Lawterminology. Furthermore, thereare some Old English words whichonly survive in Scots, for example,‘gloamin’, ‘haugh’ and ‘bannock’.In present-day English, words thatoriginate from old English areoften mono-syllabic nouns whichform the core vocabulary, such as‘hand’, ‘head’ and ‘wife’. Englishalso has Norse words, includingbasic pronouns, and French wordswhich are often used to ‘showoff’. This relates to the time afterthe Norman Conquest whenpeople wanted to use French-derived words to indicate theirstatus and intelligence. It isinteresting that many of these‘posh’ words are not special inFrench, they are simply the basicword that everyone would use.They do not have any connota-tions of ‘grandeur’; for example,

‘regard’ from the verb ‘regarder’(to look at) and ‘commence’ from‘commencer’ (to begin). There arealso many words from Latin andincreasingly from other languag-es, such Urdu and Hindi, forexample, ‘pyjamas’, ‘bungalow’and ‘shampoo’. These words areoften described as loan words,but Professor Smith commentedthat this is not technically correctas it suggests they will be givenback at some point. However,sometimes words do drop out offavour and are no longer used in alanguage.

Evidence of the sources of words,can be found in documents,ancient poetry and writing and ininscriptions on material culture.Old English looked very differentto the language we read today; itincluded different letters such asone similar to the Icelandic‘thorn’, (Þ, þ), standing for ‘f’.There were also letters known as‘Ash’, (Æ æ) and ‘Eth’ (Ð, ð).Professor Smith read a piece ofthe poem Beowulf in Old Englishpronunciation, commenting thatsome academics differ on howthey believe it was pronounced,but by and large there are accept-ed ways. On first look, andhearing the Old English text fromBeowulf, it appears like a foreignlanguage but, on closer study,aspects of current English can beidentified. Peculiarities include thefact that Old English had morethan one word for ‘the’ andspecial endings for ‘the’ depend-

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ing on the role it was playing inthe sentence. This is common inan inflected language; they havespecial endings to denote therelationships between words. OldEnglish survives in manuscripts;for example, the LindisfarneGospels from the 8th Century.This manuscript draws on theCeltic traditions of book illumina-tion and uses the ‘diminuendo’whereby the first word of thesection starts with a big letter andsubsequent letters decrease in sizewithin that word. In this manu-script there are also ‘scribbles’ thathave been added at a later date.Professor Smith explained thatthese were added around 1050 byAldred, who felt the need to glossthe manuscript and added wordsin between the Latin to helppeople read it. These scribbles areamong the earliest recordings ofOld Northumbrian, the ancestorof Scots. The actual words are notvery exciting or revealing but theirexistence is of utmost importanceto the history of language. Overtime the English languagedeveloped and changed; forexample, the Ellesmere manuscriptof Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales iswritten in Middle English andlooks and sounds more recognisa-ble than the Old English ofBeowulf. One of the earliest Scotstexts to have continually been inprint is Barbour’s Bruce. Originallycomposed in the 1370s, it wasfirst compiled in a printed editionin 1616, the cover of which makes

a claim for authenticity in that itwas created from the oldestmanuscripts.

Professor Smith also showedexamples from other early texts,including the first Shakespearefolio, dating from 1623, andwritten in Early Modern English. Inthe line from Macbeth, “No, thismy hand will rather the multitudi-nous seas incarnadine, makingthe green one red,” the verbincarnadine is placed at the end ofthe sentence, splitting the orderof a complex verb phrase. Incarna-dine is an ‘inkhorn’ term, a ‘fancy’word borrowed from anotherlanguage, in this case Latin, whichis deemed to be unnecessary oroverly pretentious. Shakespeareuses it here to show an element of‘class’. In some of his other plays,for example, Love’s Labour’s Lost,Shakespeare mocks the use ofthese words but uses it here as acharacter trait; Macbeth and hiswife often try to hide things usingfancy words, for example “thegreat kwell”, an old word forkilling. Shakespeare was the firstperson to use the word incarna-dine in English.

Printing started in Scotland in1508, continued for two yearsand died out, only reappearing in1560. An example of an earlyprinted Scots text is Dunbar’sGolden Targe, in which Dunbaruses something similar to aninkhorn term in the phrase‘golden candle matutine’, (goldenmorning candle), referring to the

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sun. Matutine is an ‘aureate’ term.These date a little earlier thaninkhorn terms and are derivedfrom the Roman Catholic liturgy,which is then transferred across tothe vernacular. Aureate meansgilded or gold; fancy in some way.A final text, Burns’ ‘TamO’Shanter’, includes elements ofScottish Standard English. Thewords ‘hame’ and ‘dame’ rhyme inScots but ‘storm’ rhyming with‘warm’ is Scottish StandardEnglish, they do not rhyme inScots pronunciation. This is thebeginning of the phenomenon oflanguage and class; 18th CenturyScotland was beginning toassociate some words andpronunciations with particularclass groups, something that hadbeen common in English since the16th Century.

During the latter part of the talk,Professor Smith encouraged theaudience to participate in someinteractive exercises used to showthe differences in pronunciation.There are many examples in Scotswhere the Old English pronuncia-tion has been kept where it haschanged in English; for example‘How now brown cow’ is ‘Hoonoo broon coo’ in Scots. Somesounds have mostly disappearedeven in Scots. The ‘gh’ in the word‘sight’ would originally have had a

guttural sound similar to that atthe end of ‘loch’l; this can still beseen in some pronunciations of‘bright’ (bricht) and ‘might’(micht). Scots pronunciations canstill be found in many parts of theworld with Scottish connections,for example, Ulster and theAppalachians in the United States.The words ‘good’, ‘food’ and‘flood’ are largely pronounced indifferent ways in England andScotland; in Scotland ‘good’ and‘food’ rhyme but do not inEngland, the vowel is longer inmany parts of England and makesan ‘oo’ sound. However, speakersof English from both countriespronounce flood the same. Whydo these words sound differentdespite the end letters beingexactly the same? There haveoften been suggestions thatspelling should change to reflectthe differences; however, thisignores the basic function ofspelling. Language in its writtenmode is designed for longdistance communication throughboth time and space. Spelling is afossil history and containsevidence of how words werepronounced in the past. It can beconvenient to have an agreedspelling system that is notdependent upon the pronuncia-tion; otherwise ‘fish’ could bespelled ‘ghoti’!

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Executive Summary

The Royal Society of Edinburgh(RSE), in partnership with theScience and Technology Depart-ment of the French Embassy inLondon, in association with theSuperGen UK Centre for MarineEnergy Research (UKCMER), andwith the collaboration of FranceEnergies Marines (FEM), hosted aFranco–British conference onMarine Energy on June 4th and5th, 2013. This event, gatheringalmost thirty high-calibre speakersfrom both countries, representingthe complete spectrum of stake-holders of the field, academics,policy makers, regulators, andindustrials, helped give anaudience of around 100 people awide overview of this thrivingrenewable energy sector.

France and the UK share a strongmaritime history, as they are twonations resolutely turned towardstheir shores. With the develop-ment of marine transports,fishing, trade, aquaculture,tourism and offshore oil and gasexploitation, the relationship withthe sea has always been strong forboth countries. Given the impera-tive to decarbonise the energysupply chain and the rich renewa-

Franco–British Conference

New Waves in Marine Energyin partnership with the French Embassy and

in association with the SuperGen UK Centre for Marine Energy Research

4-5 June 2013

ble resources available, it seemsonly natural that wave and tidalenergies would be next. TheFrench Environment & EnergyManagement Agency (ADEME)asserts that much of Europe’smarine energy resources are to befound off the coasts of the BritishIsles and France. The technicallyexploitable wave and tidal currentresource around Brittany andNormandy could supply over 50TWh/year from around 18 GW ofgenerating capacity. A studypublished by the UK Carbon Trustestimates that the practical tidalcurrent resource that could beextracted from UK waters withoutsignificant impact on the overallresource or the environment isaround 21 TWh/year from 10 GWof installed plant. A similarcapacity of wave generation in theUK could supply around 40 TWhannually.

The UK and France are pioneers inthe early deployment and gridconnection of marine energygeneration. RenewablesUKestimates that, if the sector isdeveloped, wave and tidal energytechnologies could be worth £6.1billion to the UK economy by2035, creating nearly 20,000 jobs.Scotland, in particular, has led the

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development of marine energysince the 1970s, with the govern-ment and industries now showingstrong support to this developingsector.

There is a range of activity inFrance, from strong academicresearch to demonstration anddeployment projects. Someprojects are currently ongoingbetween these two countries,such as the Marine Energy in FarPeripheral and Island Communi-ties (MERiFIC) Project in Cornwall.However, there is considerablescope to extend and add to thesecollaborations and this was thetheme of the Conference.

During the Conference almost alldiscussions took place under thecommon theme of meeting thechallenges of the imminentdeployment of the first arraysthrough bilateral cooperation andsharing knowledge in marineenergy research, in areas such asupscaling, deployment, environ-mental studies, standardisation,resource assessment and numeri-cal modelling.

Overview of the Proceedings

Presentation of the field in Franceand the UK

On the first day of the Confer-ence, opened by Sir JohnArbuthnott, President of the RSE,Mr Pierre-Alain Coffinier, GeneralConsul of France in Edinburgh,and Professor Robin Wallace,Chair of the SuperGen UKCMER,

gave a thorough presentation ofthe sector in France and in the UK.Starting with a general overview,Mr David Krohn (RenewableUK),Mr Yann-Hervé de Roeck (FEM),speaking on behalf of the ADEME,and Mr Henry Jeffrey (University ofEdinburgh, on behalf of theOcean Energy System (OES)Programme of the InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA)) presentedthe UK, French and internationalbackground.

Delegates were then introducedto the relevant research organisa-tion in the UK (SuperGenUKCMER, Professor Ian Bryden)and France (FEM, Mr Yann-Hervéde Roeck), as well as the Europeanframework, with a presentationon the European Energy ResearchAlliance (Mr Henry Jeffrey).

This introduction stressed thecontinuing importance of publicfunding, through which govern-ments can send a strong and clearsignal to investors and helppropagate private funding inthese new technologies. Anumber of British-based compa-nies have received both Britishand European funding for thedeployment of first arrays (namelythrough the Department ofEnergy and Climate Change’s(DECC) Marine Energy ArrayDemonstrator (MEAD) competi-tion and EU’s NER 300 funding).However, some uncertaintiesremain in the context of theElectricity Market Reform, and

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discussion continues about theContracts for Difference. Anotherissue faced by UK developers maybe the submarine cable installa-tion and network connection, asthe highest resources can be indeep water offshore from geo-graphically remote locations. Earlyprojections are that, with sus-tained support, there could be 50MW of installed capacity by 2020.

France enjoys a strong electricitynetwork, and the grid is less of anissue. However, licensing process-es can be a bit more complex, andmay delay – or even maybe put off– investments. But thanks to bothpublic and private funding (e.g.EDF), they expect to have the firstarray grid connected in Paimpol-Bréhat by 2014. The main pointstressed in the ADEME’s introduc-tion was the importance of thecollaboration between MREdevelopers and the offshore windsector, as they require a similarpool of skills, and may well bedeployed in the same areas at thesame time.

The importance of collaboration,mentioned by Mr Krohn and DeRoeck early on, was stressed againin the presentation of the OESProgramme of the Institute forEnergy Systems (IES). The aim ofthis event was summed up by MrJeffrey: “Competition is healthy,collaboration is essential”. TheOES’s role is to connect, educate,inspire and facilitate research inocean energies. Although Franceis not yet a member of the OES

Group, 20 countries (amongstwhich are some of the mostinfluential countries in the worldsuch as the US, the UK, Germany,Canada and Japan) are alreadyworking together in this pro-gramme to ensure efficientcooperation, and the creation ofcommon regulations.

Afternoon sessions

The afternoon sessions beganwith breakout sessions onstandards and commercialisationand on environmental monitor-ing, followed by extensivepresentations on tank and seatesting technologies and installa-tions.

Standards and Commercialisation

Marine energy devices are still ayoung technology, and manychallenges will remain before theycan be successfully taken to acommercial stage. Comparingdifferent devices fairly mandatesthe need for common standardsand regulations, for researchers,investors and other stakeholders.This session presented differentways to approach this subject,from the views of EDF in France(Ms Marta Nogaj, EDF) to Europe-an FP7 Research projects such asthe EquiMar Programme (Profes-sor David Ingram, University ofEdinburgh), along with the IECstandards (Mr Henry Jeffrey,University of Edinburgh) and DNVstudies (Mr Ben Waldron, DetNorske Veritas BV). These studiesoften focus on protocol, device

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classification and the considera-tion of the various risks linked tothese technologies and theirmitigation.

Environmental Monitoring

The environmental impact of MREdevices is an omnipresent issue,and being able to monitor thisimpact is a key part of the deploy-ment of marine energy devices.Both France (FEM, presented byMr Phil Monbet, and the FrenchResearch Institute for exploitationof the Sea (IFREMER), with MrAntoine Carlier) and the UK (DrAnnie Linley, Natural EnvironmentResearch Council (NERC), and DrBen Wilson, Marine Alliance forScience and Technology forScotland (MASTS)) have beenconducting environmental studiesin the areas where devices willmost likely be deployed, and thissession allowed speakers tocompare methods and results. Theimportance of a wide collabora-tion was stressed by theparticipants.

Tank and Sea Testing

Testing is one of the most crucialsteps of the development of amarine energy device. As stressedby the speakers during thissession, developers have to testtheir devices, again and again,and then test them some more.There is a wide variety of testingfacilities, both indoor and out-door, spread across Europe, andespecially in France and in the UK.

Sea testing was introduced with apresentation of the EuropeanMarine Energy Centre (EMEC, MrMax Carcas) in the UK, and anoverview of France’s sea-trial testsites, along with a more detailedoverview of the SEM-REV test site(Mr Sébastien Ybert, FEM/ Labora-toire de recherche enHydrodynamique, Énergétique etEnvironnement Atmosphérique(LHEEA), Ecole Centrale deNantes). In the UK, Mr StuartBrown (FlowaveTT) and ProfessorDeborah Greaves (PlymouthUniversity) presented on state-of-the-art tanks in Edinburgh andPlymouth. Finally, Mr Luc Simon(RTSys) talked about RTSys’technologies and methods for theunderwater noise measurement.

Roundtables

The first day of the conferencewas concluded by three roundta-bles, allowing participants andspeakers to share views anddebate about some key subjectsof the Marine Energy sector: tankand sea testing, environmentalmonitoring, and capacity andskills building. Those discussionswere once again placed under thechallenge of the deployment ofthe first arrays, and the ongoingevolution of the sector. In particu-lar, the debate on capacity andskills building raised a number ofinteresting issues, such as theeducation of tomorrow’s marineenergy professionals. If MREtechnologies are to help the

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sector reach the ambitiousobjectives set for 2020 or even2030, a significant number ofengineers and technicians will beneeded. Tomorrow’s engineers aretoday’s students, and the questionof their education is a key point inthe success of the field. In the UK,the SuperGen Phases 1 & 2, andnow UKCMER, have trainedstudents for and in the sector foreight years, joined more recentlyby the Industrial Doctoral Centrefor Offshore Renewable Energy(IDCORE) programme. UKCMERhosts seasonal schools across theUK. The idea of a bilateral summerschool was raised, and receivedwith great enthusiasm from bothFrance and the UK.

Day Two

The conference continued on June5th with two sessions about thefuture of the sector and thechallenges of the first arrays.These talks featured an interestingmix of major companies such asSiemens, Alstom and DCNS, andtheir focus on the imminentdeployment of first arrays, and onSmall and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) and their important role inthe ‘support functions’ such asnumerical modelling, noisemeasurement, environmentalcharacteristics studies, etc.

Upscaling and Array Development

This first session focused ondemonstration arrays and devel-opment, allowed some major

companies to present theirprojects and plans for the deploy-ment and the commercialisationof their devices. This includedScottishPower Renewables (MrAlan Mortimer), Pelamis WavePower (Mr Ross Henderson),Alstom Ocean Energy (Mr KenStreet), DCNS (Mr Yvan Coutzac)and Marine Current Turbines (DrScott J Couch). Such projectspresented a wide range ofbenefits, especially in terms ofjobs, and the need for qualifiedpeople was once again stressed bythe speakers.

The academic sector was alsorepresented by Dr Jean-FrédéricCharpentier, who introduced hiswork at the French Naval Academy,helping to improve the efficiencyand reliability of tidal devices. Theimportance of both private andpublic funding was once againstressed in these presentations,showing the results that invest-ments from both the governmentand companies could achieve. Theopportunities for Franco–Britishcollaboration in this field werealso identified, with the roadmapsaiming at the deployment of thefirst arrays in 2015– 2016, to poolskills from both sides of thechannel and help achieve theseambitious objectives.

Numerical Modelling and Re-source Assessment

MRE development relies on themarine environment as well as ontidal and wave resources. Howev-

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er, the arduous offshore environ-ment in which these devices haveto be installed is slowly beingappreciated. It is also important tochoose carefully the location forone or several devices, in order tobenefit from the waves and thetides in the most effective way.

The last four speakers introducedtheir studies on resource assess-ment (Mr Jérôme Cuny, OpenOcean), numerical modelling forMRE engineering (Mr HakimMouslim, INNOSEA) and model-ling of arrays (Dr David Forehand,University of Edinburgh), illustrat-ing how more flexible andaccurate models can be used topredict device behaviour. Finally,Mr Christophe Maisondieu, fromIFREMER, gave the final talk of thisworkshop, presenting the MA-RiNE project, a Franco–Britishcollaboration on resource assess-ment and mapping in French andBritish island communities.

Closing Remarks

Mr Yann-Hervé De Roeck, Execu-tive Director of FEM, closed theConference symposium with a fewquotations and relevant remarks.First of all, he reminded theaudience of the conclusions afterthe first day’s roundtables, whichgave “clues” for new and rapidcollaboration between our twocountries. He said “there is nowealth but men” (from Frenchauthor Baudin; sometimesattributed to Adam Smith),echoing the need for qualified

staff to support the marine energysector, and the importance ofsummer schools and shorttraining programmes raisingawareness for students from bothcountries. He followed up byreminding the audience that “wedo not inherit the Earth from ourparents, we borrow it from ourchildren” (Antoine de St Exupéry;may also be an Indian proverb),stressing the importance of theexchange of environmental datato help define appropriate andefficient environmental monitor-ing methods. Finally, “experienceis simply the name we give to ourmistakes” (Oscar Wilde), address-ing the topic of testing and itsnormalisation, so that a testperformed in any tank, sea site orlaboratory could be recognised asa valid step in the developmenttowards commercialisation of adevice. He stressed the need for acommon policy and the promo-tion of testing, validation andadoption.

Conclusions

The Marine Energy sector, still ayoung field amongst renewableenergies, is facing a number ofchallenges to reach its fullpotential in the next few years,culminating in the deploymentand exploitation of the first arraysaround 2015. France and the UKshare a similar approach to thesechallenges, relying on an effectivepartnership between private andpublic sector, as well as policy

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makers. In France, this task isoverviewed by a private– publicagency: FEM, which aims atbecoming a world-class cluster inthe field of MREs. The SuperGenUKCMER in the UK gathers 16 ofthe most prestigious universities,conducting research in this field,all the while maintaining closelinks with industry and thegovernment. The importance ofSMEs (for example universities’spin-offs such as INNOSEA inFrance) in R&D for marine energieswas stressed, as many studies areunder way in these companies,and their work is key to thedevelopment of supportingtechnologies for the field (forexample, numerical modelling,resource assessment, noisemonitoring, etc.). Even though theMarine Energy sector has made

tremendous progress in the pastten years, as was stressed by MrMax Carcas when presenting tenyears of work at the EuropeanMarine Energy Centre (EMEC),every speaker agreed that there isa strong need for continuedsupport in R&D. Many issues havestill to be solved, and it is crucialthat research continues toaccelerate deployment, monitorand mitigate environmentalimpacts, and ensure safe mainte-nance and operation. As stressedby Professor Robin Wallace at theend of the event, this Conference,though it was not the firstexample of Franco–British collabo-ration, had identified extremelyvaluable opportunities forimproved bilateral collaborationsin marine energy.

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The human population is expect-ed to reach nine billion sometimearound 2050. Given that, even atpresent, around one billionpeople don’t have enough to eat,how can the world grow enoughfood to feed nine billion? The talkillustrated the many factors whichaffect the availability of food (e.g.climate, waste and choice of diet)and gave suggestions on whateach of us can do to help ensurethat nine billion people canindeed be fed.

The current population of theworld is just over seven billionpeople, of which 63 million live inthe UK. Projections predict that by2050, the world population willreach somewhere between nineand ten billion. In recent decades,the population has increasedexponentially; in 1750, there wereless than one billion people andby 1930, three billion. This rapidincrease has been particularlyprevalent in developing countriescompared to developed countries;indeed, the population of Scot-land is fairly static. In the late1700s, the Reverend ThomasMalthus was the first person todraw attention to the exponentialnature of population growth,compared to the linear increase in

Professor Maggie Gill OBE FRSESenior Research Fellow, Department for International Development

Feeding 9 Billion People

14 June 2013Ben Nevis Hotel, Fort William

food supplies. He considered thatthe Earth’s resources were limitedand this would lead to catastro-phes that would in turn limitpopulation growth. Today, theterm ‘Malthusian projection’ isassociated with a pessimisticoutlook. Experts involved in theagriculture and food productionsector largely agree that the worldcan produce enough food to feedthe current seven billion. However,whilst we have not yet experi-enced the catastrophes predictedby Malthus, the ever-increasingpopulation brings with it causefor concern.

In recent decades, issues sur-rounding food security have beenimportant to governments andindividuals; particularly in the early1970s due to significant foodprice spikes. Following theintroduction of reforms to theCommon Agricultural Policy (CAP)in the 1980s and ‘90s, foodsurpluses were commonplacewithin the European Union and‘butter mountains’ and ‘milklakes’ continued to grow andacted as buffers in terms of foodprice. Today, following furtherCAP reforms, these surpluses havebeen depleted and much lessfood is kept in reserve in Europe.

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Despite the fact that, between the1970s and the 1990s, we wereable to increase world foodproduction by more than theincrease in population, there arecurrently between 800 million andone billion people in the worldwho do not have enough to eatand are severely malnourished;reports of stunted children andchildren whose development isimpaired are increasing.

Professor Gill commented thatfurther increasing food produc-tion levels will be made all themore difficult by changing dietsand environmental issues. Climatechange causes uncertainty interms of crop yields, but alsomeans that some of the cropvarieties grown in the past can nolonger be grown due to changesin temperature. The pace ofclimate change has increased inrecent years. Whereas in the pastfarmers have had time to adapt, itis widely recognised that the paceof change today is so fast that weneed to ‘up our game’ in terms ofdeveloping the scientific knowl-edge to ensure we meet thesenew challenges. Climate changedoes not only affect food produc-tion in developing countries; sofar in 2013 it has been reportedthat one third of the UnitedKingdom’s wheat crop has beenlost to the winter floods. Uncer-tainty in crop yield leads tovolatility in prices, which, whilstthe UK is not particularly affecteddue its ability to import food to

meet the population’s needs,could cause major problems inother nations. In the UK weimport a lot of our food, includingcereals, fruit and vegetables. Manycountries have more arable landand more suitable climates thanwe do for growing fruit andvegetables all year round and weare, therefore, somewhat depend-ent upon what happens in thesecountries. It is difficult, however,to predict where climate change isactually going to have the mostimpact; scientists are makingpredictions but nobody reallyknows what is going to happen.However, it can be predicted thatlarge parts of the world willexperience a decrease in crop yieldand this will affect us in terms ofimports and price. Professor Gillcommented that arable foodproduction may actually increasein some developed countries;however, this will be significantlyoutweighed by decreases in otherparts of the world. These statisticsare particularly concerning, giventhat the countries that are likely toexperience decreased cropproduction are also those wherepopulation continues to rise mostrapidly.

Professor Gill noted that theincreases in food production inthe 1970s and ‘80s were at theexpense of the environment,which at the time made littleimpact on the political agenda; asituation which has been verydifferent in more recent times.

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Scientists have been measuringincreasing levels of carbon dioxidein the atmosphere since 1958 andpredicting the impact on theclimate using mathematicalmodels. However, it was manyyears before the evidence gath-ered was put to policy makers,and even longer before the KyotoProtocol was agreed. Otherenvironmental impacts relating toagriculture include: increasedlivestock in an area having animpact on the landscape, forexample, forested areas beingturned in to grassland; occurrenc-es of illegal logging; and waterpollution from chemicals andanimal effluent. As a member ofthe European Union, the UK issubject to strong legislation whichcontrols much of the environmen-tal impact. However, in othercountries, whilst legislation mayexist, the implementation andregulation of this is less stringent.Professor Gill highlighted thepotential for increasing foodproduction whilst still havingbeneficial effects on the environ-ment. She cited an example fromMalawi, where a lady farmer had asmall plot on which she plantedmaize but was having difficulty infeeding her family. She was doingsome beneficial things for theenvironment; for example,planting legumes and pigeonpeas to improve the soil nitrogen.Having acquired a little moreknowledge, she planted fivedifferent tree species on the land,

which in turn led to a seventeen-fold increase in her maize yieldover five years. Because of this,she increased her income and wasable to buy additional productsfor her family, moving in a smallway to a market economy. Profes-sor Gill commented that thisexample shows that a ‘win–win’situation can be achieved, increas-ing production whilst creating asustainable environment – knownas sustainable intensification.However, Professor Gill alsosuggested that, in very recentyears, due to the economic crisisin western countries, discussionabout the environment has onceagain taken a slight back seat inpolitical importance in thesenations. It is, however, high on theagenda in developing countries,where the impacts of changingclimate are increasingly having animpact on the livelihoods of poorpeople.

Furthermore, an additionalchallenge is the change of diet insome countries with fast rates ofeconomic growth; for example,India and China, where increasedwealth correlates with increasedmeat consumption. The UK’sconsumption of meat has re-mained fairly constant since the1960s, but has experienced a risein pig and poultry meat replacingbeef and mutton. Intensificationof poultry production has broughtdown the cost of the meat; atrend that is also the case in othercountries. Pigs and poultry,

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however, need a lot of grain inintensive systems, whereas beefand sheep can grow on grassdiets. Consequently, large areas ofland that were used to grow grainfor human food will be used togrow grain for livestock. Growingthe crops to be eaten by livestockresults in less total food yield thansimply growing the grain to feeddirectly to the human populationand, as such, the net contributionof producing meat to foodsecurity is considerably lower.Looking forward to 2050, it isprojected that we need to increaseour total food production by70%, which includes an extrabillion tonnes of cereal grains;half of which is projected to beconsumed by livestock. ProfessorGill asserted that we need to thinkabout the different types of foodwe use and consume and think, asindividuals, about the resourcesused in our food production.However, not all livestock farmingis ‘bad’. In Scotland, there is verylittle arable land and, therefore,most Scottish beef and lamb isproduced directly from thefeeding of grass and heather andis therefore not in competitionwith grain. Different farmingsystems are appropriate fordifferent areas. In terms of theworld as a whole, there is twice asmuch land under grass than thereis under arable production.Therefore, we need to use thisland to feed our livestock andconvert this into something we

can eat. The challenge is that incountries where average income isincreasing, people want to eatmore meat, which puts morepressure on the environment.

There is also a moral dilemmaabout telling people in othercountries that they should notaspire to eat in the same way aswe do in developed countries. In2005, Peter Menzel photo-graphed the weekly consumptionof food by families around theworld, which were published inthe book, Hungry Planet What theWorld Eats. Professor Gill drewattention to the stark contrastbetween a Sudanese family livingin a refugee camp in Chad and aGerman family. The Sudanesefamily subsisted on sorghum,corn, pulses, spices and very littlemeat and fish, costing little morethan $1 per week. Conversely theGerman family consumed a muchmore varied diet, including a largeamount of processed foods, meat,fruit and vegetables, at a cost ofaround $500 per week. ProfessorGill made the point that it is thesehuge discrepancies in consump-tion styles that will causedifficulties in feeding nine billionpeople; it is not solely a matter ofpopulation numbers, but choiceof diet and the resources requiredto meet this. In the last fifty years,processed food has becomecommonplace in developedcountries and meeting thisdemand uses valuable energy andresources. Additionally, much of

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the fruit and vegetables eatenyear-round in western countriesare imported, again having anenvironmental impact. The currentchallenge, therefore, is not justhow much food we can produce,but how we distribute it moreevenly.

So, how do we produce morefood, improve the distribution offood and protect the environmentat the same time? Professor Gillnoted that when people talkabout sustainable development,they are often considering futuregenerations, but the people alivetoday are also likely to suffer theconsequences if nothing is doneto improve food security. Govern-ments across the world areparticularly interested in foodsecurity; if prices go up andpeople can’t get enough to eat, itcan destabilise a country. Govern-ments will take action in suchsituations; for example, during thefood price spikes in 2007, theIndonesian Government stoppedthe export of rice. These increasedprices in 2007 also demonstratedhow dependant countries areupon imports; Indonesia’sdecision had an impact aroundthe globe. Furthermore, countriesno longer have the buffer suppliesof previous decades, which affectsthe global food price. One of thekey things we can do to improvethe situation relates to foodwaste. 8.3 million tonnes of foodwaste is disposed of annually in

the UK which, in addition to themonetary cost, has an environ-mental cost in terms of landfillsites. Calculations show that 65%of waste is avoidable; of all foodpurchased, 17% is not consumedand this doesn’t account for thelarge quantities of food that arewasted by restaurants and hotels.Vegetables, fruit and bread allhave high levels of waste; indeed,32% of bread purchased is notconsumed. Fair Trade also hasrelevance; the proportion of foodsold under the Fair Trade label hasincreased faster in total than thatof organic food. This shows thatthere is a concern in the UK aboutthe moral aspects of food produc-tion. Retail sales of Fair Trade havegrown to £1.32 billion; indeed,42% of bagged sugar sold is FairTrade. Fair Trade is an example ofwhere consumers have changedwhat is on offer in supermarkets.Professor Gill suggested weshould also think about theimpact on the environment whenchoosing the sort of food we eat,particularly with regard to season-ality and origin. For example, saladis now available to purchase allyear round; but for this to happenin winter, the salad either hasbeen grown under glass withheating or it has been imported –both having negative effects onthe environment. Imports of fruitand vegetables can also havenegative impacts on the origincountries. For example, Spain has

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a lack of water, yet uses vastquantities to grow fruit andvegetables to export to othercountries.

Furthermore, the huge glasshous-es used to grow these foods usehigh amounts of energy andcause light pollution. ProfessorGill commented that peopleacting as individuals and makingmore thoughtful choices can havean effect on food production andfuture food security.

Professor Gill concluded byrestating the key messages;feeding nine billion by 2050 isnot just about producing morefood, but also about ensuringequitable distribution; thinkingabout the resources used toproduce the food; considering theimpact on the environment; andrealising we can all make acontribution. We can continue tofeed people, but we need tochange some of the ways weproduce food and need to changethe ways we consume food.

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Iain Stewart examined the remark-able geological heritage ofScotland and explored how weprotect this magnificent legacyand how best we communicatethe importance of the rocksbeneath our feet to fellow Scots.

Professor Stewart has a funda-mental interest in reaching outthe general public and trying tostimulate their interest in geology.He stresses that his numeroustelevision programmes on thesubject, however, are entertain-ment not education – but ifpeople are educated throughthem that’s a bonus! He considersthat Scotland’s rocks are impor-tant and should be treasured.

James Hutton FRSE, the ‘Father ofModern Geology’, was a farmer’sson from near Edinburgh. Writingat the time of the Scottish Enlight-enment, his 1788 paper, Theory ofthe Earth, clarified some of thefundamental principles of geologyand established the subject as aproper science. Through carefulobservation of Scottish geology,he realised the importance of theEarth’s internal heat to theperpetual formation of the planet.For Hutton, the Earth should beconsidered as a physiological

Professor Iain Stewart MBE

Scotland Rocks!

17 June 2013Ben Nevis Hotel, Fort William

system and the heat inside theplanet, its engine, movingmaterial around and keeping italive. His perceptions in the late18th Century are similar to theGaia principles today; the Earth asa whole interconnected system.Hutton’s discoveries were extraor-dinary for the time; the popularexplanation being that rocks weresolely formed through sedimenta-ry processes where layers are builtup over time. His ideas, whichlater became know as Plutonism,focused on the notion that theheat in the Earth made some rocksmolten, which lead to changes intheir structure. One example ofthis is Glen Tilt in Perthshire whichHutton visited in 1785. He notedthe existence of boulders madefrom metamorphic schist thatshowed intrusions of pink granite,implying that the granite hadbeen molten and then cooled.

Within Hutton’s theory of Pluton-ism is the concept of a very longgeological timescale with “novestige of a beginning, noprospect of an end”. At the timeof his writing, the standardtheological dogma was that theEarth was very young, about7,000 years old. Hutton consid-ered it to be pointless to discuss

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the age of the planet because, asa natural system that is constantlychanging, there is no beginningand end, just a succession ofdifferent worlds. Hutton regardedSiccar Point in Berwickshire asconclusive proof of his geologicaltheories; today it is perhaps themost famous geological locationon the planet. Professor Stewartdescribed how at Siccar Pointthere are two obvious types ofrocks; horizontal Old Red Sand-stone overlies the older, grey,vertically-upstanding rocks(Silurian greywacke). The oldergrey rocks are formed from mudlaid down on the ocean bed;marine organisms in them showthat it is from the deep ocean –over 1000 metres deep. The Oldred sandstone rocks are complete-ly different and are derived fromsand and gravel laid down in adesert environment. Between thetwo rock forms there is anirregular erosion surface. Huttonstudied this environment andunderstood that it would takemillions of years for this landscapeto form; firstly for the sedimentsto form, then for these to raise upto the surface, plus the timeneeded to erode that landscapeand then for the next desertlandscape to form on top of this.Thus, the basic template of thetheory of the planet was devisedby Hutton in the late 18th Centuryand Scottish rocks underpin theunderstanding of modern

geology. A new global theory ofthe Earth developed in 1960s,including an understanding ofplate tectonics developed byArthur Holmes at EdinburghUniversity. He first presented histheories in the 1920s, but hisideas were not widely accepteduntil the 1960s. Today, his modelis the one used in the modernunderstanding of plate tectonics;the planet exudes heat, causingthe surfaces to crack, whichcreates midocean ridges andspreads a ‘conveyor belt’ of rockacross the ocean floor. This newrock cools, becomes more denseand, as it gets older, is so cold anddense that it becomes unstableand sinks back down into themantle – resembling an elegantplanetary recycling system. Thissystem is not just recycling rock,but also gases and water. It is thisprocess that continues to provideus with water and is responsiblefor our atmosphere. Today, theseconcepts are known as earthsystem science.

Professor Stewart commented thatwhen people think of a country,they often have a very clear idea ofwhat defines that country; peoplepick certain moments from acontinuum of history that definethe nation. In geological terms, itis difficult to define the age of acountry – the rocks under our feetare all part of history and havehad an extraordinary journeythrough a whole series of past

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‘Scotlands’. Indeed, in reality,Scotland is made up of fragmentsof other places and has a complexhistory. Professor Stewart admit-ted that, at first glance, rocks canbe very boring; they are mostlygrey! He cited the example ofrocks found in a stone wall inRhynie in Aberdeenshire whichare around 407 million years old.At the time they were formed, theworld looked very different; placeswe now know as America, Mexico,etc. were all located in differentparts of the globe and Scotlandand England were nowhere neareach other. The rocks at Rhynie areimportant because, if they are cutand polished, exquisite fossilevidence of stems of plants,including some at cellular level,are clearly evident in the layers ofvolcanic sinter. These rocks are theearliest evidence of ecosystemsand, as such, Rhynie is a site ofinternational importance. Suchrocks, therefore, are not just rocks,but portals to the past.

In the mid 1800s, the geologistRoderick Murchison was theDirector of the Geological Surveyand subscribed to the traditionaltheory that rocks formed insedimentary layers with the oldestat the bottom and the youngeston top. Some amateur geologists,including a school teacher,Charles Lapworth, suggested thatthis wasn’t always the case andquoted the example of KnockanCrag in Assynt, where it appeared

that the rocks at the bottom werethe younger specimens. Discus-sions on the subject continued fordecades, as Murchison had notime for these suggestions.However, when he died theGeological Survey was taken overby Archibald Geikie. Geikiedecided to put an end to theseclaims and arranged for a team ofexperts to visit the area and mapthe geology with the intention ofreinstating the Survey’s reputationas the ‘expert’ geologists. Twoexperts, Ben Peach and JohnHorne, visited the outcrop and didindeed discover that, as theamateurs had suggested, theolder rock was on top; a lack offossils in rock indicates an olderage. However, they also noticed anarrow band of crushed rock lyingbetween the other layers of rocks;described as a “vast rolling andcrushing mill of irresistiblepower”. Their discoveries led tothe assessment that the order ofthe layers of rock was beingdisturbed by a slab of rock beingpushed up and over another onethrough tectonic action; the oldrock from lower down was beingpushed up and put on top ofyounger rock. Until this time,theories relating to ‘building’mountains focused on the notionthat they were pushed up fromthe base; this notion of a sidewaysthrust creating mountains wastherefore a revolutionary thoughtin geology. Peach, Horne and their

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team continued to map the areafor ten years, in incredible detail.Henry Cadell FRSE also studied thegeology of this area and devel-oped a geological experimentwhich attempted to recreate theEarth’s processes. He showed thatforces coming in from the side canpush rocks on top of each otherand form mountains resembling alayer cake of slices of differentaged rocks on top of each other.The structure that these geolo-gists discovered in early20th-Century Scotland, throughtheir detailed mapping, is nowknown as the Moine Thrust.

Scotland is one of the best placesin the world to study geologicalformations; geologists have beenstudying and recording here forcenturies. There are many varietiesof rocks and the country has beenexposed to periods of glaciationin the past. Carbon dioxide (CO2)levels from 400 to 500 millionyears ago can be ascertained fromthe chemistry of plants left invegetation traces. Plants firstdeveloped about 450 millionyears ago in an extremely warmtime period, when there was a lotof CO2 in the atmosphere. Plantsphotosynthesising immediatelystarted to draw down the CO2and, at the same time, oxygen wasbeing pumped into the atmos-phere; CO2 levels went intofreefall over the next 50 to 100million years. Normally, whenvegetation dies it decays and the

CO2 is released back to theatmosphere; however, this wasnot happening and the CO2 wasremaining trapped in the rootsystems, leaves and stems. Assuch, the atmosphere wasbecoming less CO2-rich andconsequently the air temperaturewas dropping. Evidence of theCarboniferous period, about 300million years ago, can be seen inthe fossilised tree trunks found onthe Fife coast, with carbon stilllocked in. The changes in atmos-phere towards the end of theCarboniferous period led into theIce Age, with ice sheets nearlyreaching tropical areas. In theCarboniferous period, the oxygen-rich atmosphere meant that giantbeasts, including dragonflies upto 1.5 metres wide, were commonand, although the Carboniferousperiod was short-lived, important-ly, Scotland’s coal deposits wereformed in this period from thepreserved vegetation.

The extraction of fossil fuels forhuman use started in Scotland inthe mid 19th Century, whenJames ‘Paraffin’ Young patented anew extraction process for the oilfound in the shale rocks to thewest of Edinburgh. For a shorttime, Scotland was the centre of aglobal oil industry, before theexpansion of the industry in theMiddle East meant that Scotlandcould not longer sustain it ineconomic terms. Professor Stewartcontinued by considering how

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Scotland’s rocks are protected andtreasured today. The first geologi-cal map of Scotland shows thediversity of the rocks in thecountry and Scottish stone hasbeen exported across worldthroughout the decades; indeed,much of New York was built fromScottish stone. Stone builtScotland; the evidence can beseen in our cities’ streets andstone, as an industry, worked for aliving. However, today, manyquarries are going out of busi-ness, but stone remains importantas part of Scotland’s heritage. TheGeological Conservation Review(GCR) aims to highlight sites ofimportance to the internationalcommunity. These are sites thatare scientifically importantbecause they contain exceptionalfeatures that are not foundelsewhere, or they are sites thatare nationally important becausethey are representative of ourhistory – our ‘Crown Jewels’.Professor Stewart stated that itwould be possible to reconstructthe entire history of Scotland’sancient past from the GCR sites.There are 834 GCR sites inScotland, including Siccar Pointand Rhynie, 77% of which areafforded Site of Special ScientificInterest (SSSI) protection, whichdeters their destruction orimpairment from activities such asbuilding works or fossil seekers.However, 23% of Scotland’s GCRsare not protected, including some

of the most unusual and impor-tant sites. For example: An Corranon Skye, which has some of theearliest dinosaur footprints in theUK; Loch Morar, where contortedrock strata can be seen; andTyndrum, where there is earlyevidence of mining. Reasons for alack of protection include theassociated financial costs; morefinance has been put towardsprotecting biodiversity instead.Furthermore some authorities areless willing to award protectedstatus in case it hinders industrialand economic developmentnearby. Professor Stewart asked“what do we want to do with ourrocks?” The answer isn’t to justprotect them and keep them awayfrom people; they have a role toplay and should be important ineducation. Scotland needs topromote geology, understand itand appreciate it, and rocks needto be allowed to communicatetheir heritage.

Global Geoparks are areas ofoutstanding geology, where thegeology underpins the communityand is part of the sustainablefuture of that community. Thereare currently two Global Geoparksin Scotland – in Shetland and theNorthwest Highlands. The processfor inclusion is constantly beingrevised and updated and, in thelast round, Lochaber Geopark wasconsidered not to have enoughsupport to continue being a viableGeopark, according to UNESCO’s

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criteria, and was demoted due toits lack of sustainable investmentand salaried staff. The LochaberGeopark still carries out the samework and functions as a GlobalGeopark, but is not classed in theofficial status. The NorthwestHighlands and Shetland are duefor renewal in late 2013 andindications are that they will facethe same issues as Lochaber.Furthermore, later in 2013,UNESCO is likely to raise thestatus of Geoparks to the samelevel as World Heritage Sites; assuch there needs to be a changeof attitude to make Geoparksimportant in Scotland and ensureScotland continues to have aGeopark presence. ProfessorStewart commented that almostany part of Scotland could be aGeopark, and countries the worldover are queuing up to becomeGeoparks. However, there is notthe same emphasis on theirimportance in Scotland. Hecommented that there needs tobe a sea-change in terms ofattitude to ensure the continuedimportance of geology in Scot-land. It is nearly thirty years sincethe last geology teacher graduat-ed in Scotland. Moreover, thenumber of students studyinggeology at school continues tofall; in 2011, 60 students tookHigher Grade Geology and this

fell to 17 in 2012. From 2013,Scottish Higher Geology has beendiscontinued. These low numbersreflect the fact that no geologyteachers have been produced fornearly 30 years. In England,however, GCSE and A-Levelstudent numbers are increasing.

On a positive note, Scotland is thefirst country in the world todevelop a geodiversity charter. TheScottish Geodiversity Charter hasbeen signed up to by key organi-sations such as Scottish NaturalHeritage, the British GeologicalSurvey, the Royal Scottish Geo-graphical Society and several localauthorities. Professor Stewartemphasised that this is a tremen-dously encouraging step, but onethat now needs to be followed upby resolute action to protect andenhance Scotland’s remarkablegeoheritage.

Furthermore, Scotland needs morenew initiatives to get peopleinterested in the subject. Geologyis important not only to Scotland’scultural and economic history andheritage, but also to its future, asit underpins many vital industries,including tourism, oil and gas. It isalso integral to the developmentof new energy sources; forexample, carbon storage andfracking.

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Sometimes described as ‘God’sgift to women’ for his work indeveloping the HPV vaccine whichaims to wipe out cervical cancer,Professor Ian Frazer gave somefascinating insights into the rolethat immunotherapy already playsin preventing and treating cancers– as well as some glimpses to thefuture.

If he’d been asked to give this talk20 or 30 years ago, said ProfessorFrazer, it would have been a veryshort lecture indeed; it’s onlyrecently that we’ve known for surethat viruses cause cancer inhumans. Likewise, using theimmune system to prevent or treatcancer is a relatively new concept,but one in which there has beentremendous progress in the lasttwo to three decades.

In his lecture, Glasgow-born andEdinburgh-educated ProfessorFrazer outlined the 21st Centurychallenge of healthy ageing,explained why cancer is such animportant target, and looked atwhat can be done to prevent andtreat it. He focused in particularon the human papilloma virus(HPV), which causes cervical cancer,and on the vaccine (which he was

Professor Ian Frazer FRSCEO and Director of Research,

Translational Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia

Vaccines to Prevent and Treat CancerJoint lecture with the Scottish Cancer Foundation,

supported by the Cruden Foundation

24 June 2013

instrumental in developing) that isalready drastically reducingincidence of the disease incountries running immunisationprogrammes. Finally, he looked atthe prospects for using immuno-therapy to treat established HPVinfection, and the challenges thatremain.

So why should we focus oncancer? In Australia, cancer is themost common cause of death,and there have been estimatesthat this will be the case world-wide by 2050. Around 70 per centof cancer is preventable (witheffort) and we can now curearound 50 per cent. Our chancesof getting cancer depend on ourgenes (accounting for around 10per cent of risk); what we do toourselves, for example, smoking(30 per cent); what we do to theenvironment (30 per cent); andwhat we catch it from (30 percent).

There’s “quite a list” of things wecan do to prevent cancer, he said,but the messages have tended tobe confusing, and too full of‘thou shalt nots’. For example, onone page of a newspaper it mightsay that coffee prevents cancer,

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while another page might say itcauses it. “It’s not just abouttelling people what they need todo,” he added, although hepointed out that behaviourmodification is effective. Forexample, smoking accounts foraround 40 per cent of avoidablecancer worldwide, obesity (in thedeveloped world) around 10 percent, and alcohol also around 10per cent. If these avoidablecancers were prevented, then itwould save around 30 per cent ofhealthcare costs – and mean moremoney was available for medicalresearch, and for treating thecases that remained.

Immunotherapy, that is, using theimmune system to tackle disease,is now an established componentof cancer therapy. There areseveral approaches. These includeprophylactic vaccines, for example,hepatitis B and HPV, and usingimmunotherapy to treat cancers inpractice, for example, Herceptinfor breast cancer. Around 20 percent of cancers are caused byinfections, including papillomavi-rus, hepatitis B and C, and EpsteinBarr virus. Focusing in particularon cervical cancer, he pointed outthat it is a disease of the develop-ing world.

Over the years, there have been anumber of theories about whatcauses cervical cancer; perhapsmost notably (following a studycomparing incidence among nunsto that among non-nuns, which

found abnormal cells in the latterbut not the former) that it is notcaused by ‘licentious behaviour’but that the risk is greater amongwomen who are ‘excessivelysensitive morally’. It is nowestablished, however, that cervicalcancer is a rare consequence ofchronic infection with papillomaviruses, which are transmittedsexually. Since it is a challenge tocontrol infection, it is better toprevent it – hence the search for avaccine. [At this point ProfessorFrazer declared a potential conflictof interest, in that he and theUniversity of Queensland benefitfinancially from the commercialsale of the prophylactic HPVvaccines discussed in the talk.]

It was around 1980 that Haraldzur Hausen found the viral linkbetween HPV and cancer; he wasdisbelieved at first, but went on towin a Nobel Prize. HPV infection iscommon, and 95 per cent willresolve spontaneously, but aroundtwo per cent will progress tocancer over 15 years. Unusually, itis possible to detect pre-cancerouscells one to two years afterinfection – it is these cells whichare detected via screening pro-grammes, when treatment will beeffective in most cases. It tookaround 15 years to develop anHPV vaccine, in what ProfessorFrazer described as a billion-dollarprocess. Development of thevaccine was possible because ofgenetic engineering research, and

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was challenging in as much as itnecessarily had to involve manythousands of people and a ‘hardend point’ to prove efficacy, andeven more to prove safety. Post-marketing surveillance has shownthat from 44,000,000 doses over24 months, 12,424 peoplereported possibly associatedevents, mostly non-serious, withfainting the most common.Adverse events in pregnancy weresimilar in both the vaccine and theplacebo groups. Following theintroduction – and good uptake –of the vaccine in Australia, theproportion of Australian-bornwomen with genital warts fellmarkedly (in younger age groups).The proportion of heterosexualmen diagnosed with genital wartsalso fell (across all age groups)suggesting that vaccinatingwomen protects men (who werenot vaccinated) too.

Professor Frazer described aproject to introduce an immunisa-tion programme in Vanuatu, agroup of islands off Australia withjust five doctors for 250,000people, one vaccine fridge, noreliable electricity, and high risk ofHPV infection and associated pre-cancer. Immunisation wasdelivered as part of a programmewhich included educationalsessions, aimed at parents,children, school staff and govern-ment. The people of Vanuatu werekeen to protect their women, anduptake rates were high. “Mothers

tell their children: ‘get this shot’,”he said. Bhutan, a poor countrywhich values its health, did it too,largely down to influence fromthe ‘royal grandmother’, headded. Professor Frazer said thecase for introducing immunisationprogrammes worldwide iscompelling, adding that theevidence suggested it has a biggerimpact in terms of benefit thanthe polio vaccine. But what aboutwhen the virus is already there?Professor Frazer said there is noevidence that cervical cancervaccines are therapeutic forexisting HPV vaccines. Despitepromising results in the lab, it hasto be borne in mind that “micelie”, he added. Immunotherapy[for existing HPV infection] mightwork in animals, but not inhumans. Although, apparently,there’s a good immune responseto the vaccine, vaccination makesno change to colposcopy andhistology.

Researchers continue to work onseveral likely ‘leads’. For example,it would appear that addinginflammation to the mix couldhelp mobilise the immune systemto beat the virus. An early (Phase1b) trial on patients with recurrentgenital warts has shown thatwhile the vaccine alone is ineffec-tive, immunotherapy andinflammation works better thaneither alone. This is a basis forclinical trials, he added. A similarapproach may also prove success-

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ful in treating squamous skincancers, which are a majorproblem for Australia.

The “take-home message”, heconcluded, is that vaccines toprevent HPV associated cancershould rapidly reduce diseaseburden where they are deployed,that immunotherapy for HPV

infections may be possible, butepithelial immunology is focusedon minimising damage and thereare some technical barriers toovercome, and that embeddingresearch in health practice iscritical to moving forward withhealth care.

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Blood Curdling Stories from Scottish History

27 July 2013

This talk was a journey back in time with best-selling author Allan Burnettto an age of magic, monsters and mayhem. One learnt about Lochaber'srole in the nation's dark and bloody past, and discovered how you can usehistorical facts and legends from the Dark Ages to the Second World War tospice up your own creative writing.

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Professor of EntertainmentTechnology Jesse Schell, ofCarnegie Mellon University, andtechnology entrepreneur Chris vander Kuyl FRSE, each presented ashort lecture on gamification inbusiness and society and thefuture of gaming. They thenjoined writer Ben Hammersley todiscuss the immense influence ofvideo games on the contemporaryworld and to answer questionsfrom the audience.

Professor Jesse Schell

Many companies believe the routeto success is through making theirproducts and services more likegames. According to ProfessorSchell, the reality is more subtleand they need to learn how tobuild pleasure into the customerexperience. Some of the bigsuccesses of the video gamesindustry have been unexpected –such as Club Penguin or GuitarHero. What they have in commonis that they “reach out to the realworld”, perhaps by involvingsocial networks, toys or physicalactivity. At the same time, many

Jesse SchellDistinguished Professor of Entertainment Technology,

Carnegie Mellon University

Dr Chris van der Kuyl FRSETechnology Entrepreneur

The Leisure RevolutionPart of the Edinburgh International Festival 2013

Supported by the Turing Festival

11 August 2013

companies have developed rewardsystems that are similar to games.The two worlds are getting closer.

The growing sophistication andplummeting price of electronicsensors already allows computersto respond to many humanactions. It is possible to imagine aworld in which they are in everydrink can or cereal box, where allactivities are monitored and winpoints. Life itself becomes a game,with companies boosting sales byprompting behaviour withrewards.

But this underestimates thecomplexity of human motivations.According to Professor Schell, theseeming logic of taking some-thing people like, addingsomething else they like, andexpecting them to buy more doesnot always work. Indeed this typeof gamification can backfire. Hecited a study in which two groupsof children were asked to drawpictures – one was paid the otherunpaid. The former produced lotsof poor quality drawings, whilethe others took time to enjoy the

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activity. Once the session was over,the researchers left the children totheir own devices for a while. Theunpaid group carried on drawingbecause it was fun, the paidgroup did nothing as it nowseemed only worth doing forcash. Rewards debased ratherthan promoted the activity.

It is often suggested that fun is abig motivator in games. ButProfessor Schell pointed to howoften players become frustratedand annoyed with games, yet carryon. Self-determination theory saysthis is because they are satisfyingdeep-seated mental needs. Theseare:

- Competence – the desire to begood at something

- Autonomy – freedom to dothings as you wish

- Relatedness – a desire toconnect with others

“Video games are very good atmaking you feel competent, andcertainly you have autonomy; youcan play the game the way youwant, and most games are aboutplaying with other people andfinding ways to connect,” said theProfessor. He added: “Fun is a niceaspect of games, but it’s thesethree things that make gameswork so well.”

To fully understand why gameswork, and why some things don’twork as games, it is helpful torecognise the difference betweenthings you have to do and things

you want to do. In the one case,we optimise for speed andefficiency; in the other, we takeour time because it is for pleasure.Professor Schell said: “You neverhear someone say ‘hey, youremember I was talking abouttaking a two-week holiday? Well, Ihave figured out how to get itdown to just six days’.”

Avoiding pain and seekingpleasure can both be strongmotivators – but they are verydifferent and are even handled byseparate parts of the brain. Associety becomes more affluent,the opportunity to seek positivesbecomes increasingly influential.We eat foods we like rather thanseeking nutrition to survive; wewant jobs that are fulfilling ratherthan just to pay the bills. Consum-er items such as cars now tend tobe sold on the basis of how theymake you feel rather than whetherthey are efficient.

A fundamental shift has takenplace between the 20th and 21stcenturies as we gear the world tobe more pleasurable. As a conse-quence, many businesses areturning to games designers tofind out how to make products orservices more pleasurable. Thiscan be highly effective, but it hasto be remembered that mostproducts and services have apractical function, whereas gamesare entirely about pleasure.Pleasure is complex and dependson context, so business has to be

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careful to adopt only thoseaspects of games that resonatewith their market. Frequent fliermiles are great for businesstravellers because the rewardsmake them feel importantbecause they travel so much. Insome shops, people might feelbad if a reward system highlight-ed how much money they spentthere.

Rather than turn things intogames, the key for business is toimprove the motivational designof what they offer. “Pleasureseeking and pain avoidance arethe motivation for everything wedo, and pleasure seeking is thekey to motivational design in the21st Century.” The future,according to Professor Schell,does not belong to businessesthat gamify, but to those askingwhy a consumer will get pleasurefrom the experience they offer,and finding out how they canmake it feel even better.

Chris van der Kuyl FRSE

While Dr van der Kuyl still regardscomputer games as a nicheindustry, he pointed to statisticsthat underline how deeply now itnow permeates society. Theseinclude that it is the world’shighest-grossing entertainmentmedium. The audience is matur-ing, with the average player being34, and is broadening, with up to40% of players being female. “I’m43 now and have been playingcomputer games since I was eight

or nine. None of my compatriotswho grew up as gamers havereally given up,” he said. “We stilllove games, it’s part of ourculture”.

Turning to what makes computergames appealing, Dr van der Kuyldescribed five fundamentaldynamics:

- Challenge: the promise offeredby the designer is of a challengeto be overcome.

- Tasks: Players normally have toperform tasks of increasingdifficulty. A good designer willbe like a sports coach, takingthe player forward in incrementsuntil they can achieve feats thatwould have initially beenimpossible.

- Reward: People like accolades,but it is not why they play.

- Co-operation: Many of thebiggest phenomena are onlinemulti-player games that are allabout the individual’s rolewithin a team.

- Competition: Winning can be amajor motivator, but for mostplayers it’s about progressrather than being the best.

Efforts by business to gamify haveenjoyed mixed fortunes. “Some ofit works really well and some of itis terrible and really contrived,”said Dr van der Kuyl. Commonapproaches can include “badgecollecting”, but this can lose itsappeal quite quickly. Giving“missions” with clear steps

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through to an eventual goal canwork, as people like to be part ofsomething larger than themselves.SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestri-al Life), for example, attractedhuge support when it askedpeople to lend it the processingpower of their own computersystems to help analyse data fromdeep space.

One of the most impressiveexamples of how much peoplelike to co-operate came from thegames industry itself. Swedishdeveloper Markus Alexej “Notch”Persson came up with a compel-ling idea for a ‘sandbox’ game, inwhich a central character calledSteve could craft his own world byday – but faced a struggle tosurvive by night. With no moneyto develop it, he appealed onlinefor small donations in return for afree copy once complete.

Dr van der Kuyl, who has had amajor role in the emergence ofthe game, said people loved beingpart of the project. Called Mi-necraft, it is now the singlebiggest piece of interactiveentertainment in the world today.What people enjoy is that, just likebeing a child in a sandpit, theydecide what they want to do.While there is a storyline, ulti-mately it’s a vehicle for theimagination.

Intriguingly, Minecraft uses lego-like block characters and imagesrather than sharp realism and waslargely the vision of one person.

This ran counter to the generaldirection of the industry, wherethe wisdom was that successdemanded budgets of $100million and teams of 500.

Looking to the future of theindustry, Mr van der Kuyl identi-fied the human–game interface asthe key obstacle and opportunity.Right now, players need pads,keyboards or touch screens. Thesehave intrinsic limitations and aleap forward is needed. Heanticipates that this will initiallycome through voice commandbut, within decades, we are likelyto develop ways to control gamesby thought – perhaps via electron-ic sensors that interpret ourmovements and responses. Andfor businesses wanting to learnfrom the industry, Dr van der Kuylsuggested there is a need to makea fundamental distinction be-tween explicit and implicitgaming. The former attempts toturn something into a game; thelatter borrows techniques andideas to make something moreenjoyable.

What is particularly exciting interms of the influence that gameshave on society is that many ofthem nourish and foster creativity.Increasingly, games companies arecollaborating with players andencouraging them to amend theirproducts, because they havelearned to value this creativity.Equally, there is vast potential inthe interactivity offered by

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gaming. This is something that Drvan der Kuyl believes will becomeubiquitous. It offers huge oppor-tunities to engage new audiencesin novel ways.

Rather than displacing the real,the virtual offers enhancement.The celebration of the physicaloffered by something like theEdinburgh Festival can only gainfrom greater engagement. Indeed,content in the virtual world is so

vast that people increasingly relyon trusted curators to guide them.This provides huge possibilitiesfor people like festival organisers,who can offer both the visceralexperience of being personallypresent at a performance, and thechance for people to cometogether online to share anddiscuss what they most enjoy.Through routes such as this, theworld can become gamified in apositive way.

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Described as a ‘cinema enthusiastfor as long as he could remem-ber’, technology expert MosheKam explored man’s fascinationwith moving images across themillennia – from cave painting inprehistoric France to prospects forsensory cinema in the future.

In France 30,000 years ago, theearliest known artists attemptedto convey movement and percep-tual depth in cave paintings. Theysketched contours and addedextra legs on bison to make themlook three-dimensional andmobile. These early drawings,according to Moshe Kam, expressman’s quest to depict moving andthree-dimensional images – theyrepresent a very early precursor tocinema as it developed from thelate 19th Century to the presenttime. In his talk, Professor Kamdescribed the long technologicalroute to current-day cinema, aswell as the inspiration andmotivation for the technology thatenabled moving images. He alsodiscussed the barriers andsetbacks that cinema technologyhas encountered over more than acentury of intense innovation andexpansion. Kam spoke abouttechnology as an enabler of new

Moshe KamHead of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,

and Director of the Data Fusion Laboratory,Drexel University, Philadelphia

How Art Intersects with Technology in CinemaPart of the Edinburgh International Festival 2013

13 August 2013

artistic expression, and on cinemaas a catalyst for new technology inthe inventor’s laboratory. He gavesome intriguing glimpses into afuture where cinema experiencemay well transcend sound andvision, and involve also the sensesof touch, taste and smell. Evenbefore the invention of cinema,there were many attempts tocreate the illusion of movingimages. The most advancedefforts involved the use of a seriesof still images, photographed orpainted, and then projected inquick succession so that they wereperceived by the human eye asmoving. Such efforts, based onthe theory of persistent vision,have been explored since the mid-19th Century, though the basicideas were sown much earlier –they are even mentioned inpreliminary forms by Euclid andNewton.

In the late 19th Century, however,three technologies converged toenable and accelerate cinematechnology. These technologieswere optical toys, photographyand projection. Early optical toysincluded the phenakistoscope andthe zoetrope (or “wheel of thedevil”), both of which employed

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permanent ‘hardware’ (mostlymechanical, cranked by hand) andreplaceable ‘software’ – strips ofpainted images which wereshown on the device. When thesestill images of progressive move-ment were viewed in quicksuccession, usually through apeephole or a slit, they gave theviewer an impression of move-ment. Another invention was thepraxinoscope, a device made byÉmile Reynaud, which led to hisTheatre Optique – a 1892 movingpicture show considered to be thefirst presentation of projectedmoving images to an audience. Inthe inaugural presentation, on 28October 1892 in Paris, Reynaudshowed three cartoons, eachlasting about 15 minutes andconsisting of 500–600 individual-ly2 painted images. It was aone-man show; Reynaud served asphotographer, writer, editor,producer and projectionist.

Only forty years later, the staffingsituation was very different. Filmwas being described as “thenearest modern equivalent to amodern cathedral,” on the basisof the number of people involvedand the diversity of their profes-sional contributions, fromdirectors to actors to soundmen.In 2013, however, we seem to begetting back to the one-man-band idea of cinema. The wideavailability of film-making toolsnow enables the efforts of smallgroups, or even single individuals,who can create, with small crews

and limited budgets, professional-grade cinematic works of art.Professor Kam described the cycleof successful cinema inventions.First, a need is identified, or aphysical constraint is described aslimiting. Researchers and develop-ers offer an invention to meet theneed or overcome the physicalconstraint. Next, the new inven-tion is ‘showcased’ in new movies,then adopted more widely andstarts the path toward commer-cialisation. Often this processcauses the retirement of technicalmethods which are incompatiblewith the new invention, or are nolonger economical. (This develop-ment sometimes leads topassionate pleas from traditional-ists, who are strongly invested inthe old technology and refuse tolet it go.) The emergent technolo-gy almost always enables andspurs new artistic expression,although it may leave behindsome artists and performers whoare unable to adjust to the newenvironment. Formal standards forthe new technology follow,allowing mass production andwide distribution. At this stage,new physical constraints are oftenidentified, and the cycle startsanew.

Examples of this process ofinvention, innovation and diffu-sion include the arrival of thecinematic technologies of projec-tion, film-base development,sound, colour, widescreen anddigital technology, each having an

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impact on multiple aspects – fromhow movies are filmed andproduced to how they are fi-nanced, marketed and distributed.Keys to the success of new cinematechnology have been maximisa-tion of on-screen effect whilstminimising investment in technol-ogy and infrastructure, and beingcompatible with existing stand-ards (backcompatibility).

Professor Kam then focused ondevelopments in projection.Projection was one of the mainbottlenecks in the early history ofcinema, with early solutions notallowing projection of a moviesimultaneously to multipleviewers. He discussed ThomasEdison’s kinetoscope, whichachieved some popularity. Howev-er, the short movies it offeredcould be viewed by only oneperson at a time. To accommodatea crowd, Edison built specialkinetoscope parlours withmultiple devices (the first parlourswere established in New York andLondon in 1894). A breakthroughin the technology of projectionwas achieved by Auguste andLouis Lumière, who built on thework of Reynaud to use patentedperforated film in a new type ofcamera/projector. Their cinema-tographe – a camera, projectorand developer in one device –allowed simultaneous viewing ofthe same movie by many people.An additional advantage of theLumières’ technology overEdison’s bulky and heavy kineto-

scope was the handiness of thecinematographe – it was light andtransportable.

In 1895, the first Lumière footage– showing workers leaving theLumière family factory – wasrecorded using the cinematogra-phe. Owing to this and manysubsequent movies, the Lumièresare remembered not just becauseof their technological inventions,but also due to their achievementsas cinema artists. Their shortmovies were not meant just to bea showcase for new technology,but had structure, design andstory line. Unlike most earliermovies, such as the ones showedin kinetoscope parlours, theLumière movies were carefullystaged and directed.

Artistic innovations followedapace – improvements in the waythat sequences were shot, how‘cuts’ were made to ensure acontinuous viewer experience, andhow viewers were guided todevelop inference and interpretthe emerging language of cinema.Technological advances made itpossible for cinematographersand directors to expand artisticexpression and develop a newvisual vocabulary of the art. Theyused this vocabulary to communi-cate with growing andincreasingly-appreciative audienc-es.

Professor Kam described how‘special effects’ were introduced,citing the work of impresario and

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magician George Méliès, whoexported tricks from his theatreand circus shows to film. Méliès,incidentally, wanted to buy acinematographe from the Lu-mières’ father in late 1895, butwas refused on the basis thatcinema would likely be a short-lived fad, so the Lumière familymay as well exploit it whileinterest remained. This incident ispossibly the first (of many)prophesies of the imminent‘death of cinema.’ Many of thecinematic techniques used todayhave their roots in the early daysof cinema. A notable example isDziga Vertov’s Man with a MovieCamera (1929), which usesmultiple techniques popularisedand honed decades later, includ-ing double exposure, fast motion,slow motion, freeze frames, jumpcuts, split screens, Dutch angles,extreme close-ups, tracking shots,footage played backwards, andstop motion animations. Cinemacontinued to develop throughoutthe 20th Century; sound was oneof the most significant areas ofprogress. Edison was a pioneer inthis area as well, but again he waseclipsed – this time by EmileBerliner, whose gramophone usedmass-produced discs which weresuperior to the cylinders used inEdison’s phonograph. Then thetechnology moved to ‘sound onfilm.’ In 1926, the first commercialscreening took place of a featurefilm synchronised to a recordedsoundtrack; only nine years later,

in 1935, 95 per cent of Holly-wood’s output had synchronisedsound.

The introduction of sound hadsignificant impact on then-existing practices – cinemas had tobe able to play sound for onething. In about a decade (and inspite of the fervent protests ofsome traditionalists) the newtechnology put the silent movie tobed. For a period of time, restric-tions imposed by the new soundtechnology had an adverse impacton lighting and shooting angles –buzzing arc lamps had to bereplaced by incandescent bulbs,and noisy projectors had to beisolated in bulky projectionbooths. Tinted and toned movies,the precursors for movies incolour, were discontinued becausefilm development had to take intoaccount the needs of the opticaltrack, and because tinting/toningtended to reduce the quality ofsound reproduction. Kam demon-strated how the emergence ofsound techniques and the use ofmixed silent and talking sceneswere employed by film-makers toinvent new artistic effects. Oneexample is Hitchcock’s Blackmail(1929), where the directordevelops an ongoing ‘dialog’ withthe new technology of soundalong with the deployment of themain narrative of the film. Kamcompared the mixing of silent andtalking scenes in Blackmail to themixing of digitally photographedand Super 16-mm photographed

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scenes in Black Swan (2010). Inboth cases, the use of multipletechnologies becomes part of theartistic fabric of the movie. Despitecinema’s close relationship anddependence on technology,cinema has been used repeatedlyas an agent to caution againsttechnological advances and theirconsequences. Cautionary moviesabout technology have beenappearing since the early 20thCentury, and include the classicMetropolis (1927). Major themesof Metropolis include the aliena-tion of the individual in themodern city and the heartlessoppression of workers by technol-ogy (with a destructive robot toboot). More recent examples oftechnophobia in the moviesinclude The Terminator (1984),Blade Runner (1982) and MinorityReport (2002). Cinema andtelevision have, however, beenalso catalysts for technologicalinvention and development. The‘23rd-Century communicator,’from the original series of StarTrek, bears a striking resemblanceto the present-day mobile phone,while Star Trek: The Next Genera-tion, offered flat touchscreencomputers similar to today’stablets. Tablet-type computingdevices were also shown in 2001:A Space Odyssey (1968), whileFahrenheit 451 (1966) demon-strated an interactive big-screentelevision. While some of these –and other developments such as

e-paper and facial recognition –are now available, or nearly so,others, such as Harry Potter’sinvisibility cloak, time travel, flyingcars and human cloning, are morechallenging (and in some casesphysically impossible) to realise.Turning briefly to robots (andcyborgs), Professor Kam highlight-ed them as a popular feature forcommenting on technology infilms, and for expressing desiredspecifications of future robots.Many serious developers of robotswere inspired to build actualfunctioning robots in theirlaboratories by robots that wereproposed originally in the movies.A recent study done at theUniversity of Cambridge foundthat the more films with robotsviewers saw, the more positivetheir attitudes towards robotsbecame. It did not matter if thedepicted robots were socially‘positive’ or ‘negative.’

Professor Kam ended his talk bymentioning a few of the areas hedidn’t have time to delve into,such as colour technology,animation, and the developmentof the cinematic musical score. Healso alluded to current and futuredevelopments, including 3D,virtual reality and the convergenceof movies and games – showingthat art and technology are certainto continue to intersect in cinema,now and in the foreseeablefuture.

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Described as one of the greatestremaining murder mysteries inScotland, the Appin murder is thesubject of much speculation. Theconsensus is that the wrong manwas convicted. In part 1 of a two-part event, the historical contextof the story was discussed. Part 2then re-examined the evidenceusing expert witnesses, takingaccount of modern methods ofdetection and scientific forensictechniques.

On Monday 25 September 1752,Scotland’s High Court returned toSession in Inverary having justcompleted a very welcome 24-hour break. Prior to this, the courthad sat for 53 hours straight,without formal intermission,hearing the case of James Stewart,who was accused of conspiracy inthe murder of Colin Campbell ofGlenure, the Red Fox. Althoughthis was the way criminal courtswere held in Scotland at this time,a trial of such length was quiteexceptional. A guilty verdict hadbeen reached the previous dayand James Stewart’s sentence wasdue to be pronounced.

Campbell was a governmentemployee; the Factor of threeWest Highland estates that hadbeen placed in government

Professor James Hunter FRSEProfessor of History of the Highlands and Islands,

University of the Highlands and Islands

The Appin Murder Part 1 – Historical Context

3 September 2013Ben Nevis Hotel, Fort William

control, as their previous ownershad launched an armed insurrec-tion against the British State. Therebels, known as Jacobites, hadtried to overthrow the rulingorder; from the West Highlandsthey marched deep into England,their efforts ending in 1746 at theBattle of Culloden, where theJacobites were broken anddispersed. As a result, the landedproperties of some of the Jacobiteleadership in the Highlands wereconfiscated and taken over by thegovernment. One of these estateswas the Ardshiel Estate and it washere that, on Thursday 14th May1752, Colin Campbell receivedtwo musket bullets in his back.

James Stewart was not thegunman and was not accused ofactually shooting Campbell;however, the prosecutors inInverary contended that he had alarge part in the planning of thecrime. The Dempster, the courtofficial in charge of proclaimingsentence, announced that onTuesday 7 November JamesStewart would be “transportedover the ferry of Ballachulish andcarried to a gibbet to be erectedon a conspicuous eminence uponthe south side of the said ferry”.James Stewart “upon Wednesday

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the 8th day of November…wouldbe hanged by the neck until he bedead”. Thereafter, James’ bodywas to be chained in a cage andleft suspended on a gibbet thirtyfeet high. His corpse and skeletonremained there for several years,guarded by the army in the firstinstance, and strongly reinforcingthe message that this is whatwould happen to anyone whotook issue with the way in whichthe Highlands were being run.

Born about 1705, James Stewartcame from Duror. He was anillegitimate son of John Stewart,the Laird of Ardshiel; however,being well educated and a man ofsubstance, he was in no waymarginal to the Stewart clan.James, an entrepreneur andbusinessman involved in rearingand trading cattle, was a longstanding tenant of Glen Duror, histenancy leading to his Gaelicnickname, Seumas a’ Ghlinne(James of the Glen).

Accounts from the time rememberhim as a kindly man; indeed, hewas foster father to a number oforphan children, among them ayoung man called Allan BreckStewart who had been leftfatherless by one of James’relatives based in Rannoch. AllanBreck, a waster who squanderedboth his father’s inheritance andmuch of James’ money, is a keyfigure in the Appin Murder story.Professor Hunter commented thatit must have been “somewhat arelief to James when Allan quit

the Stewart homestead in GlenDuror and joined the British armyaround 1742”.

In 1745 Charles Edward Stewart,Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed inMoidart to recruit a Jacobite armywhich he intended to use to seizepower from London; a plan whichwas certain to involve the Durorlocals. The Appin region whichincluded Duror was the heartlandof Clan Stewart, the leadingfamilies of which traced theirancestors to Anglo-Frenchadventurers who arrived inScotland in the Middle Ages.Some of these became ScottishKings, forebears of Bonnie PrinceCharlie, and others settled inArgyll, spoke Gaelic and evolvedover time in to clan chiefs. ClanStewart came under pressure froman endlessly expanding ClanCampbell and the Stewartsbecame limited to the Appin area,which covered a larger area than itis known as today. This causedenmity between Clan Stewart andthe Campbells of Barcaldine,which was intensified by politicaldifference and divergence, theStewarts being Episcopalian likemost Jacobites and the Campbellsbeing intensely Presbyterian.

The Appin Chief in 1745 wasDougal Stewart, a hopelesscharacter who preferred life inEdinburgh; therefore, the manwho actually took Clan Stewart into war was Charles Stewart ofArdshiel – the legitimate son ofthe man who was also James’

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father. Charles mobilised theAppin regiment of the Jacobitearmy, about 260 men, includingJames as an officer. By midSeptember, 1745 the Jacobiteshad reached Edinburgh, fromwhere they marched to confrontthe government forces at theBattle of Prestonpans at which theJacobites were victorious. Fromthis battle emerged a younggovernment soldier who wishedto change sides – Allan BreckStewart.

The Battle of Culloden survivors,including James Stewart and AllanBreck, had returned to Duror byMay 1746. By this point, the FortWilliam garrison’s commander,Captain Scott, had unleashed histroops on Duror; cattle wereseized and homes burned, aBritish Army standard practice atthe time. At Ardshiel Estate,Captain Scott dismantled CharlesStewart’s home stone by stone,leaving his wife with just a hut tolive in; Charles, who as a Jacobitecommander faced death if found,was hiding in the hills, in a cave atLagnaha. He had a constant guardwhich included Allan Breck.Eventually, Charles managed toescape to France, where he wasjoined by his wife Isabel andchildren. Ardshiel Estate wasconfiscated by the governmentand Colin Campbell put in chargeof its administration. FollowingCharles’ departure for France, hisinterests were looked after by hishalf brother, James. Allan Breck

had also departed for France andjoined the French army.

Prior to Culloden, James hadgiven up the tenancy of GlenDuror and settled in Achindar-roch, a more arable holding,where he held an over fiftypercent stake in the property.During Charles’ absence, Jamesundertook to collect the rent fromthe Ardshiel Estate tenants andforward these to France; he alsotook advantage of being in chargeand resumed his tenancy of GlenDuror. Professor Hunter comment-ed that even in 1749, when ColinCampbell was put in charge,James continued as ‘under Factor’,collecting the rents for Campbelland the government rather thanCharles – he did, however, collecta higher figure than the nominat-ed rent and handed on thedifference to Charles. Despite theprofound Stewart / Campbellpolitical differences, Colin andJames appeared to be on friendlyterms, indeed they were actuallyrelated as distant cousins. In 1750their partnership broke down,partly because of disputes overrent, but also because Campbellhad begun to be regarded withsuspicion in the south, due to hisfamily links to the Camerons ofLocheil, who were Jacobites, andhis friendships with other Jaco-bites. Campbell was accused ofbeing too soft on Jacobites and,to cover his own back, he removedJames from Glen Duror andinstalled his cousin John Camp-

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bell as tenant. There was alsogrowing suspicion on James’ partand that of other Stewarts inAppin that Campbell of Glenure’sintention in abusing his govern-mental power was to mount aCampbell takeover of the Estatesin Appin, including Ardshiel. InMay 1751, James formally gave upGlen Duror and his other Ardshiellands in Achindarroch and movedto Acharn Farm, where he becamea Campbell tenant. ProfessorHunter noted that James highlyresented the ongoing annexationof the Ardshiel Estate by Camp-bell, particularly when, in 1752, itbecame apparent that Campbellwas going to instate both hisnephews and the staunchlyPresbyterian minister, JohnMacAulay, as tenants in Achindar-roch. Relations between Jamesand Colin Campbell continued tosour. On Hogmanay 1751, Jamesencountered Colin Campbell andsome of his associates in Kental-len Inn; after several drams, harshwords were exchanged andCampbell, fearing for his safety,drew his sword. During the Springof 1752, it became apparent thatvarious well established tenants ofArdshiel and Achindarrochproperties were going to beevicted on the 15th May to makeway for Campbells’ relatives andclients. This was therefore a timeof high tension in the region.

At this point, Allan Breck hadbeen enlisted in the French armyfor some time, doubling as a

Jacobite spy and regularly slippingin and out of Scotland. His visitsto Scotland were undertakensurreptitiously, as he was adeserter of the British Army and,as such, a wanted man. ProfessorHunter surmised that it is proba-ble that he was the means bywhich the money from the Estatesin Duror reached Charles Stewartin France. In the early part of1752, Allan Breck arrived in Leithby sea and travelled north by wayof several prominent Jacobitehouseholds and arrived back inAppin, staying with James atAcharn. He is recorded as havingmade loud threatening commentsabout what he would like to do toCampbell of Glenure; remarkswhich at the time were regardedas merely ‘pub talk’, but followingCampbell’s killing, were seen in adifferent light. Furthermore, a‘shadowy gathering’ involving anumber of the younger Stewartgentry, including Allan Breck, tookplace around the end of April inan isolated locality in the hills tothe south of Duror. This gatheringwas described as a ‘shootingmatch’, but what exactly hap-pened here remains somewhatshrouded in mystery. It is widelysuspected, however, that this wasa critical gathering of thoseinvolved in a conspiracy to killColin Campbell and may havebeen an opportunity to select thebest musket or shooter.

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In April 1752, Duror was awashwith rumours of the forthcomingevictions and a possible organisedresistance including the Stewarts’Clan Cameron allies. JamesStewart departed Duror bound forEdinburgh and staying with manyJacobite households during hisjourney – this is later seen asevidence of conspiracy during histrial and his Edinburgh activitiesseen as proof of his deep seatedopposition to Campbell’s plans.James aimed to put the Ardshieltenants’ case to the Barons of theExchequer, an Edinburgh-basedgroup who held overall responsi-bility for the confiscated estates.Unfortunately, James missed theBarons’ meeting in April and, asthey wouldn’t meet again untilJune, which would be too late forhis purposes, he sought assist-ance from a Court of Sessionjudge who proved sympatheticand authorised a Sist (suspension)of the 15th May evictions. By 27April, James was back in Durorwith his Court of Session Sist andconvened a meeting of thetenants to announce the goodnews. James arranged for hislawyer cousin to come to Durorfrom Maryburgh, now known asFort William, and on 1 May theyaccompanied the Ardshiel tenantsto a meeting at Campbell’s home.The tenants offered to match therents that Colin Campbell wouldreceive from their replacements,but Campbell rejected this out ofhand. Upon this decision, the

lawyer produced the Court ofSession Sist and this caused alarmto Campbell, who rode quickly toEdinburgh where he persuadedanother judge to overrule the Sist.Whilst in Edinburgh, Campbellrecruited his lawyer nephewMungo Campbell as his tempo-rary assistant, believing it wouldbe useful to have him alongsideduring the evictions. On Friday 8May, six days before the murderand seven days before theplanned evictions, Colin andMungo returned to Glenure.

Allan Breck is also known to havebeen in the area on Friday 8 May,staying at Fasnacloich, the Stewartgentry’s clan home. On thefollowing Monday morning, Colinand Mungo Campbell rode northout of Glenure heading forLochaber. During this journey, theycrossed the Ballachulish ferry andit was known they would returnthe same way the followingThursday bound for the KentallenInn, where they would overnightprior to carrying out evictions onthe Friday. Professor Huntercommented that Allan Breckalmost certainly knew of thesemovements and on the Mondayhe left Fasnacloich and headedback to Acharn. During his time atFasnacloich, Allan is reported tohave been wearing his FrenchArmy outfit, consisting of a longblue coat, red waistcoat, bluebreeches and a feathered hat. AtAcharn he swapped his clothes fora more modest set belonging to

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James. During James’ trial, therewas endless discussion relating tothe clothes Allan had beenwearing in the days prior to andon the day of the murder. Be-tween the Monday and theWednesday, Allan spent time in awhole set of gentry Jacobitehouseholds; this was regarded assuspicious and conspiratorial bythe trial, especially as one of thehouseholds, Ballachulish House, iswithin a mile of where Campbellwas killed. Meanwhile, at Acharn,James continued to try to find alegal means of stopping theevictions; including sendingmessengers to Maryburgh tobring his lawyer cousin CharlesStewart to Duror, wanting him tobe in attendance should thetenants refuse to leave theirproperties. His cousin declined toget involved. Professor Huntercontended that the fact thatJames was undertaking this actionhardly suggests that he knew inadvance that Colin Campbell wasgoing to die that same day; oralternatively, “it was a cunningbluff to suggest he didn’t knowwhen in fact he did”!

On the Thursday, before midday,Allan Breck went to fish the burnthat runs into Loch Linnhe. Fromthere he could see the road on theother side of the Loch at Onich,which is the road that Campbellwould take back to the Ballachul-ish ferry. In the early afternoon,Allan approached the ferrymanand asked him if Colin Campbell

had come across the ferry, towhich the ferryman answered no.Professor Hunter ascertained thatAllan must have already knownthis, as he had been able to seethe road whilst fishing. This actioncould be construed as evidence ofcareful planning, whereby Allantried to set himself up as thesuspect in order to take the falland then disappear once thekilling has occurred. Following hisconversation with the ferryman,Allan continued in the direction ofthe wood of Lettermore and wasnot seen again for certain thatday. Later the same afternoon,Colin Campbell and his threecompanions crossed the ferry. Asthey left the ferry, they metAlexander Stewart, the Laird ofBallachulish and the man inwhose house Allan Breck hadbeen staying. As politenessdictated, Campbell dismountedand they walked together untilthey reached the boundary ofAlexander’s property. In ProfessorHunter’s opinion, this meetingwas probably not a coincidence; ithad the effect of spreading outCampbell’s party, as his compan-ions went on ahead. ColinCampbell mounted his horse androde after his companions intothe wood of Lettermore, ultimate-ly to his death. Colin’s colleagues,including his lawyer nephewMungo Campbell, reportedhearing a single shot, upon whichthey turned around and found

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Campbell dying with two bulletsin his back.

During the investigations, MungoCampbell reported seeing a mancarrying a musket on the highground above the murder site.The suspect was wearing clothesthat Mungo varyingly describes asthose resembling the items AllanBreck had borrowed from Jamesat Acharn. Furthermore, JohnMackenzie, a servant accompany-ing Campbell, reported that JamesStewart did not seem surprisedwhen told about Campbell’sdeath, neither did he go toLettermore to offer help; this was,however, mitigated by a statementthat James’ wife feared for hissafety were he to be amongstCampbells at such a heated anddangerous moment.

On the night of the murder,Donald Stewart, a nephew of theLaird, was informed that AllanBreck was outside BallachulishHouse with a message. There is avery strong tradition in the areawhich has stood the test of timethat it was in fact Donald whokilled Campbell. Donald met withAllan and it is reported that Allantold him that he had no hand inthe shooting but that he wouldhave to flee the country, not justbecause he was a suspect butalso, as a deserter, he would hanganyway if the army caught up withhim. Allan asked Donald to go toAcharn to ask James for money tofund his escape. James had littleready cash and as such sent a

packman to Maryburgh to call insome debts. The packmanreturned on Saturday eveningwith three guineas and learnedthat James, along with his son,also Allan, had been arrested bythe army. The packman and James’wife were permitted to meet withJames, when they spoke in Gaelic,a language that the Britishsoldiers did not understand. Thefollowing day, the packman metwith Allan Breck and gave him themoney and his French Armyclothes. The money that Jamesgave to Allan was to prove part ofhis downfall and helped to hanghim as a conspirator to murder.Allan Breck left the area onMonday morning and was lastseen to the east of KinlochRannoch. Allan Breck, now theprime suspect, was never seenagain for certain in Scotland.

At James’ trial in Inverary, therewere eleven Campbells on a juryof fifteen. The trial was presidedover by Archibald Duke of Argyll,Clan Campbell’s Chief and theBritish Government’s mainrepresentative in Scotland.Professor Hunter commented thatthe Duke’s post-guilty verdictcomments reveal the political andsocial climate of the time. “In theyear 1745, the restless spirits ofthe disaffected Highlanders againprompted them to raise a thirdrebellion. ‘You [addressing JamesStewart] and your clan formed aregiment in that impious serviceand in which you persevered to

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the last. The Divine Providence atfirst permitted you to obtain someadvantages but…at last Heavenraised up a great Prince who… didat one blow put an end to all yourwicked attempts. …If you hadbeen successful in rebellion youmight have been giving the lawwhere you now receive thejudgement of it and we, who arethis day your judges, might havebeen tried before one of yourmock courts’”. Professor Hunterconcluded that “in condemningJames Stewart to hang in chains,the Duke of Argyll was verymindful of the danger posed bythe Jacobites to Britain’s perceivedcivilisation, this civilisation being,as far as the Duke was concerned,

identified with him as a memberof the country’s ruling order”. TheDuke’s choice of closing words toJames reflect this concern:‘though you do not now standaccused as a rebel…yet I may saywith great force of truth, that thismurder has been visibly the effectand consequence of the laterebellion’. The Jacobites neveragain posed any great threat toBritain or its government; howev-er, Archibald Campbell and hisfellow politicians could not knowthis at the time and they feared afurther Jacobite uprising whichwould lead to their own over-throw, hence the ferocity ofresponse to what happened in thewood of Lettermore.

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Described as one of the greatestremaining murder mysteries inScotland, the Appin murder is thesubject of much speculation. Theconsensus is that the wrong manwas convicted. In part 1 of a twopart event the historical context ofthe story was discussed. Part 2then re-examined the evidence ina ‘Case Review’ using expertwitnesses and taking account ofmodern methods of detection andscientific forensic techniques.

The panel of expert witnessescomprised:

Professor David Barclay, ForensicScientist

Professor Anthony Busuttil,Emeritus Professor of ForensicMedicine

The Rt Hon Lord Cameron ofLochbroom QC, FRSE

Dr Karly Kehoe, Historian

Professor Caroline Wilkinson FRSE,Professor of Craniofacial Identifi-cation

On 14 May 1752, a cold-bloodedmurder took place in Appin. Thevictim, a government employee,was going about his legal busi-ness when two musket ballsripped through his back and hewas felled, dead within minutes.Professor Black stated that “there

The Appin Murder – Part IIA Case Review of James of the Glen

Chaired By Professor Sue Black FRSE

4 September 2013Ben Nevis Hotel, Fort William

can be no legal or moral justifica-tion for premeditated murder in acivilised society and such aheinous crime must be investigat-ed rigorously and all efforts madeto bring the perpetrator tojustice”. She explained that theexpert witnesses on the panelwould review the significance ofthe evidence presented at theoriginal trial of James Stewart,who was hanged for the crime ofaccessory to the murder of ColinCampbell of Glenure, using aprofessional approach with noroom for the consideration offolklore, myth or conspiracytheories. The existing trial evi-dence would be examinedthrough the lens of modernscientific technology and usingforensic approaches that havebeen developed over the last 250years. Professor Black informedthe audience that they would actin the capacity of jury and that itwas their legal and moral duty toput aside any bias, sentiment orpreconceptions and consider theevidence as it was presentedduring the panel discussions.

The killing of Campbell was anevent that was very much aconsequence of the politicalclimate in Highland Scotlandduring the mid eighteenth

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century; it was not simply a localevent, nor merely a feud betweentwo family groups. In 1752, sixyears after the Battle of Culloden,the region was in the middle ofgovernment retribution; meaningestate seizures and evictions,social dislocation and extremehardship for those suspected ofbeing Jacobites, or of simplybeing sympathetic to their cause.At a local level, this period wascharacterised by an intense socialand economic upheaval; a way oflife was being unravelled and itwas painful. Prior to the Jacobiterebellion of 1745, there hadalready been a move by theHighland elites to integrate morefully into a developing commercialeconomy, partly to fund newlifestyles, but also to completetheir transition from clan leader-ship to landowners. Historian DrKehoe commented that ProfessorAllan Macinnes argues thatCulloden may have actuallyenabled the clan elite to maketheir escape from traditionaltrusteeship and the obligationsthat went along with it. JamesStewart and others like him wereunder pressure on two fronts; toprotect their communities andown interests, but also to supportthose who had fled to France afterCulloden. The Highlands werebecoming more integrated into acommercial economy and peoplewere being forced to acceptchanges that were being imposed.There was a great sense of

powerlessness, people were beingevicted from their homes andtensions were running high.

Dr Kehoe briefly outlined theevents of 14 May 1752. ColinCampbell of Glenure, the victim,was returning from Fort William toAppin on his way to serve evictionnotices at the Ardshiel Estate thefollowing day. He was accompa-nied by his lawyer nephew,Mungo Campbell; his servant,John Mackenzie; and a SherriffOfficer, Donald Kennedy, who wasto assist in the evictions. AllanBreck Stewart, James’ foster son,the man accused of actuallyshooting Campbell, had beenseen around the area, specificallyfishing a local burn and alsoasking the ferryman at Ballachul-ish whether Glenure’s party hadcrossed the loch. Following thisconversation, Allan Breck disap-peared from the scene. Campbelland his companions crossed theferry to Ballachulish and whenthey reached the shore they had achance encounter with AlexanderStewart, a local Laird. Campbelldismounted from his horse andspoke with Alexander whilst theremaining party continued ahead.Campbell remounted his horse torejoin the party and entered thewood of Lettermore. At somepoint a coat was dropped andMackenzie dropped back toretrieve this. A shot was fired andupon hearing this Mungo turnedback to find his uncle dying with

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two musket ball wounds in hisback.

Professor Black asked retiredScottish judge, Lord Cameron, todetail some of the evidence thatwas presented at the original trial.Lord Cameron commented thatboth the precognitions and thetrial evidence are written in thethird person and are therefore notverbatim evidence. MungoCampbell appeared before theSherriff Depute on 18 May to givehis witness evidence. He isreported as having said that heasked Colin Campbell, as theywere approaching the wood ofLettermore, whether Ballachulish(Alexander Stewart) had saidanything to him about removingthe tenants of Ardshiel, to whichCampbell had replied in thenegative. He continued, statingthat it was seven or eight minutesthereafter that Glenure was shotand immediately cried out “Oh,I’m dead, take care of yourself forhe’s going to shoot you”. Mungostarted to run up the brae imme-diately beside the road andobserved a man with a gun in hishand, clothed, he thought, in ashort, dun coloured coat withbreeches the same and hebelieved the person to have beenat such a distance above Glenurein the wood when he observedhim that “notwithstanding anyspeed he could make his escape,he could not be the person thatfired the shot that killed Glen-ure”. He also commented that he

did not know the man, althoughhe had seen his face. The trialdocuments also record thatMungo Campbell saw two holesin Glenure’s belly where themusket balls had exited and thatin the place where Glenure wasshot “the wood is thick on bothsides and the ground on the sidefrom where he was shot is ruggedand stony with bushes where themurderer could easily haveconcealed himself and that theground there rises up hill towardsthe south, though there are placeswhere the murderer might benearly upon a level with Glenureand also places that are sosituated that a person standingthere might see the most part ofthe road from the ferry to thewood and even a part of the roadbetween Fort William and the ferryand which place is not a musketshot from the spot where Glenurewas murdered”. John Mackenziegave evidence stating that he haddropped a coat that belonged toDonald Kennedy and had turnedback to collect it and was, there-fore, behind Glenure when heheard a shot but did not knowwhere it came from or whichdirection. He carried on into thewood to find Mungo Campbellwringing his hands and Glenurelying on the ground with a largeamount of blood about him.Donald Kennedy gave similarevidence, although he was aheadof Mungo and Glenure.

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The trial of James Stewart startedon 21 September 1752. Inaccordance with proper legalpractice, Allan Breck Stewart’sname was called in court and, ashe was absent, he was declared anoutlaw and fugitive. The trialproceeded without him. Through-out

the trial, the Lord Advocate wasquite clear that a vital part of theCrown’s case was to satisfy thejury that Allan Breck Stewart wasthe assailant, stating, “I shallpoint out to you the evidence thatAllan Breck was the actualmurderer which I admit to be afact that was incumbent on us toprove, in order to convict thispanel [James Stewart] of wilfulaccession to it”. The indictment isa very long document and beginsby stating that James Stewart andAllan Breck Stewart “are guilty,actors, or art and part of theheinous crime of murder”. Thephrasing ‘art and part’ means thata person can be guilty of murdereven if they did not actuallycommit the act. Examples of thisput forward in the case againstJames included the lending ofclothes to Allan Breck, thearranging of the return of hisFrench clothes and providing himwith money. Lord Camerondetailed the hard evidence thatwas available to the court forforensic consideration at the timeof the trial; this comprised thedescription of the place by MungoCampbell; medical evidence;

blood stained clothing; clothingthat had been worn by AllanBreck; guns found hiddenfollowing the crime; a powderhorn found in Allan Breck’s coat;and identification evidenceprovided by Mungo Campbell.

Professor Black asked the audi-ence if they required any furtherclarification of the evidencequoted by Lord Cameron. LordCameron agreed that the basis ofthe case against James Stewartrested ultimately on the assump-tion of guilt of Allan Breck as thegunman and, therefore, if it wasimpossible to prove that Allan wasguilty based on the evidencepresented, the case against Jameswould not stand.

Professor Busuttil continuedproceedings by explaining that, asa forensic pathologist, he istrained to believe only what hesees with his own eyes, what hecan smell, feel and examine;witness testimony and evidence isuseful but people can often bemistaken. Forensic pathologistsvisit the scene of crime andexamine it. They also examine thebody itself; measuring anddissecting to look internally fordamage, identifying the cause ofdeath and in the process recon-structing the incident. A forensicpathologist’s role is to give anopinion to the best of theirknowledge and belief. In the caseof Colin Campbell, the indictmentstates that “Allan Breck Stewartfired upon the said Colin Camp-

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bell from behind his back, andshot him through the body withtwo balls, of which wounds thesaid Colin Campbell died uponthe spot in less than an hourafter”. The body of Campbell wasexamined by two doctors but onlyinspected, not dissected; it wasfound to have been shot by twomusket balls, entering at the back,one on each side of the backbone.One shot had exited about half aninch below the navel and theother about two inches from ittowards the right side. They weremortal wounds from which thevictim died. Professor Busuttilcommented that a major problemfor forensic pathologists is toidentify which are the bullet entryand exit wounds; as the woundsare similar, they can be confused ifnot careful. Professor Busuttilsurmised that, assuming, Camp-bell’s entry wounds were at theback and the musket balls hadpassed right through the body,then they must have missed themajor arteries such as the aorta asCampbell took about one hour todie; if the aorta had been hit hewould be dead within fiveminutes. It is probable that he hadinternal bleeding that was notcatastrophic enough to kill himimmediately. Furthermore, if hewas shot in the back it is likelythat other organs such as the liverand intestines would be dam-aged. If he had been shot fromthe front there would be a similarresult.

Professor Busuttil stated thatthere are three possibilities aboutthe shooting. First, there couldhave been one gunman who tooka shot and then reloaded andfired again, hitting Campbell veryclose to the first shot. Medically,this is impossible, because itwould take several seconds toreload a musket and, having beenshot, the victim would movewithin this timeframe. Unless thesecond shot came instantaneous-ly, or together with the first, itwould not be possible for it tocome out next to the first shot inthe body. The second possibility isthat the gunman loaded his gunwith two balls, known as a chaserbullet. However, if this was thecase, the bullets would not comeout with equal velocity and itwould be usual for one bullet tomove astray from the other. Thethird and most probable conclu-sion is that there were twoshooters both shooting at thesame time and hitting the targetalmost simultaneously. ProfessorBlack interjected and asked ifthere had been a full post-mortemexamination at the time, wouldthere have been any additionalevidence available? ProfessorBusuttil stated that even if theyhad not done a full dissection,measurements alone would helpto pinpoint where exactly thebullet wounds occurred. If thebody had been dissected, it wouldbe possible to establish the exacttrajectory of the shot. Lord

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Cameron asked whether damageto the clothing the victim waswearing would help establish inany way where the bullet camefrom and its trajectory. Clothingevidence would determinewhether the back was an entry orexit wound. An audience memberenquired whether the evidencecould show that Campbell hadactually been shot from the frontrather than the back. ProfessorBusuttil said that this cannot bedetermined, particularly as the ballwent right through, the entry andexit wounds would have been of asimilar size. Professor Blackcommented that the only evidencepresented that the shot camefrom behind was that given byMungo Campbell, who in actualfact did not see the shooting; heassumed that Glenure was shotfrom behind. Furthermore, themusket balls were not retrievedfrom the scene.

Forensic scientist, ProfessorBarclay, passed around examplesof two musket balls, weighingover an ounce each and measur-ing about 17mm in diameter. Hestated that forensic science is allabout context; scientific resultsmean nothing unless they can beinterpreted in their correctcontext. In this case, all reportsstate that Campbell was shot bytwo musket balls and, althoughthis would mean a low muzzlevelocity, the weight of the ballswould mean they caused a lot ofdamage. A modern rifle is four

times as fast as a musket but,because the bullets are muchsmaller, the amount of damagethe musket balls would do at theirmuzzle velocity is much the same.However, when the large musketballs fly through the air, the effectof gravity and air resistanceweighs on them very rapidly andat a distance of 200 yards it wouldbe necessary to aim four peoplehigher than the target to ensurehitting it. This difficulty is furthercompounded by the fact thatthere are no sights on a musket tohelp aim and it is not easy toguess the distance from theintended victim and, as such,difficult to get the trajectoryexactly right. Professor Barclaycommented that it is, therefore,difficult to understand how aconcealed gunman could bedeadly accurate with his aim. Thisfact also throws into doubt someof the activities that supposedlyoccurred prior to the crime. Forexample, a shooting match tookplace near Duror and it is com-monly thought that this was toselect the best gun and gunman.However, Professor Barclay notedthat everyone involved in such anactivity would know that it is notpossible to fire a musket accurate-ly at long range, thus no need fora shooting contest, possiblymaking it more likely to have beena covert meeting to organise thekilling. Furthermore, commentedProfessor Barclay, “the shots aretoo closely grouped to have come

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from one gun; even if you fired atyour victim at point blank rangeyou would be very unlucky to behit by both balls. Tests done atGlasgow University show that at adistance of ten yards there is adivergence of one foot. If usingtwo balls in the same gun andthey are diverging by one foot,they would not be as closetogether as the wounds inCampbell’s body. It is perfectlypossible that the musket wasdouble shotted, but this wouldreduce the muzzle velocity bymore than half and it would haveto be at very close range”.Professor Black asked if there wasanyone other than a member ofGlenure’s party that would havebeen in a position to shoot him atpoint blank range. ProfessorBarclay considered that the manseen running away on the hill isan unlikely suspect, as the cloudof powder formed when the shotwas taken would have indicatedwhere the shot came from and,therefore, the logical conclusion isthat there was at least one otherperson involved. “It is possiblethat two shots could be firedalmost simultaneously from twoguns once the target came intoview; in those circumstances it ispossible that someone twentyyards away could be hit by twomusket balls. The firing of theweapon is quite a long event andit is perfectly possible that thesound of two shots overlappingcould sound like one shot”.

Professor Black commented thatnone of the witnesses mentionedeven one puff of smoke let alonetwo. Professor Barclay commentedthat there could be twice as muchsmoke but in the same location. Itis important in forensic science toestablish all the possible alterna-tives and then try to eliminatethem; in this case the possibilitiesare that someone shot Glenurefrom a concealed location andthen ran off up the hill, however,Mungo’s evidence makes thisunlikely. Professor Barclay statedthat “another possibility would bethat the only person who de-scribes the shooting in evidence isMungo, but nobody eliminatedhim from the suspects, we wouldneed to eliminate him from amodern-day enquiry”. There is,however, no evidence or folkhistory to support that Mungowas in any way a suspect; indeedthe trial evidence states that noneof Campbell’s party were armed.Professor Barclay also believes thata double-shotted gun is anunlikely scenario, “it loses somuch power and diverges so farthat it would be highly unlikely tohit the target with both shots, letalone in such close proximity toeach other. It would make farmore sense for it to be two shotsfrom two guns, particularly as, ifthe first shot had missed thevictim, the target would easily beable to identify from where theshot was fired, due to the smoke,and make their way to face the

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assailant or retaliate. It takes forty-five seconds to reload a musketwith a further shot, plenty of timefor retaliation. Professor Barclaynoted that standard British Armytactics dictated that if you wereshot at by a musket from conceal-ment and it missed you, you rantowards the direction of the shot.Professor Black summed upProfessor Barclay’s evidencereview, asking if there were twoshooters and a third person onthe hill, what would be the role ofthe third person? ProfessorBarclay stated that it is commonpractice, even today, for examplein IRA shootings, to have multiplepeople involved, both to covereach other and also as lookouts.

Professor Black asked ProfessorWilkinson if the man on the hillcould have been Allan BreckStewart. Professor Wilkinson, aProfessor of Craniofacial Identifi-cation, revealed a facial compositeof Allan Breck that she hadcreated from descriptions of himfound in various sources. Writtendescriptions recorded by a FrenchArmy clerk describe him as havingblack curly hair, a long face marredby smallpox scars, deep set eyesthat were grey in colour, a longnose and an ordinary mouth. He isalso described as being about 5’10”, quite tall for the time. Fromthis description, Professor Wilkin-son suggests that Allan Breck wasnot an average looking person; hewas somebody you wouldremember as his face was differ-

ent enough to get a gooddescription. When asked todescribe faces people often findthis quite difficult, even if they arelooking directly at them. Peopletend to describe features as‘average’ or ‘ordinary’; therefore,when a good description is givenit is usually because the person ismemorable or distinctive. AllanBreck is also known to have beenwearing his French Army uniformaround the area prior to the crime;this comprised red and blue cloth,feathers and buttons, which wasvery extravagant for the time. It isalso known that he changed hisclothing the day before theshooting and took on a moresombre outfit, although he is stilldescribed as wearing blue plaidtrousers, which would not becommon. Mungo’s description ofthe person he sees on the hillchanges over time; his firstdescription states the man waswearing a dun jacket and duntrousers. He changed his mind ina later description and said it wasa darker jacket. We don’t knowwhy he changed the description;however, at no time did hedescribe the man as wearing blueplaid trousers. Furthermore, ifMungo knew Allan Breck, then hewould have recognised him. It isknown from other sources that,following the murder, it wasthought that someone had seenAllan Breck in Carlisle and Mungowas asked to go to Carlisle toidentify him because he knew

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him. The person seen in Carlislewasn’t Allan Breck, however. Thisevidence shows that Mungowould have been able to identifyhim and, therefore, had he seenhim on the hill at the murder site,would have recognised him. Noneof the witness evidence Mungogives of the man on the hillmatches Allan Breck, neither doesMungo ever identify the man asAllan. Professor Black asked “onwhat scale of likely to unlikely is itthat the man on the hill fleeingthe seen is Allan Breck”? Profes-sor Wilkinson commented that,based on the evidence from theeye witness, it does not fit with itbeing Allan Breck at all. “Ingeneral, eye witness memory isfairly awful. We know fromlaboratory research that people’smemory of an event is appallingand varies significantly from otherpeople who saw the same thing.The argument has always beenthat this is because we can’tproperly represent a crime in thesame way in a laboratory setting,but we now know from DNAevidence that there is a hugenumber of people who have beenwrongly identified and convictedbased entirely on misidentificationfrom eye witnesses”. Memory isvery poor and is affected by manythings; for example, high stresssituations lower people’s memoryability, not just of people’s facesbut of the event as a whole. “Wealso know that the amount oftime that you see someone makes

a difference; the longer you seethem for, the more likely you areto remember them”. The lengthof time that passes after an eventbefore a person is asked toremember it is also significant.This is relevant to Mungo’stestimony, as the first writtendescription he gives is four daysafter the shooting. This is asignificant amount of time toaffect recall; the ideal time iswithin twenty-four hours. Afterthis, people tend to take on otherinformation that comes to lightand put it in their testimony, notnecessarily consciously. This mightbe the case in the change of jacketcolour in Mungo’s testimony, forexample; he could have heardother people mention that AllanBreck was wearing a darker colourjacket than he first described.Professor Wilkinson stated that,“our memory in general is verybad; however, our ability torecognise people we know is verygood. If you know someone verywell then you can recognise themfrom very little information. FromCCTV work, we know that you canrecognise someone’s face from aslittle as nine pixels if the image ismoving. If Mungo Campbell knewAllan Breck well enough toidentify him then he surely wouldhave recognised him even in astressful situation”. Lord Cameroncommented that he thoughtsmallpox scars and very black hairwould have been noticeable evenat a distance and also that it

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would seem to be an obviousquestion to ask Mungo Campbellwhether he recognised the manon the hill, but this doesn’t seemto have happened either prior toor during the trial. ProfessorWilkinson noted that “we doknow from eye witness memorythat when things are very unusual,we remember them, so bluetrousers would have been notedmore readily than dun colouredtrousers”.

Professor Black asked the expertpanel if, based on the indictmentthat Allan Breck Stewart wasresponsible for the murder ofColin Campbell of Glenure andthat James Stewart was guilty ofaiding and abetting him, there isany evidence that Allan BreckStewart was the man that Mungosaw at the scene. They answered,no. Furthermore they did notconsider there to be enough

evidence to prove that Allan BreckStewart shot one of the muskets.As such, the expert panel deter-mined that Allan Breck Stewartwas indicted for murder with nodirect evidence to support this.Lord Cameron commented thatthere was, however, circumstantialevidence that was capable ofsupporting that he could havebeen there. Professor Black thenasked Lord Cameron to direct theaudience jury to consider theirverdict. In response to the ques-tion of whether, “on the materialnow presented, would you [thejury] be satisfied that Allan Breckwas the actual and only personwho assassinated Colin Campbellof Glenure”, the audience juryreturned a unanimous ‘not guilty’verdict. With this conclusion, therewas not a legitimate basis for thecase and conviction against JamesStewart to have been pursued.

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Topics covered included :

UK Government’s Scotland Analysis Programme

Principles for Distributing a Block Grant around the UK

The potential fiscal situation in the event of Scotish independence

Tax and Spending

17 April 2013The British Academy

This seminar consisted of presentations by three speakersfollowed by a round-table discussion forum.

The Chatham House rule applied.

Scotland and the EU

13 March 2013at the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Neil Walker FRSERegius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations

University of Edinburgh

Graham AverySt. Antony’s College, University of Oxford and

European Policy Centre, Brussels

Diana PankeProfessor of Political Science, University of Freiburg.

Enlightening the Constitutional Debate

A series of events held during 2013 and 2014 to Enlighten the Constitu-tional Debate in advance of the referendum on Scotland’s futurerelationship with the rest of the United Kingdom, organised by the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh and the British Academy.

Full reports of every event have been published individually and the seriesculminated in an event on 8 April 2014 to launch a book bringing togetherthe discussions that have taken place. The book will serve as a historicalrecord of the Society’s contribution to a very significant period in Scottishhistory.

The purpose of this seminar was to facilitate and inform the public debateon Scotland’s constitutional future, by examining, in the context of areferendum vote in favour of independence, issues relating to Scotland’saccession to, and membership of, the European Union.

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This seminar examined questions on how the UK’s role within NATO mightbe affected by constitutional change, and about the future of the UK’snuclear deterrence, given the SNP’s anti-nuclear policies. The seminar alsodiscussed how the UK’s position on the international stage might beaffected by constitutional change, and what the implications of separatingthe Scottish and UK armed forces might be. The latter half of the seminaraddressed questions from the audience.

The discussion was chaired by Lieutenant General Sir Alistair Irwin, Presi-dent of the Royal British Legion for Scotland.

Defence and International Relations

29 May 2013at the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Lieutenant Colonel Stuart CrawfordStuart Crawford Associates, former SNP defence advisor

Dr Phillips O’BrienReader in Modern History and Convenor of the Global Security Network

Professor William WalkerProfessor of International Relations, University of St.Andrews

Rt Hon Lord Robertson of Port EllenFormer Secretary General of NATO and former Secretary of State for Defence

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The Real Economy

20 June 2013at the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Mr Brandon MaloneChairman, Scottish Arbitration Centre;

Mr Stephen BoydAssistant Secretary, Policy and Campaigns Department,

Scottish Trades Union Congress;

Professor Gordon HughesProfessor of Economics, University of Edinburgh

Professor Jeremy Peat OBE FRSEDirector of the David Hume Institute

The public discussion seminar on the Real Economy was the fourth in aseries of seminars aimed at enlightening the debate around Scotland’sconstitutional future. The Real Economy refers to aspects of the economybesides banking, currency and financial and monetary policy. This seminarexamined Scotland’s global reputation and attractiveness as a trade andbusiness destination, Scotland’s energy market, and Scotland’s labourmarket, and how these might be affected by constitutional change. Thisseminar aimed to bring new perspectives into the debate on Scotland’sconstitutional future.

The discussion was chaired by Mr Douglas Fraser, Business and EconomicEditor, BBC Scotland.

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Currency, Banking and Financial Servicesafter the Scottish Referendum

24 July 2013at the British Academy

This seminar was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, whichencourages frank exchanges by not attributing comments to named

participants.

This seminar was the fifth in a series of seminars organised by the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh (RSE) and the British Academy (BA), aimed at Enlight-ening the Constitutional Debate ahead of the Referendum on Scotland’sconstitutional future. It took place at the British Academy in London, andassembled invited economists, academics and other experts to discuss theoptions for currency, banking and the financial services following theReferendum.

In the event of Scotland becoming independent, it will have to confrontdecisions around what currency to adopt and how to regulate banking andfinancial services. Monetary policy issues have an overlap with fiscal issues,to the extent that there is interdependence between monetary and fiscalpolicy. Moreover, the background context of a significant budget deficit inthe UK and the aftermath of the financial crisis make the issues considera-bly more complicated than they would have been in 2008.

Thus it is important to learn from the experience of other nations whichhave made related decisions, as well as looking at the specific issues facingScotland. This seminar examined the experiences of other countries whichhave undergone a break-up similar to that proposed for Scotland and theUK. It then examined the options available to Scotland in the event ofindependence, and gathered views and feedback on these options.

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The public discussion on culture and broadcasting was the sixth in a seriesof ten events intended to Enlighten the Constitutional Debate in advanceof the Referendum on Scotland’s future relationship with the rest of theUnited Kingdom on 18 September 2014. The series is organised by theRoyal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. The speakers wereinvited to discuss the impact of constitutional change on the culture ofScotland, asking how Scotland’s artistic, literary and cultural contributionwould be affected by the outcome of the Referendum. The speakers werealso asked to discuss the impact that there might be on the media inScotland, whether broadcasting, the traditional print media or new outletsthat have emerged in recent years through the rapid growth of digitalcommunications.

The discussion was chaired by Magnus Linklater CBE FRSE, former Editor ofThe Scotsman and also the Scottish edition of The Times.

Culture and Broadcasting

24 August 2013at the Scottish Parliament

James BoyleChairman of the National Library of Scotland

and former Head of Radio Scotland and Controller of Radio Four

David ElsteinChair of Open Democracy;

Ruth WishartJournalist and Commentator

Rt Hon Brian Wilsonformer MP, former Minister for Energyand the Founding Editor and Publisher

of the West Highland Free Press

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Borders, Immigration and Citizenship

25 September 2013at the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Professor Bernard RyanProfessor of Migration Law, University of Leicester

Professor Jo ShawSalvesen Chair of European Institutions, Dean of Research,

and Deputy Head, College of Humanities and Social SciencesUniversity of Edinburgh

Professor Christina BoswellProfessor of Politics, University of Edinburgh

Ms Sarah CraigLecturer in Public Law, University of Glasgow,

and Co-Convenor, GRAMnet(Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network)

The public discussion on borders, immigration and citizenship was theseventh in a series of ten events intended to Enlighten the ConstitutionalDebate. The speakers were invited to discuss how constitutional changemight affect the citizenship rights and status of those living within andoutside an independent Scotland, including the relationship of residence tonationality, questions of dual nationality, and freedom of movement withinthe British Isles and the wider European Union, as well as the relationshipbetween citizenship and national identity in a new Scotland.

Chair: Professor John Curtice FRSE, Professor of Politics, University ofStrathclyde

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PUBLICATIONSProceedings A: Mathematics:

Six issues were published: Parts142.5, 142.6 (2012);

143.1, 143.2, 143.3, 143.4 (2013)

Earth and EnvironmentalScience Transactions:

Five issues were published –102.4; 103.1 (‘spontaneous’ issue

with a Special Section on Biochar);103.2 (Special Issue on Climate

Change); and 103.3/4 (doubleSpecial Issue celebrating the life

and career of the vertebratepalaeontologist Wann LangstonJr.)

ReSourcE – the RSE’s Newslet-ter:

Issues 37 (Autumn 2012); 38(Winter 2012);

39 (Spring 2013); 40 (Summer2013)

RSE Directory: 2012/13

RSE Sessional Review:

2010/11 (Sessions 2008/09 &2009/10, combined);

2012 (Session 2010/11);

2013 (Session 2011/12)

RSE Annual Review: 2012/13(April 2012–March 2013)

Science Scotland:

Two issues were published:

No. 13 – The Business of Biomedi-cine

No. 14 – Inside Geoscience

Lecture/Conference Reports:

RAE/RSE Joint Annual Lecture -March 2013 – Growing Health-care

Technology Businesses – BringingEngineering Innovations to

Market with Limited Resources.Ian Stevens, CEO, Touch Bionics

ISBN: 978 0 902198 71 5

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Policy Advice

POLICY ADVICEINQUIRIES

Spreading the benefits of digitalparticipation

During the 2112/13 session, theSociety launched its Inquiry intodigital participation, with the aimof publishing its final reportduring the 2013/14 session.

The digital participation Inquirywas set up to explore how digitaltechnologies and the internetwere being used by the public,businesses, government andcharities on a day to day basis. Ithad also to examine the opportu-nities that digital technologiescould offer to people and busi-nesses online. It had also to studywhy many remained offline at atime when digital exclusion waslikely to lead to increasingexclusion from society and theeconomy.

The Inquiry took evidence fromindividuals, organisations andbusinesses across Scotland onthese issues. It considered issuesof skills and motivation, as well astechnical issues of openness andaccessibility. It aimed to under-stand the different waysorganisations and individualsused the internet and digitaltechnologies for wider social,economic and cultural benefits –including health, wealth andwellbeing.

ADVICE AND BRIEFING PAPERS

Among the key Advice Papersproduced were:

Financing of Business Innovationin Scotland

This report focussed on thefinancing of innovation incompanies in Scotland, examiningaspects of the financial environ-ment that supported orconstrained businesses to growand develop.

An extensive series of interviewsand meetings took place with awide range of investors andcommentators.

The three principal recommenda-tions that emerged were:

That a senior advisory groupshould be established to investi-gate and report on the feasibilityof mobilising new sources of riskcapital in Scotland.

That the infrastructure available tosupport Scottish companies inconnecting with sources of equityinvestment in Scotland should bereviewed.

That an evaluation should beundertaken of the potential forand feasibility of creating newvehicles to provide access to loanfunding for emerging Scottishcompanies on terms that wouldbe viable for businesses andacceptable to lenders.

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Triennial Review of ResearchCouncils

This submission to the UKDepartment of Business, Innova-tion & Skills made the followingobservations and recommenda-tions:

The basic structure of the Re-search Councils had largely beensuccessful in supporting UKresearch. The submission cau-tioned against restructuring in thehope of making efficiency gains.

The Society fully supported themaintenance of the HaldanePrinciple at the heart of researchpolicy.

The RSE welcomed the establish-ment of the Technology StrategyBoard and the proposed newTechnology Innovation Centres.

On the question of constitutionalchange the Society expressed theview that it fully supported theretention of a UK-wide system ofResearch Councils.

In relation to the economy, withthe economy struggling toemerge from recession it wascommented that it would be theworst time for the UK to reduce itsinvestment in Research.

Women in STEM Careers

In a follow up to the Tapping allour Talents report the Societymade a submission to an Inquirybeing conducted by the House ofCommons Select Committee onScience and Technology.

This submission reinforced the keymessages of the earlier report,which had highlighted the cost tothe economy of the loss of femalescientists as well as the loss ofopportunity for individuals andmade a number of key recommen-dations including that furtheraction should be taken to closethe gender pay gap, that universi-ties should be encouraged tofollow the Athena Swan awardsprogramme or equivalent and thatbusinesses should introduce moreflexible job designs.

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Policy Advice

Post 16 Education Bill (Scotland)

The Society made a submission tothe Scottish Parliament Education& Culture Committee on this Bill.

Key recommendations

The Society observed that thereseemed to be an absence of anoverarching strategy for post-16education.

Concern was expressed about theBill providing Scottish Ministerswith significant powers todetermine principles of govern-ance or management inuniversities, potentially undermin-ing the autonomy of theuniversities.

Support was expressed for themeasures to ensure that access tohigher education should be basedon ability and potential, ratherthan personal or financial circum-stances.

Regionalisation of the collegeswas seem as acceptable for mostcolleges to preserve opportunitiesfor learners in the context ofreduced resources. Concern wasexpressed that even with savingsdue to this the college sector maynot be able to fulfil the wideranging training, education andlife-long learning roles expectedof it in the face of the substantialfunding restrictions it wasexperiencing.

Requirements for Entry toProgrammes of Teacher Educa-tion

The Society responded to aconsultation by the GeneralTeaching Council for Scotland onentry qualifications for initialteacher training.

The GTCS had proposed that newentrants to primary teachingdegree courses should have amodern language at SQA level 6(Higher or equivalent). There wasalready a requirement for Englishat level 6. However mathematicswas only required to level 5 andthere was no requirement for ascience at all.

The RSE in its response set out acase for there to be a requirementfor mathematics and one scienceat level 6, to clearly indicate thatthey were on parity with languag-es in importance at primaryschools and to tackle the widelyrecognised lack of confidenceamong primary teacher in teach-ing science.

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SUBMISSIONS

During the Session, the Societyproduced the following to theScottish Parliament and/or theScottish Government.

Advice and Briefing Papers

October 2012

Financing of Business Innovationin Scotland. Proactive BIF paper.15 Oct.

AD 12-11. Development of aknowledge exchange office.Scottish Funding Council.

November 2012

AD 12-12. Aquaculture andFisheries (S) Bill. SP Rural Affairsand Environment Committee. 2

AD 12-13. Treasure Trove inScotland. Proactive Paper.

December 2012

BP 12-02. Scientific Evidence inPublic Policy. Briefing Paper forScottish SP Debate.

January 2013

AD 13-01. Post-16 Education Bill.SP Education & Culture Commit-tee.

AD 13-02. Public Services Reform.SP Local Gov and RegenerationCommittee.

AD 13-03. Scottish Code of GoodHE Governance. Committee ofScottish Chairs' Steering Group.

February 2013

AD 13-04. Triennial Review ofResearch Councils . UK Dept ofBusiness, Innovation and Skills .

April 2013

BP 13-01. Commission on SchoolReform. Proactive paper. April.

May 2013

BP 13-02. Need for a BalancedEnergy Portfolio.

AD 13-05. Requirements for Entryto Programmes of TeacherEducation. GTCS consultation.

BP 13-03. Scotland as a ScienceNation. Briefing for SP Debate.

AD 13-06. New Food Body.Scottish Government.

AD 13-07. Science and Engineer-ing in the Independence Debate.Scottish Science Advisory Council.

June 2013

BP 13-04. Parliamentary LINKS day.Briefing for Parliamentary LINKSDay.

August 2013

AD 13-08. National PerformanceFramework. SP Finance Commit-tee.

September 2013

AD 13-09. Women in STEMCareers. House of CommonsScience & Technology SelectCommittee.

AD 13-10. Proposals for anIndependent Fiscal Body. SPFinance Committee.

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EVENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE2012 Christmas Lecture

On the 11 December 2012Katherine Grainger CBE deliveredthe prestigious RSE ChristmasLecture, where she talked aboutthe challenges she has facedalong with the successes she hashad over the past 12 years in hercareer. The lecture was attendedby students and teachers fromLochaber High School and waswebcast ‘live’ by BBC Scotland to aworldwide audience.

RSE@Lochaber

Following the highly successfulregional RSE@ projects in Ar-broath and Dumfries andGalloway, and the launch of theRSE@ Lochaber project last year,the RSE has, this Session, deliv-ered 50 events in Lochaber,comprising 16 Public Lectures, 27School Talks (Secondary andPrimary), five School Workshops,one School Discussion Forum andone Family Event / Library Talk.

Topics covered were as follows

- A Case Review of James of theGlen (Fort William)

- A Lochaber MacDonald in theCamp of Sitting Bull (Mallaig)

- Allan Burnett, Author (FortWilliam)

- Cathy MacPhail, Author (FortWilliam, Kinlochleven )

- C T R Wilson - The WilsonChamber (Kinlochleven)

- English and Scots: using thepast to explain the present (FortWilliam and Kilchoan)

- Enhancements in DisabilitySport (Fort William)

- Exploring the Dark Side of theUniverse (Kilchoan, Strontian)

- Feeding 9 Billion People (FortWilliam)

- Gaelic Culture in Lochaber(Strontian)

- Industrial Pioneers - AluminiumIndustry in the Highlands(Kinlochleven)

- Kate Leiper, Illustrator (Stron-tian)

- Lari Don, Author, (Kinlochleven)

- Legendary Landscapes (Ardgour,Upper Achintore, Isle of Eigg,Caol)

- Lochaber - bandit country orJacobite stronghold? (Stron-tian)

- Patrick McGill and How IrelandModernised Scotland (Mallaig)

- Pioneering Weathermen of BenNevis (Fort William)

- Pitch Perfect (3 sessions) (FortWilliam)

- Scotland Rocks! (Fort William)

- Seabed Mapping (Acharacle,Strontian, Kinlochleven,Glencoe & Duror, Fort William)

- The Appin Murder, HistoricalContext (Fort William)

- The Navvy, the Priests and theKing (Mallaig)

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The Journey to Gold (FortWilliam)

- Women Pioneers in Science (FortWilliam, Kinlochleven)

- Your Language, Your Landscape,Your History (Glencoe, Duror,Ballachulish, Kilchoan)

Other core activities which alsotook place this year were:

Start-Up Science Masterclasses

31 interactive Start-up ScienceMasterclasses for S1 and S2 pupilsin university venues aroundScotland. The autumn 2012programme was held in Dundee,Heriot-Watt, Aberdeen andGlasgow, and the Spring 2013series in Dundee, Heriot-Watt, StAndrews and Glasgow Universi-ties.

Discussion Forum

The annual RSE Discussion Forum,featuring a day of learning anddebate between S5 and S6 pupilsfrom Arbroath High School. Thediscussion focused on Enhance-ments in Disability Sport. As thisevent was such a great success, itwas repeated later in the year atLochaber High School. A resourcepack was developed after theevent and these are available toschools throughout Scotland inhardcopy or via the RSE website,and shortly through GLOW.

Schools Talks

As well as the school talks whichtook place as part of theRSE@Lochaber project, the

following talks took place in otherareas across Scotland:

A Guided Tour of the SolarSystem (Stirling)

Antarctica (Edinburgh)

Chromatography (Aberdeen-shire)

Exploring the Dark Side of theUniverse (Stirling, Edinburgh)

To Infinity and Beyond (Stirling)

World of Work Day (Larbert)

Prizes and Awards

- The RSE Beltane Prizes for PublicEngagement 2012 werepresented at the Nevis Range,Aonach Mor on 17 September2012. Professor Tom DevineOBE FRSE, one of Scotland’sleading historians, was awardedthe Senior Prize and ýTheUniversity of Dundee’s Dr NicolaStanley-Wall was announced asthe ýwinner of the Innovator’sPrize. Both prizewinnersdelivered events in the area on17 September. Dr Stanley-Walldelivered a schools workshopand Professor Devine delivered apublic talk/question time eventon Scottish History.

Collaboration

- The Jill Todd PhotographicAward took place at thebeginning of November 2012.These activities were to supportthe work of talented photogra-phers from major Photographyand Arts Degree programmes in

275

Young People

Scotland and included a lectureon 1 November 2012, and aMasterclass held at the RSE on 2November 2012, followed by aprivate view and award ceremo-ny that evening in theWhitespace Gallery, Edinburgh.The events were a big success,and thanks were passed to theRSE.

- For the third year in a row, theRSE hosted the National Final,to showcase the best studentplacements of a Summer 2012Environmental PlacementProgramme, facilitated by theBright Business Partnership Ltd.The National Final took place atthe RSE on 6 September 2012and provided an excellentopportunity to show whatstudents on the placements hadachieved and what the hostbusinesses are doing environ-mentally.

- Turing 100 YP Activities – Twit-Test was a competition the RSEran using Twitter. The Twit-Testwas a contemporary take on the‘Turing Test’ for artificialintelligence. Working asindividuals and as class groups,using a secure twitter stream,school pupils and their teacherstook part in a real-worldexperiment where they had towork out which tweets in atwitter stream were real andwhich were fake and also howto fake it themselves. The aim ofwas to make school-agedchildren aware of the potentialdangers of digital media. Thecompetition took place as partof National Science and Engi-neering Week 2012. OnWednesday 11 April thePrizegiving for winners of theTwit-Test took place at InSpace,Edinburgh.

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RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE AWARDSThe following awards were made in Session 2012/2013

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

CRF European - Visits fromEurope to Scotland

Dr Sergei Alymov. Russian Acade-my of Sciences. A History of SovietEthnography

Professor Dr Mihael Kovac.University of Ljubljana. Scotlandand Slovenia: the Role of Books inthe Digital Age

Dr Abraham Kovacs. DebrecenReformed University. Researchproject: The Impact of BritishEvangelicalism on the formationof New Orthodox Calvinism of?Debrecen: 1864-1914

Professor Dr Elisa Martinelli.Universita di Modena e ReggioEmilia. Retail Buying and Countryof Origin

Dr Conchúr Ó Giollagáin. NationalUniversity of Ireland. Developing aCollaborative Research Project onthe Sociolinguistic Demographyand Vitality of Gàidhlig- SpeakingDistricts

Dr Catalina Maria Torres Figuerola.Universitat de les Illes Balears.Assessing the social acceptabilityfor wetland management policiesin the face of climate change

Dr Ioannis Varalis. University ofThessaly. Liturgy and SacredArchitecture in the Balkans, Fourthto Eighth Centuries

CRF European - Visits fromScotland to Europe

Dr Amy Bryzgel. The SarajevoCentre for Contemporary Art, TheZagreb Museum of ContemporaryArt, Centre for Contemporary Art,Serbia. University of Aberdeen.Performance Art in Eastern Europe

Dr Laura Moretti. Dr MaurizioMessina, Biblioteca Marciana,Venice, Italy. University of StAndrews. The manuscripts andprinted works by Daniele Barbaro(1514-70)

Dr Deirdre Shaw. Professor NilOzcaglar-Toulouse, University ofLille 2, France. University ofGlasgow. Visualising EthicalConsumption

Professor Elaine Shemilt. The rurallandscape of the Provinces ofFrosinone & Isernia in the regionsof Lazio and Molise, Italy. Universi-ty of Dundee. The role of theimage in War, Identity andDiaspora

Professor Claire Squires. ProfessorMiha Kovac, University of Ljublja-na, Slovenia. University of Stirling.Scotland and Slovenia: Scotlandand Slovenia: the Role of Books inthe Digital Age

Dr Martine Julia Van Ittersum.Jeroen Vervliet and Ingrid Kost,Peace Palace Library, The Hague.

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University of Dundee. ‘Hero ofInternational Law: Celebrating theTercentenary of the Publication ofHugo Grotius’ De Jure Belli acPacis in 1925'

Ms Hannah Young. ProfessorBarbara Fornefeld, University ofCologne, Germany. University ofDundee. Bereavement, Loss andPeople with Profound Intellectualand Multiple Disabilities (PIMD)

CRF Personal Research Fellow-ships

Dr Samantha Pitt. University of StAndrews,. Molecular mechanismsof NAADP-regulated signalling viaTwo Pore Channels

Scottish Government PersonalResearch Fellowships

Dr Davide Bulgarelli. University ofDundee,. Structure, functions andhost control of the barley rhizo-sphere microbiota

Dr Claire Cousins. University ofEdinburgh. Searching for life onMars: analogue and technology-based approaches

Dr Ross Inglis. The University ofEdinburgh,. Molecules for LowTemperature Refrigeration

Dr Mark Larance. University ofDundee. Analysis of CalorieRestriction and its Role in Ageingfrom Nematodes to Humans

Dr Yong Sung Park. University ofDundee. A new framework forexperimental study of tsunamis

Dr Bartlomiej Waclaw. TheUniversity of Edinburgh. Physicalprocesses in the biologicalevolution of cellular populations

ENTERPRISE FELLOWSHIPS

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowship

Dr Yanina Sevastsyanovich.University of Birmingham. Devel-opment of improved hosts forproduction of cytoplasmic andsecreted recombinant proteins

SE Enterprise Fellowships

Dr Philip Benson. University ofAberdeen. A Diagnostic ScreeningTest for Major Psychiatric Disor-ders

Dr David Heath. University ofStrathclyde. Rapid Assessment ofSkin Moisture

Dr Efthymios Klampaftis. Heriot-Watt University. Colour-PV

Dr Christopher Leburn. Heriot-Watt University. Chromacity

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Research and Enterprise Awards

Small Grants

Dr Kormi Anipa. University of StAndrews. Juan de Valdes, “Dialo-go de la lengua. “ A DiplomaticEdition. Edited by K Anipa

Mr James Blake. Edinburgh NapierUniversity. Learning from Korea.Media skins as public art inScotland

Ms Susan Brind. Glasgow Schoolof Art. Curious Arts - No 6

Dr Amy Bryzgel. University ofAberdeen. Performance Art inEastern Europe

Professor Ian Campbell. Universityof Edinburgh. Pirro Ligorio’sOxford Codex: Edition

Dr Sarah Dillon. University of StAndrews. What Scientists Read:How does literature influencescientific thought and practice?

Dr Matthew Graham. University ofDundee. Myths, miracles and co-option: the African NationalCongress and the struggle againstapartheid

Dr Lauren Hall-Lew. University ofEdinburgh. The Sound of NationalIdentity in Scottish Politics

Mrs Susan Hamilton. RCAHMS.Crossing Cultures: MakingScottish Cultural Heritage Data anInternational Resource

Dr Sara Karly Kehoe. GlasgowCaledonian University. Our WorthyCountrymen?: Highland Develop-

ARTS AND HUMANITIES

ment and the West Indies, 1750-1850

Mr Sean McLaughlin. University ofthe Highlands and Islands.Creative Practice in Post-Compul-sory Popular Music Education

Dr Veronica Maxwell. OpenUniversity. Study and Analysis ofCopper-based Artefacts from LateNeolithic to Middle Bronze AgeSarakeno, Boeotia, Greece

Dr Katie Overy. University ofEdinburgh. Group Rhythm Gamesfor the Language Classroom:Dissemination and KnowledgeExchange

Professor Andrew Pettegree.University of St Andrews. Luther:Publicist. The Reformation as amedia phenomenon.

Dr Andrew Radford. University ofGlasgow. Mary Butts and BritishNeo-Romanticism: The Enchant-ment of Place

Professor Richard Rodger. Univer-sity of Edinburgh. Insanitary City:H D Littlejohn and the “Report onthe Sanitary Condition of Edin-burgh (1865)”

Professor Ian Russell. University ofAberdeen. Engaging ScottishAudiences in the Formatting andDesign of a Critical Edition of theJames Madison Carpenter Collec-tion of Traditional Song andDrama

280


Dr Jose Saval. University ofEdinburgh. Manuel VazquezMontalban monograph

Dr Tamara Trodd. University ofEdinburgh. Art After Photography:Machines and Technologies in Artfrom Duchamp to the Digital

Professor Florian Urban. GlasgowSchool of Art. Architecture andRomantic Nationalism - BalmoralCastle in a European Context

Mrs Joanne Wishart. ShetlandMuseum and Archives. From thewilds of Shetland to the forests ofJamaica: the life and work ofJames Robertson (1753-1829)

Workshops

Dr Alex Benchimol. ProfessorPhilip Schlesinger. University ofGlasgow. Securing Scotland’sVoice: Strategic Responses to theDigital Media Revolution in theNational Press

Dr Stephen Bowd. Dr GordonFindlater. University of Edinburgh.Between Apes and Angels:Human and Animal in the EarlyModern World

Dr Anna Groundwater. Chris Fleet.University of Edinburgh / NationalLibrary of Scotland. ‘Mapping theNation: representations ofScotland 1200 to 1750’

Dr Henrietta Lidchi. Dr StuartAllan. National Museums Scot-land. Hidden in Plain Sight:non-European collections inmilitary culture

Dr Gavin Miller. Dr Alette Willis.University of Glasgow / Universityof Edinburgh. Scottish HealthHumanities Seminar and Master-class Series

Dr Anita Quye. Dr Klauss Stauber-mann. University of Glasgow /National Museums Scotland.ReINVENT: reconnecting andrecreating 19th century Scottishtextile manufacture

Dr Ben Saunders. University ofStirling. Organ Donation andTransplantation Policy

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RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIPS AND PRIZES

Carnegie Caledonian Scholar-ship

Ms Helen Mary Green. Universityof Glasgow. Perceptions of Pastsand Landscapes in the PlanningProcesses of Scotland

Ms Rebekah Mayhew. Universityof Stirling. The species andfunctional composition of birdcommunities in regeneratingtropical forests

Cormack Postgraduate Prize

Pasquale Galianni. University of StAndrews. Testing quasilinearmodified Newtonian dynamics inthe Solar System

Cormack Small AstronomyResearch Grant

Professor John Campbell Brown.Life in the Universe

Cormack Undergraduate Prize

Mr Samuel Irvine. University ofEdinburgh. Assessing Habitabilityin Large Exoplanet Datasets usingSimple Climate Models

Ms Susan Ripley Wright. In Searchof Hidden Galaxies

Mr Allan Ross Macneil. Universityof Glasgow. Electrostatic potentialcalculations for complex dustgeometries and charge distribu-tions as catalysts in planetaryatmospheric evolution

Cormack Vacation Scholarships

Mr Feyishayo Olukoya. Universityof St Andrews. Conditions for theemergence of magnetic fieldsfrom the solar interior

Mr Owen Turner. University ofEdinburgh. Investigating theoptical properties of galaxyclusters using data from the Pan-STARRS sky survey

Ms Vaiva Vasiliauskaite. Universityof Glasgow. Space-based sensorsfor space weather mitigation

Mr Daniel Williams. University ofGlasgow. Automated Searches forStellar Flares in Kepler Data

Ms Susan Ripley Wright. Universityof Edinburgh. Cosmic Dawn: theera of the first galaxies

Lessells Travel Scholarships

Mr Ashak Ashekuzzaman. Glas-gow Caledonian University. FieldStudy Research to Evaluate andIdentify the Feasibility of UsingLayered Double Hydroxide (LDH)based Adsorent to RemoveArsenic from Groundwater inBangladesh

Mr Daniel Garcia Yarnoz . Universi-ty of Strathclyde. Exploitation ofSolar Radiation Pressure and TidalForces around Minor Bodies

Dr Saurav Goel. Heriot-WattUniversity. Experimental andmultiscale simulation investiga-

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SCOTTISH CRUCIBLE

Mr Grant Jordan Allan. Universityof Strathclyde.

Dr Matteo Ceriotti. University ofGlasgow.

Dr Mags Currie. The James HuttonInstitute.

Dr Eimear Dolan. Robert GordonUniversity.

Dr Caroline Gauchotte-Lindsay.University of Glasgow.

Dr Kathleen Gough. University ofGlasgow.

Dr Ross Goutcher. University ofStirling.

Dr Cindy Gray. University ofGlasgow,.

Dr Philip James Walton Hands.University of Edinburgh.

Dr Lisa Iversen. University ofAberdeen.

Dr Joseph Jackson. University ofStrathclyde.

tion of the upper bound of theductile-regime machining parame-ters of nanocrystalline-siliconcarbide

Mr Qiteng Hong. University ofStrathclyde. Intelligent systems forimproved configuration andmanagement of power systemprotection

Mr Sean MacDougall. Heriot-WattUniversity. Nano structures fornano up-converters: making theinvisible, visible

Mr Christian Maluk. The Universityof Edinburgh. Innovative ThermalMeasuring Techniques for FireTesting Environments

Ms Fiona Ni Mhearain. Heriot-Watt University. Digital SignalProcessing for the Land MobileSatellite Channel

Mr Srikanta Sharma. University ofDundee,. Fabrication of highresolution ultrasound transducersfor screening and diagnosis ofcancer of GI tract

Dr Christopher Jefferson. Universi-ty of St Andrews.

Dr Christiane Kerlen. Dr KerlenEvaluation.

Dr Rong Lan. University of Strath-clyde.

Dr Gareth Lloyd. Heriot-WattUniversity.

Dr Julien Lonchamp. Heriot-WattUniversity.

Dr Leah Macaden. University ofStirling.

Dr Haralampos Moiras. Universityof Glasgow.

Dr Helen Mulvana. University ofGlasgow.

Dr Sarah-anne Munoz. Universityof the Highlands and Islands.

Dr Sandhya Patidar. Heriot-WattUniversity.

Dr Richard Payne. University ofStirling.

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Dr Lucy Pickering. University ofGlasgow.

Dr Ben Saunders. University ofStirling.

Dr Adam Andrew Stokes. Universi-ty of Edinburgh.

Dr Jaime Toney. University ofGlasgow,.

Dr Rachel Walcott. NationalMuseums Scotland.

Dr Elaine Webster. University ofStrathclyde.

Dr Lasani Wijetunge. University ofEdinburgh.

Dr Ben Williamson. University ofStirling.

Dr Oliver Witard. University ofStirling.

Dr Juan Ye. University of StAndrews.

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MEDALS, PRIZES AND PRIZE LECTURESHIPS

Royal Medals

Sir John Cadogan

Professor Michael Ferguson

Sir Ian Wood.

Sir James Black Prize 2013

Professor Christopher Haslett

Professor Andrew Whiten

Sir Thomas Makdougall Bris-bane Prize 2013

Dr Aidan Robson

Sir Walter Scott Prize 2013

Professor David Hewitt

Patrick Neill Prize 2013

Dr Marc Dweck

Lord Kelvin Prize 2013

Professor Peter Davies

Thomas Reid Prize 2013

Dr Gordon Pentland

Henry Duncan Medal 2013

Mr Neil McLennan

Beltane Public EngagementSenior Prize 2013

Professor Caroline Wilkinson

Beltane Public EngagementInnovators Prize 2013

Dr Chris Speed

IEEEE/RSE/Wolfson Microlec-tronics Award 2013

Professor Richard Muller andProfessor Richard White, both ofUniversity of California, USA, forpioneering innovation andleadership in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)technology.

Pro Meritas Medal 2013

Dr Russell Allan Leather, formerlyThe Gannochy Trust.

Mr Angus Macmillan Shearer.

Professor Alan Walker, Universityof Edinburgh.

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GRANTS COMMITTEEThe Grants Committee considered 13 applications and a sum of£10329.42 was awarded. Approximately 51% of this sum was awarded astravel assistance.

Travel Assistance

Professor Clive Greated. For travelto China. £925

Professor Paul Garside. For travelto Kenya and Malawi. £950

Professor Ben Harte. For travel toItaly. £500

Professor David Jasper.For travel toLithuania. £439

Professor Sean McKee.For travel toBrazil. £600

Professor Ian Parsons.For travel toUSA. £895.42

Professor Marian Wiercigroch. Fortravel to South Africa. £950

Support for Meetings

Professor Ian Jackson. PigmentCell Development Workshop.£750

Professor Tracy Palmer & Dr SarahCoulthurst. Young Microbiol-ogists Symposium on MicrobeSignalling, Organisation andPathogenesis. £750

Professor Charles McKean. A NewPlatform for Scottish RenaissanceStudies. £720

Research Visitor to Scotland

Professor James Hough. To enableProfessor Steven Penn, Depart-ment of Physics, Hobart & WilliamSmith Colleges, Geneva, NewYork, to visit the School of Physicsand Astronomy at the Universityof Glasgow in the autumn of2013. £950

Professor Graham Caie & Dr ChrisJones. To enable ProfessorAkinobu Tani Hyogo, University ofTeacher Education, Kato, Japan tovisit the University of Glasgow inNovember 2013. £950

Professor Pete Smith & ProfessorDoerthe Tetzlaff. To enableProfessor John Bradford, BoiseState University, Boise, Idaho, USAto visit Aberdeen for 12 days offield work and analysis in August2013. £950

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INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME21-23 November 2012

A joint workshop with theNational Natural Science Founda-tion of China (NSFC) took place atthe RSE in Edinburgh. The two-day workshop on “Energy Policyand Renewables in Scotland andChina” involved speakers fromScotland and China, with thepurpose of establishing collabora-tions to then be supportedthrough the RSE-NSFC JointProject scheme.

26 November 2012

The 2012 MacCormick EuropeanLecture lecture was delivered byAllan Little, BBC World AffairsCorrespondent ,who has beenreporting the changing shape ofour world for over two decades.The MacCormick EuropeanLecture is named after the lateProfessor Sir Neil MacCormick inrecognition of the contributionmade by him to Scottish andEuropean politics and the interna-tional work of the RSE.

27 November 2012

The RSE held a joint conferencewith the European Movement inScotland and supported by theEuropean Commission Office inScotland and the Centre forAdvanced Study of the ArabWorld on the topic of Europe andthe Arab World. The conferenceexamined the relationshipsbetween the regions and howEurope can promote stability,peace and prosperity in Arabcountries.

4–5 June 2013

The RSE organised a Franco–British conference in partnershipwith the French Embassy in Londoand in association with theSuperGen UK Centre for MarineEnergy Research on the subject ofNew Waves in Marine Energy. Theconference provided an opportu-nity for academics, practitionersand stakeholders to exchangeideas and experiences on marineenergy in the UK and in France, topresent new scientific conceptsand discuss their social andcommercial implications to thepublic and to generally raiseawareness of French and Britishscience.

18 June 2013

On 18 June a delegation of 20Members of the Chinese Academyof Sciences (CAS) visited the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh to learn howthe RSE promotes research andcommercialisation in Scotland.

29 July 2013

The highly prestigious James ClerkMaxwell Medal was presented atthe IEEE Honors Ceremony in SanDiego to Professor Richard Mullerand Professor Richard White, bothof Berkeley University, USA. It isthe only joint award made by theIEEE and the RSE. The presenta-tion was made jointly by thePresident of the IEEE and by theChief Executive of the RSE, DrWilliam Duncan, at a high profileceremony that was telecastworldwide.

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3-10 September 2013

RSE President, Sir John Arbuth-nott, visited China with ProfessorTariq Duranni, Vice President,International, at the beginning ofSeptember and had meetingswith: Britain’s Ambassador toChina, National Natural ScienceFoundation of China (NSFC),Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS), Chinese Academy of SocialSciences (CASS), CAS Institute ofMicrobiology (IMCAS) and theCAS Institute of Genetics andDevelopment Biology (IGDB). ThePresident also hosted an RSEreception and dinner for invitedguests.

16-17 September 2013

Professor Peter A Davies FRSE,Professor of Fluid Dynamics,Director, The National TelfordInstitute, University of Dundeeorganised a ‘Norway-ScotlandInternal waves symposia’ in Oslo.The RSE contributed £6000towards the cost of Scottishparticipants at the workshop aswell as some international experts.The event aimed to develop linksbetween the RSE, the NorwegianAcademy of Science & Letters andthe Iceland Society of Sciences.

19 September 2013

A delegation from the Society ofSwedish Literature in Finlandvisited the RSE and met withFellows and members of staff. Thedelegation was especially interest-ed in the RSE’s activities in thefield of humanities and the socialsciences.

23 September 2013

A delegation of four representa-tives from the Sichuan Academy ofSocial Sciences visited the RSE.

28 October – 1 November 2013

A joint workshop with theNational Natural Science Founda-tion of China (NSFC) took place inBeijing. The workshop on thetopic of ‘Computational CognitiveNeuroscience Psycholinguistics(particularly in relation to Chineselanguage processing), Interactionand Communication VisualCognition Social Neuroscience’involved speakers from Scotlandand China, with the purpose ofestablishing collaborations tothen be supported through theRSE-NSFC Joint Project scheme.

291

International

Czech Republic - Incoming

Dr Karel Angelis. University ofEdinburgh. Professor PeterDoerner. University of Edinburgh

Hungary - Outgoing

Professor Stephen Osborne.University of Edinburgh. ProfessorGyorgy Jenei. Corvinus University,Budapest

Professor Charles William JohnWithers. University of Edinburgh.Dr Robi Gyori. Eötvös LorándUniversity

India - Incoming

Dr Nandadula Bairagi. Universityof Stirling. Dr. Jozsef Farkas.Jadavpur University

Assistant Professor Nilanjana Das.University of Glasgow. Dr ColinSelman. Visva-Bharati

Professor Mandal Swapan. Heriot-Watt University. Dr Patrick Ohberg.Visva-Bharati

Professor Mohan Sharma. Univer-sity of Edinburgh. Professor NoelSmyth. Kurukshetra University

Professor Baljeet Singh. Universityof Glasgow. Professor Raymond WOgden. Post Government Gradu-ate College

Professor Sushil Kumil Tomar.University of Glasgow. ProfessorRay Ogden. University of Panjab

Italy - Incoming

Professor Gianfranco Capriz.University of Pisa. Professor RobinKnopps. Heriot-Watt University

Dr Arianna Rinaldi. SapienzaUniversity of Rome. Dr MatthewNolan. University of Edinburgh

Open - Incoming

Dr Matthew Augustine. Universityof St Andrews. Professor StevenZwicker. Washington University inSt Louis

Professor David Cobham. Heriot-Watt University. Dr AbdallahZouache. Institut SupérieurEconomie Administration Gestion- IAE

Professor Sir Thomas MartinDevine. University of Edinburgh.Professor Angela McCarthy.University of Otago

Dr Philip Ebert. University ofStirling. Professor Roy Cook.University of Minnesota

Professor Gareth Leng. Universityof Edinburgh. Dr Valery Grinevich.University of Heidelberg

Professor Wilson Che Kei Poon.University of Edinburgh. ProfessorIgnacio Pagonabarraga. Universi-tat de Barcelona

Dr Christopher Stock. University ofEdinburgh. Dr Efrain Rodriguez.University of Maryland,

Exchanges awarded during the session

292


Professor Aziz Sheikh. Universityof Edinburgh. Professor DanielKotz. Maastricht University

Dr Andrew Shinn. University ofStirling. Dr Mark Freeman.University of Malaya

Dr Xinhua Shu. Glasgow Caledo-nian University. Chi-Chao ChanMD. National Institutes of Health(NIH)

Dr Sally Till. University of Edin-burgh. Dr Maria Luisa Scattoni.Istituto Superiore di Sanità

Dr Alexander Weiss. University ofEdinburgh. Dr David Sinn. TheUniversity of Texas at Austin

Dr Robert Wilson. University of StAndrews. Dr Björn Gunnarson.Stockholm University

Open - Outgoing

Dr Galina Andreeva. University ofEdinburgh Business School. DrRaffaella Calabrese. University ofMilano-Bicocca, Italy

Dr Henry Bock. Heriot-WattUniversity. Professor BenoitCoasne and Professor OrlandoRojas. MIT, Massachusetts, andNCSU, Raleigh, North Carolina

Dr David Borchers. University of StAndrews. Associate ProfessorRachel Fewster. University ofAuckland

Dr Stephen Bowd. University ofEdinburgh. Benjamin Arbel, DrTamar Herzig, David S. Katz,Professor Miriam Eliav-Feldon etc.Tel Aviv University

Dr Paul Campbell. University ofDundee. Professor Chris Brennen.California Institute of Technology

Dr Stella Chan. University ofEdinburgh. Professor Tatia Lee.The University of Hong Kong

Dr Tamas Gyorfi. University ofAberdeen. Professor TuomasOjanen. University of Helsinki

Dr Mike Ludwig. University ofEdinburgh. Dr Valerie Grienevich.University of Heidelberg

Professor Colin Richard Pulham.University of Edinburgh. ProfessorElena V. Boldyreva. NovosibirskState University

Professor Susan Rosser. Universityof Glasgow. Professor Jay Keas-ling. Joint BioEnergy Institute,Emeryville, CA

Dr Kevin D Smith. EdinburghNapier University. Dr KathrynGraham. Cross Cancer Institute

Professor Simon Tett. University ofEdinburgh. Dr Michael Whener.Laurence Berkeley NationalLaboratory

Poland - Incoming

Dr Adam Kozuchowski. InstytutHistorii PAN. Dr Steve Sturdy.University of Edinburgh

Dr Magdalena Gawin. PolishAcademy of Sciences. Dr SteveSturdy. University of Edinburgh

Dr Tomasz Wislicz-Iwanczyk.Instytut Historii PAN. ProfessorSteve Murdoch. University of StAndrews

293

International

Dr Anna Kalinowska. InstytutHistorii PAN. Professor SteveMurdoch. University of St An-drews

Poland - Outgoing

Professor Tom Lenagan. Universityof Edinburgh. Professor JanOkninski. University of Warsaw

Slovenia - Incoming

Professor Mirjam Mencej. Univer-sity of Edinburgh. Dr Emily Lyle.University of Ljubljana

Taiwan - Outgoing

Dr Richard Fu. University of Westof Scotland. Asst. Professor Han-Sheng Chuang. Department ofBiomedical Engineering, NationalCheng Kung University

Dr Teuta Pilizota. University ofEdinburgh. Asst Professor Chien-Jung Lo. National CentralUniversity

Professor Ian Underwood.Universityof Edinburgh. ProfessorWenjun Zheng. National Sun YatSen University

Dr Baixin Chen. Heviot-WattUniversity. Dr Associate ProfessorJiafei Zhao, Dalian University ofTechnology. Study on Natural GasHydrate Growth Habit in Hydrate-bearing Sediments

Dr Xianfeng Fan. University ofEdinburgh. Professor Dr MinghouXu, Huazhong University ofScience and Technology. Reduceenergy penalty in CO2 captureprocesses and the emission of SOxand NOx from coal combustion

Professor Clive Alan Greated.University of Edinburgh. AssociateProfessor Bing Chen, DalianUniversity of Technology. Develop-ment of a new buoy-type energyconverter

NNSFC Joint Projects

Professor John T S Irvine. Universi-ty of St Andrews. ProfessorYucheng Wu, Hefei University ofTechnology. Visible-light-responseTiO2 nanotube array for artificialphotosynthesis

Dr Hong Yue. University ofStrathclyde. Dr Jun Yang, South-east University. Reliable andHigh-efficiency AutonomousControl Technology for AirborneWind Energy Systems

Dr Yonghao Zhang. University ofStrathclyde. Dr Guihua Tang, Xi’anJiaotong University. Understand-ing Unconventional Natural GasFlows in Shale Rocks

295

FELLOWS’ SOCIAL EVENTSNew Fellows’ Induction Day

A New Fellows' Induction Day isheld annually, shortly after theelection and New Fellows areencouraged to attend this to beformally admitted to the Societyand sign the Roll.

New Fellows not able to attendthen, and existing Fellows, maymake arrangements to be formallyadmitted at Ordinary Meetings ofthe Society. In certain circumstanc-es, special arrangements may bemade for Honorary and Corre-sponding Fellows who cannotattend an Ordinary Meeting.

The 2013 Induction Day was heldon 20 May 2013.

Summer Reception and HiggsPortrait

In order to commemorate thediscovery of the Higgs Boson, andto honour the man whoseoutstanding research was instru-mental in that discovery, the RSEcommissioned one of Scotland’sleading artists, Victoria CroweOBE, FRSE, to paint a portrait ofProfessor Peter Higgs. Thepainting was unveiled at the RSEon the occasion of the Fellows’Summer Reception on 14 June2013.

The unveiling was followed by adiscussion about the portraitbetween artist and sitter whichprovided a fascinating insight intothe way that Victoria was able tocapture Peter’s personality oncanvas. Professor Duncan Macmil-

lan FRSE set the context for thatdiscussion with an intriguingpresentation about the artist andher work. The portrait will hangon the walls of the Kelvin Roomwithin the RSE’s prestigiouspremises on George Street,Edinburgh.

Royal Medals Event

A major highlight of the Sessionwas the presentation of the RSERoyal Medals, presented by HisRoyal Highness The Duke ofEdinburgh at the Society on 12August 2013.

His Royal Highness also presentedthe IEEE/ RSE/James Clerk MaxwellAward for 2013.

Fellows’ Coffee Meetings

Weekly Coffee Meetings wereheld through the Winter andSpring months, as follows:

9 October 2012. NorthernIreland: from‘The Troubles’ toPeace and Reconciliation. Profes-sor Robert J Cormack FRSE

6 November 2012. Simonides:Poetry and Photography. ProfessorRobert Crawford FRSE andNorman MacBeath

4 December 2012. Fire andSafety – When Will We Ever Learn?Professor D D Drysdale FRSE

8 January 2013. Art and Science:Estranged Siblings. Professor J DMacmillan FRSE

296


5 February 2013. An IllustratedHistory of Some Early DigitalComputers. Professor Roland NIbbett FRSE

5 March 2013. The Minds of ourChildren. Professor ForresterCockburn FRSE

The Royal Society Dining Club

The Club was established on 3January 1820, with the view ofpromoting the objectives of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh. InSession 2012/2013 meetingswere held as follows:

861st Dinner - 8 October 2012Praeses: Sir William StewartCroupier: Dr Alison Elliot

862nd Dinner - 10 December2012Praeses: Very Revd GilleasbuigMacmillanCroupier: Sir Russell Hillhouse

863rd Dinner: 8 April 2013Praeses: Professor ElizabethMoignardCroupier: Professor Eric Priest

864th Dinner - 3 June 2013Praeses: Professor David IngramCroupier: Professor Mary Gibby

Fellows’ Golf

Stewart Cup

The 14th Stewart Cup took placeat Ladybank Golf Club on 28August 2012. Winner : ProfessorWilliam Firth.

Sector Group Match

The Golf House Club Elie. 16 May2013 The overall team winnerwas Sector C, on this occasionrepresenting the Humanities.Three Fellows returned the sameindividual highest scores, PaulBeaumont was declared thewinner on count-back with abetter inward half.

297

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FRIENDS OF THE SOCIETY

Aberdeen Asset Management

BP

FES

The Herald

Lloyds Banking Group

Arup

RBS

In 2009 the RSE launched Friends of the Society, a corporate engagementscheme established with the purpose of developing the RSE’s relationshipwith Scotland’s business sector.

The initiative provides an opportunity for the “Friends” to find out moreabout the RSE and the important work it carries out. It also presents the RSEand its corporate partners with a platform to explore areas of mutualinterest and develop joint projects. Members of the scheme also receive anumber of tangible benefits in return for a modest annual fee.

During the financial year 2012–13 the members were:

SCDI

Scottish Resources Group

Shell

Standard Life

Toshiba

Wood Group

Friends of the Society Events

- Friends of the Society Lunch (Winter)

- Friends of the Society President’s Dinner ( Spring)

- Friends of the Society Spring Reception

- Friends of the Society President’s Dinner (Autumn)

303

CHANGES IN FELLOWSHIP DURING THE SESSIONDEATHS REPORTED TO THE SOCIETY

Fellows

William Cameron Bowman

Alan John Brook

David Jervis Coats

John Gerald Collee

Robert Davidson

John Barry Dawson

Gordon Bryce Donaldson

John Valentine George AndrewDurnin

Michael Stephen Patrick Eastham

James Andrew Eddison

Robert Patton Ferrier

John Oldroyd Forfar

George William Gray

George Steedman Hislop

Robin Main Hochstrasser

George Melvyn Howe

Paul Gordon Jarvis

Matthew Howard Kaufman

Hamish Macdonald Keir

Charles Alexander Mac kean

Susan Lindsay Manning

John Mauchline

Bruce Millan

James Douglas Morrison

Kenneth Murray

Alec Leonard Panchen

Henry Desmond Patterson

Edward McWilliam Patterson

Ronald John Trueman Pennington

Archibald Edmiston Roy

David William Arthur Sharp

Padma Kant Shukla

Michael George Parke Stoker

John Anderson Strong

Patrick Gerard Walsh

304


ELECTIONSFellows

Corresponding Fellows

Honorary Fellows

David William Cross MacMillan

Thomas William Muir

Joseph Mathu Ndung’u

Harold Vincent Poor

Michel Virlogeux

David Cox

Robbert Henricus Dijkgraaf

Jean Marcel Tirole

Keith Martin Ball

Michael Peter Barrett

Robert Bingham

Keir Bloomer

Euan Kenneth Brechin

Dauvit Broun

Gordon Douglas Brown

Peter Duncanson Cameron

Marion Kay Campbell

Gerard Charles Carruthers

Peter Anthony Cawood

Rene De Borst

John William Frank

Olivier James Garden

Iain Miles Macgregor Gillespie

David Goulson

Vicki Lynne Hanson

Gabriele Clarissa Hegerl

Peter T Hughes

Douglas Chalmers Hutchison

Moira Mary Jardine

Gareth Islwyn Jenkins

Allan Iain MacInnes

Margaret Ruth MacLean

Ian Derek Marchant

Andrew John McWalter Millar

Elspeth Christie Reid

Pauline Schaap

William Taylor Sloan

Robert Leon Stamps

Dorrik Andrew Vincent Stow

Alan James Sutherland

Rhian Merry Touyz

Sethu Vijayakumar

John McLaren Ogilvie Waddell

Ian James Wall

Robbie Waugh

Robert Webb

Paul Graham Wyatt

305

STAFF CHANGES DURING THE SESSION

Mr Gordon Adam, Director ofBusiness Development andCommunicationsMs Christel Baudère, HR OfficerMrs Catriona Blair, Events OfficerMrs Róisín Calvert-Elliott, BusinessDevelopment and Events ManagerMs Jennifer Cameron, OfficeServices and IT Support ManagerDr Lesley Campbell, YoungAcademy ManagerMs Oonagh Carroll, Events Officer

Ms Morven Chisholm, FellowshipServices ManagerMr Andy Curran, Property ServicesOfficerDr William Duncan, Chief Execu-tiveMiss Kate Ellis, Director of FinanceMrs Anne Fraser, Research Awardsand International Manager

Mrs Jean Geoghegan, FinanceOfficerMrs Vicki Hammond, Journals andArchive OfficerMr William Hardie, ConsultationsOfficerMr Graeme Herbert, Director ofCorporate Services and DeputyChief ExecutiveMs Martina Hlinkova, Front ofHouse ManagerMr Robert Hunter, EveningCaretakerKate Kennedy, Project OfficerMrs Susan Lennox, ConsultationsOfficerMrs Jenny Liddell, Communica-tions OfficerMr Bristow Muldoon, Head ofPress, Policy and ParliamentaryAffairsMrs Karen O’Neill, Admin Recep-tionist

ArrivalsMs Orela Deane, Events OfficerMs Elizabeth Hemsley, PolicyOfficerMs Karen McQuaid, Events OfficerMs Shona O’Brien, FinancialControllerMs Rachel Steele, Events OfficerMs Janice Williams, FinanceOfficer

Other Staff in post throughout the Session

DeparturesMs Angela Nicholson, RecordsManagement OfficerMs Stephanie Magowan, YoungAcadamy Assistant*Ms Katey Tabner, Policy Officer*

Ms Maggie Twomey, EventsOfficerAlyssa Newman, Temporary PolicyOfficer*

Mrs Sheryl Vickery, Finance Officer

*started and left during the Session.

306


Mr George Pendleton, ConferenceCentre AssistantMs Tracy Rickard, Research AwardsCo-ordinator

Mr Brian Scott, Technical SupportAssistantJulie Steele, Executive Officer

307

OBITUARY NOTICESGeoffrey Herbert Beale ........................................................................ 308

Sir James Black ..................................................................................... 315

Harold Burnell Carter ........................................................................... 319

Robert Bernard Clark ........................................................................... 326

Sir John Crofton .................................................................................. 330

John Barry Dawson .............................................................................. 334

Gordon Bryce Donaldson ..................................................................... 338

Kenneth James Dover ........................................................................... 341

John Valentine George Andrew Durnin ................................................ 344

Professor Sandy Fenton ........................................................................ 346

William Morrison Gordon .................................................................... 348

Sir Alistair Grant .................................................................................. 351

Professor George William Gray ............................................................ 353

Matthew Howard Kaufman.................................................................. 358

Nicholas Kemmer ................................................................................. 363

Donald A Low ...................................................................................... 366

Sir Donald McCallum ........................................................................... 372

Anne Laura McLaren ............................................................................ 374

Donald Michie ..................................................................................... 378

Bruce Millan ........................................................................................ 382

Desmond Misselbrook ......................................................................... 385

John Murdoch Mitchison ..................................................................... 387

Rosalind Mary Mitchison ..................................................................... 391

Alec Leonard Panchen .......................................................................... 394

Edward McWilliam Patterson ............................................................... 397

Henry Desmond Patterson ................................................................... 401

David John Robins ............................................................................... 405

David William Arthur Sharp .................................................................. 407

John Hyslop Steele ............................................................................... 411

Michael George Parke Stoker ............................................................... 414

Thomas Johnston Taylor – Lord Taylor of Gryfe .................................... 420

Professor Victor Weisskopf .................................................................. 425

George Kenneth Hotson Younger - Viscount Younger of Leckie ........... 430

308


Geoffrey Herbert Beale

11 June 1913 - 16 October 2009

Geoffrey Beale was recognizedinternationally as a leadingprotozoan geneticist with an all-absorbing love of genetics,stimulated in the early part of hiscareer by either working with ormeeting many of the key figureswho laid the foundations ofmodern genetics in the 1930s and1940s. His work on the geneticsof the surface antigens of Para-mecium provided a conceptualbreakthrough in our understand-ing of the role of theenvironment, the cytoplasm andthe expression of genes, and hecontinued his interest in the roleof cytoplasmic elements inheredity through studies on boththe endosymbionts and mito-chondria of Paramecium. Hepioneered the genetic analysis ofparasitic protozoa with his workon Plasmodium, and this stimulat-ed many other scientists to take agenetic approach with theseexperimentally challengingorganisms.

Geoffrey was born in Wands-worth, London, on 11 June 1913,the son of Herbert Walter Bealeand Elsie Beale (née Beaton). Hisfamily included an elder brother(Hugh) and two younger sisters(Margaret and Joan). When hewas about five years old the familymoved to Wallington, Surrey,where he spent the rest of his

childhood as well as staying thereduring his university undergradu-ate and postgraduate studies. Heattended Sutton County School,Surrey from 1923 until he ob-tained his higher schoolcertificates in mathematics,physics and chemistry in 1931. Hismain interest at that time wasmusic and he briefly consideredthe possibility that he might makemusic his career and he becamean accomplished pianist andorganist.

However, he was also fascinatedby the idea of a career in biologi-cal research. There were nobiological sciences taught at thecounty school and no one in hisfamily had ever been to university.Most of his knowledge aboutbiological sciences was obtainedby reading and as a result of this,he resolved to go to university andtake up biological research as acareer, despite much parentaladvice about the advantages ofworking in a bank or becoming atax inspector. He accepted a placeat Imperial College, London and,after some difficulties he was ableto get a loan from Surrey CountyCouncil to support his attend-ance. He also got a job as organistat Cheam Presbyterian Church in1931 to provide much-neededfunds. This source of income,together with the loan from the

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council and money he receivedfrom other small jobs, enabledhim to finance his studies. Toreduce costs, he lived at home andcycled from Wallington to ImperialCollege in South Kensington, around trip of 20 miles each day.Although he originally registeredfor zoology, he switched to botanyand in 1935 received a BSc fromImperial College with first-classhonours. In his third year heattended a summer course onplant genetics given by staff of theJohn Innes Horticultural Institutewith presentations by leadingfigures in the field and this, plushis undergraduate studies, firedan interest in genetics that stayedwith him throughout his career.

After graduating, he applied tothe John Innes Institute as avolunteer but was soon offered ajob by its temporary head, J. B. S.Haldane. This was a great oppor-tunity, because the Institute wasone of only two places in the UKfor research in genetics, and someof the leading geneticists of thetime (Haldane, Darlington, Scott-Moncrieff & others) weremembers of staff. The job enabledhim to receive a stipend as well aswork on a PhD degree, initiallyunder Haldane’s supervision butlater was nominally supervised byDarlington. He received the PhD in1938 for his thesis ‘The geneticsof Verbena’. From 1935 to 1940he worked on different projectsthat were being investigated inthe institute and met and became

friends with Dan Lewis, K. Mather,Mick Callan and A. C. Fabergéwith the latter stimulating hisinterest in Russian culture andlanguage.

Although all the staff at theinstitute had been registered asbeing in ‘reserved occupations’,he was nevertheless called up tothe army in 1941 to undertakemilitary training. Shortly after thishe was drafted into the Intelli-gence Corps (Field Security) as aCorporal. He joined the Army BaseUnit and was sent to Russia in aconvoy arriving in Archangel inNovember 1941. British troopsand equipment were being sentto Russia to aid in the war againstGermany, and Beale was instruct-ed to facilitate the unloading ofships, seeing to it that theircontents were speeded on theirway to the interior for the Russianand Allied forces and liaising withthe Russian authorities to ensurethis happened. In May 1942 hewas transferred to Murmansk andwas promoted to the rank ofCaptain. He then spent a shortperiod in London, before beingposted to Finland as part of theAllied Control Commission, whichwas overseeing the Armisticebetween the Russians and theFinns. He had an important role inthe negotiations, particularlygiven his knowledge of Russian.He describes (in his unpublishedautobiographical notes), in hisown laconic way, that his mainachievement during the war was

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to learn Russian. However, thefacts would suggest that hiscontribution was significantbecause he rose to the rank ofCaptain and, in 1947, wasawarded an MBE for his militaryservice. He always underplayedthis award, suggesting that hereceived it for just being there,and in a letter to Dan Lewis hecommented, ‘Doubtless thou-sands of others have beenawarded an MBE too, but still it’sbetter than nothing, like a PhD.’

On completion of his militaryservice, his job at the John Inneswas still technically available tohim, but he decided to take a postat Cold Spring Harbor (USA) andjoined Milislav Demerec’s labora-tory in 1946 to work on the rateof mutation of Escherichia colifrom phage sensitivity to resist-ance. At this time many leadinggeneticists visited during thesummer or attended the regularsymposia, and so he was able tomeet Luria, Lederberg, Delbrück,Sonneborn and others at a timewhen these scientists were layingthe groundwork for microbialgenetics. He was also friendly withBarbara McClintock and it ispossible that his discussions withher aroused his interest incytoplasmic inheritance. In 1947,he obtained a Rockefeller Fellow-ship to work with Sonneborn onParamecium at Bloomington (USA)but this required that he return tothe UK at the end of his stay. Hisreturn was made possible by

Waddington who offered him alectureship at the Institute ofAnimal Genetics in Edinburgh.Geoffrey had a fruitful stay inBloomington, Indiana, andpublished several significantpapers on Paramecium.

In 1948 he moved to Edinburghand continued this research onParamecium with the immobiliza-tion surface antigens with the aimof elucidating the relationshipbetween the genes and environ-ment. Using a genetic approachand the unique features of thesystem, he showed the essentialrole of the cytoplasm in determin-ing the expression of theseimmobilisation antigens. This ledto one of the first models of theregulation of gene expression bythe environment. These findingsneed to be considered in thecontext of knowledge at that time.The nature of the gene wasunclear and a number of pheno-types were considered to bedetermined by non-nuclearplasmagenes with unconventionalmodes of inheritance. The geneticanalysis undertaken by Bealeallowed him to develop hypothe-ses that began to explain thephenomenon of antigenicvariation as the product of theinteraction between the gene, thecytoplasm and the environmentand to move away from theconcept of plasmagenes. In 1954he published a monographentitled ‘The genetics of Para-mecium aurelia’ reviewing the

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current and past research on thisorganism together with a generalintroduction promoting the valueof genetic analysis and the utilityof Paramecium as an experimentalsystem In 1963, based on hisresearch, he was appointed as aRoyal Society Research Professorand he held this position until hisretirement in 1978. Based on theprestige of this appointment hewas able to obtain funding fromEdinburgh University and theWellcome Trust, he was able todesign and build The ProtozoanGenetics Unit and developed aresearch group devoted toprotozoan genetics. He continuedhis work on the immobilisationantigens in the subsequent 15years with the characterization ofthe antigens and biochemicalanalysis of their synthesis, essen-tially provided one of the firstexamples of the regulation ofgene expression by environmentalconditions. The establishment ofthe Protozoan Genetics groupallowed him to also expand hisresearch into other areas, initiallywith Paramecium but subsequent-ly with parasitic protozoa.

Research in Sonneborn’s laborato-ry in the 1940s and 1950s hadidentified a series of Parameciumstocks that produced a substanceor particle capable of killing othersensitive stocks. He startedresearch on one class of particles,the mate killers that contained thesymbiont (mu), so called becauseit was only during mating that

they killed sensitive strains. Theresults from a series of experi-ments led to the metagonhypothesis which postulated thatthere were genetic elements in thecytoplasm that determined thekiller phenotype. These findingsgenerated considerable scientificinterest because they providedsupport for the concept thatphenotype could be determinedby non-nuclear genetic elements.Subsequently, a careful reinvesti-gation of the experiments showedthat the basic observations onwhich the metagon theory wasbased were not repeatable, andthe metagon hypothesis wasreluctantly declared defunct byBeale himself.

The work on symbionts asextranuclear genetic elements ledBeale to the study of the geneticdeterminants of mitochondria.After the identification of DNA inmitochondria in the early 1960’s,a lot of interest was generated indetermining the nature andfunction of the genes in thisorganelle. Beale considered thatParamecium was an ideal systemfor trying to address thesequestions and research largelycarried out with two PhD studentsin his lab demonstrated thedifferent mitochondrial compo-nents were determined by nuclearand mitochondrial genes. At thetime, these studies represented asignificant advance in our under-standing of the genetics ofmitochondria and provided a

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sound basis for the role ofextranuclear elements in deter-mining cell phenotype. The statusof the whole field was summa-rized by Beale & Knowles in 1978by the publication of a bookentitled Extranuclear genetics.

In the mid 1960s, he was invitedto a couple of parasitologymeetings at which the question ofgenetic exchange in protozoanparasites was raised and thisstimulated his interest in thegenetics of parasitic protozoa. Hewas advised by C. Garnham towork on rodent malaria becausethe complete life cycle could beundertaken in the laboratory. Withfunding from the MRC, the firstcrosses were undertaken in 1971and established the foundationsof genetic analysis in malariaparasites. Interestingly, Bealelargely let others in his laboratorydrive these projects, while heacted as a source of critical adviceand comment. Beale used many ofthe results generated in hislaboratory on protozoan parasitegenetics and diversity as thesubject matter when he wasinvited to give the Royal SocietyLeeuwenhoek Lecture in 1976.Work over the next 20 yearscovered the genetic analysis ofmalaria drug resistance, virulence,and the classification of therodent malarias into species andsubspecies. The success with thedevelopment of genetic markersfor detecting diversity and thegenetic analysis of rodent malaria

led to the extension of theresearch to the human malariaparasite Plasmodium falciparum.This work laid the foundations forthe genetic analysis ofP. falciparum pioneered by Carter,Walliker and Wellems working atthe National Institutes of Healthlaboratories in Bethesda, Mary-land and subsequently leading tothe genetic mapping of importanttraits such as drug resistance.

In 1976 he was awarded a six-month Royal Society VisitingProfessorship to ChulalongkornUniversity in Bangkok and usedthis to establish a collaborativeresearch programme on malariawith Professor Sodsri Thaithong.He helped to set up a malariaresearch laboratory at the universi-ty to undertake the analysis ofdiversity in P. falciparum with theuse of isolates from the region.This collaboration continued formore than 20 years and linked theEdinburgh and Bangkok laborato-ries with a research focus on drugresistance and strain diversity. Thework resulted in many fundamen-tal findings on the diversity andpopulation genetics of Plasmodi-um.

In summary, this phase of hisscientific career took on a com-pletely unexplored area ofresearch with an importanthuman pathogen and laid thegroundwork for many otherscientists working on parasitediversity and genetics. Thisseminal work showed that genetic

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analysis could be undertaken, thatthe parasite was haploid, thatresistance to chloroquine andpyrimethamine was geneticallydetermined and that virulence hada genetic component. Althoughothers were responsible for muchof the experimental work, Bealewas responsible for the conceptsand the initial vision, which hefollowed with enormous energyand dedication. Beale wasformally recognized for this workwith an honorary DSc (fromChulalongkorn University) in1996, presented personally toBeale by HM King Bhumibol.Geoffrey was one of the firstforeigners to be so honoured

He was dedicated to his researchand science, working in thelaboratory every day but was alsodevoted to his family. In 1949 hemarried Betty McCallum and, overthe next 25 years, they brought upthree children (Andrew, Stevenand Duncan). Although Betty andGeoffrey were divorced in 1969,they remained very good friendsuntil her death. He had a widerange of non-scientific interestsencompassing music, ballet andtheatre; he and his wife werepatrons of the Edinburgh Festival.He would often relax by playingthe piano, and he encouraged hissons to take up music. He alsodeveloped an interest in progres-sive education and its principleswhich very much fitted in with hisown views on life, and in fact hesent two of his sons to a progres-

sive school. Essentially he was avery cultured person with hisinterests in the arts, science andsociety, and education but he was,by contrast, also interested insport (swimming and squash) and,in his sixties, sports cars. Duringhis working life in Edinburgh, heestablished strong friendshipswith two colleagues, Charlotte(Lotte) Auerbach and HenrikKacser whom he consulted forviews and ideas on his own workbecause he respected theirscientific judgement. He helpedLotte in her latter years when herhealth began to deteriorate and,on the basis of her recollections,letters and publications, wrote anaccount of her and Robson’sfamous and fundamental discov-ery of mustard gas as a mutagen.His respect for these two peopleplayed a role in shaping many ofhis scientific directions.

He continued working afterretirement, going to the laborato-ry each day until 1998, often bybicycle or on foot from his home.He remained active in researchduring this period, travelling toThailand each year to undertakehis work on malaria as well astravelling to Italy and the USA tofollow his interest in ciliateprotozoa and contributing todiscussions and manuscriptwriting. After 1998 he spentmuch less time on research butbegan the preparations for a newbook on Paramecium which wasaimed at extending and moderniz-

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ing his previous book publishedin 1954. As he proceeded,however, he became more andmore affected by his age anddeteriorating health and luckily heaccepted J. Preer’s offer of helpwith the manuscript. This involveda significant input to accommo-date a lot of new material and thisfinal book was published in 2008,when Geoffrey was 95 years old.

He passed away peacefully in hissleep at the Chamberlain NursingHome in Edinburgh on 16 Octo-ber 2009. He is survived by his

three sons, Andrew, Steven andDuncan. He will be fondly remem-bered by a large number ofpostgraduate students for thetraining and inspiration that heprovided, with many going on toestablish very successful careers inresearch. He was always modestabout his achievements and, incontrast to many research groupleaders, was always very generousabout authorship, often lettingothers take the lead even whenthe original concept for a piece ofwork was his own.

Andrew Tait

Geoffrey Herbert Beale MBE, FRS, FRSE, BSc (Imperial College, London), PhD(University of London); Born 11 June 1913; elected FRSE 1966; died 16October 2009.

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Sir James Black invented the firstmodern blood-pressure drug,propranolol, and the first modernulcer drug, cimetidine, which rankamong the most importantmedical advances of the 20thcentury, having saved countlesslives and abolished overnight theneed for ulcer surgery. Sir MichaelRawlins, chairman of the NationalInstitute for Clinical Excellence,regarded Black as “the greatestdrug-hunter of the 20th century.Not only did he develop twoentirely novel classes of drug,beta-blockers and H2 antagonists,which had a major impact; but healso introduced a unique ap-proach to drug discovery by usingagonists as the starting point forthe development of specificantagonists.”

Black was born into a Baptistfamily in Uddingston, SouthLanarkshire and brought up inFife. He was the fourth of five sonsof a mining engineer and collierymanager. They were a musicalfamily and imbued him with a loveof singing. He was educated atBeath School in the Fife miningtown of Cowdenbeath, where, hesaid, he coasted through hisschooldays but for an intenseperiod spent studying music from12 to 14, followed by two years ofmathematics, mentored by hisbrilliant teacher Dr John Water-

Sir James Black

14 June 1924 – 22 March 2010First Published in The Independent on 24 March 2010.

Reproduced with permission from The Independent

son, who “more or less manhan-dled me into sitting thecompetitive entrance examinationfor St Andrews University”. As atimid 15-year-old he was inter-viewed for a scholarship and wasawarded the Patrick Hamiltonentrance scholarship, unawarethat the family budget would nothave stretched to another univer-sity student. An elder brother,William, had studied medicinethere.

As a condition of the scholarshiphe lived in St Salvator’s Hall, amodern residence designed onthe Oxbridge model, where hisfellow students were from a widerange of classes, a mind-broaden-ing experience for a boy from theFife coalfields. He found hard,disciplined study more enjoyablethan daydreaming. One of theteachers who inspired him wasprofessor D’Arcy WentworthThompson, the polymath whowrote the science classic OnGrowth and Form. While at StAndrew’s, Black met HilaryVaughan at a student ball andthey married when he graduated,two years later. He joined thephysiology department underProfessor R. C. Garry, and taughtHilary for a year; he said she wasthe best student he’d ever had.She went on to study poetry andlaw.

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Garry was trying to discover howthe intestine absorbs sugarselectively. A research student hadshown that sodium iodoacetateeliminates the selectivity of theintestine and destroys intestinalcells. Black, wondering if thesubstance was a general poisonand questioning what it did toblood pressure, discovered that itseriously and permanentlyreduced it. This led to the ques-tion which influenced his thinkingfrom then on: when and to whatextent does local blood act as ametabolic throttle?

Pitiful academic prospects and theneed to repay a student loandrove the Blacks to move a yearlater to Singapore, where Blacklectured in physiology at the KingEdward VII College of Medicineand continued research intointestinal blood flow and absorp-tion. They returned to the UK in1950 with no home or job, butBlack “knocked on physiologydepartment doors and encoun-tered more sympathy than Iexpected”. A chance meeting withProfessor Garry in Oxford Streetled to a post with ProfessorWilliam Weipers at the Universityof Glasgow’s veterinary school.Over the next eight years Blackestablished a physiology depart-ment with state-of-the-artteaching and research laborato-ries. He worked mainly with twoacademic surgeons: GeorgeSmith, who was interested in theeffects of histamine and 5HT on

acid secretion in the stomach, andAdam Smith, concerned withincreasing blood supply to theheart when the arteries werenarrowed.

By 1956 Black had the aim offinding a specific adrenalinereceptor antagonist. He ap-proached ICI Pharmaceuticals forhelp and ended up working forthem at Alderley Park, Cheshire,for six years. These were, he said,some of the most exciting years ofhis life, an “educational tour deforce.” Working with two brilliantmedicinal chemists, John Stephen-son and Bert Crowther, he learnedabout pharmacology and deduc-tive organic chemistry. He wasconvinced that the histamineantagonists of the day blockedonly the alpha receptors and thata beta agonist was needed toblock, say, histamine-stimulatedacid secretion.

Then Edward Paget, head ofpathology at ICI, took a post atSmith Kline and French and askedBlack to find him a biologist torun their biological research,adding, half in jest, “how aboutyou?” Black took the job, agree-ing to run the lab if he could havea free hand to pursue his beta-receptor research. By 1972cimetidine (trade name Tagamet)was in development and Blackwas looking for a new project: “Iwas now totally committed toarranging marriages betweenbioassay [establishing a sub-stance’s potency or nature by

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testing it on living tissue] andmedicinal chemistry.”

Attracted by the possibility offreedom from commercial con-straints, he accepted the chair inpharmacology at UniversityCollege London. He wanted toestablish the combination ofbioassay and medicinal chemistryas an academic pursuit, which hefelt was “as exciting as astrophys-ics or molecular biology”. Inteaching, he wanted to establish apharmacology course based onchemical principles, biochemicalclassification and mathematicalmodelling. He failed to achieveeither of these: his ideas oneducation had curricular difficul-ties.

When John Vane of the Wellcomedrug company invited Black tojoin him, he accepted eagerly. Hespent 1977 to 1984 there, butfound, as others had done, thatthe company was traditional,feudal and conservative: “En-trenched attitudes can absorbreformist efforts like a punchbag.” But he made good progresswith his own research in analyticalpharmacology. His problems wereresolved when the Wellcomecompany offered him the chanceto establish a small independentresearch unit, and funded it.King’s College, London and itsmedical school welcomed theunit, based in Dulwich and calledthe James Black Foundation. Ithad modern, purpose-builtpremises in Denmark Hill and did

not-for-profit research. Black wasgiven the title of professor ofanalytical pharmacology. Heregarded his five years there as themost productive and happy of hislife and in 1988 he received theNobel prize for his work there onbeta-blockers and ulcer drugs.

He was Chancellor of DundeeUniversity in his later years and theuniversity now has a centre namedafter him. His first wife died whilehe was at Denmark Hill and helater married Rona McLeodMacKie, professor of dermatologyat Glasgow University.

Black was universally liked for hismodesty, tolerance, courtesy andgood humour, and respected forhis work. “To have invented onenew class of drug, the beta-blockers, would have beenimpressive,” said Jeff Aronson,president of the British Pharmaco-logical Society. “To have inventeda second, the histamine-receptorantagonists, would have beenexceptional. But to have inventedtwo new classes of drug thatrevolutionised the managementof the conditions for which theywere intended – and in the case ofthe beta-blockers had other majorunexpected benefits, for examplein angina – was outstanding.” Hewas given a Lasker award – a sortof mini-Nobel – in 1976 and wasmade a Fellow of the Royal Societyin the same year. He produced200 research papers, many ofmajor importance.

Caroline Richmond

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Science, James Black once told me,is best kept as a low-profileactivity, and I never met any manmore genuinely concerned that heshould not become a “celebrity”,writes Tam Dalyell. None the less,he effectively used the award of aNobel Prize to plead for a way tobe found of making more moneyavailable to universities withoutthe sort of strings that can lead tocontroversial research not beingsupported. He believed mostrevolutionary work begins bybeing, at the very least, mildlycontroversial. One reason for hissuccess with beta-blockers, hetold us, was that he had been“quite naive”, and had neverdoubted that what was in the1950s a controversial theory wasquite right and could be exploit-ed.

No university could have found amore suitable choice for theexalted position of Chancellorthan Dundee, with its internation-al reputation for biochemicalexcellence. As a Scottish MP, I cantestify to Black’s interest in theencouragement of school pupils,and particularly of young teachersof science. As he saw it, he owedhis career to the inspiration of DrJohn Waterson at Beath HighSchool, concluding that what

matters to children is the calibreand enthusiasm of individualscience teachers.

Black’s father ended his workinglife as the manager of the hugeCardowan Pit, outside Glasgow.Of his five sons, one became aChurch of Scotland minister, one apsychiatrist in Vancouver, a third acivil engineer, and another ateacher. Public service was theirethic, and Black never asked foranything in the way of royaltiesfor his work, arguably the mostlucrative pharmaceutical advancein the 20th century.

A close colleague, ProfessorDesmond Laurence, head ofpharmacology at UniversityCollege, London, pointed out thatBlack was a man of geniality, aswell as genius. He and his wife,Professor Rona McLeod MacKie,led a cheerful social life based onan extensive interest in andknowledge of the arts. My ownexperience chimes exactly withProfessor Laurence’s observation:“You know he’s completely hisown man. Not only is it intellectu-ally exciting to work with him,there’s always a laugh as well.”Above all I shall remember SirJames Black for his deliciouschuckle.

Tam Dalyell

Sir James Black, OM. MB, ChB, FRCP, FRCPE, FRS, HonFRCS HonFRSE. NobelLaureate 1988. Born 14 June 1924. Elected HonFRSE 1986. Died 22 March2010

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Harold Burnell Carter died on 27February 2005. His working life,though centred around a singletheme, led him into two succes-sive careers, in animal science andhistorical scholarship. The themerunning through Carter’s life-longwork was the Merino sheep as aproducer of fine wool. The reasonfor this interest lay in the fact thatMerino fine wool had longprovided the backbone of theeconomy of Australia of whichCarter was a native son. Typicallyover 50% of Australia’s exportearnings from the 1830’s to themid 20th century came from thesale of Merino wool. By the1930s, as Carter began his work,major influences were about toaffect the viability of this economy,including, as the most apparent,the rise of synthetic fibres. To theyoung veterinary graduate, HaroldCarter, there was a clear need forscientific investigation into thebiology of wool to sustain itseconomic value in world markets.To this idea he devoted his life’swork.

Harold Burnell Carter was born on3 January 1910 at Mosman inSydney to Ruby (nee Burnell) andNorman St Clair Carter. Hisparents were descended from midnineteenth century Englishimmigrants to Australia. Succes-sive generations of the family

Harold Burnell Carter

3 January 1910 – 27 February 2005

produced individuals with musicalor artistic talent. Among the mostnotable was Harold’s father,Norman St Clair, a leadingprofessional portrait painter anddesigner of stained glass windowsin New South Wales (NSW).

Harold Carter recalled the timeshe spent during weekends andholidays in his father’s studio at76 Pitt Street, where he wouldread while his father painted. Heremembers joining “endlesslunchtime debates as other artists,architects, lawyers and journalists,took their tea and sandwicheswith us around the sitter’s dais”.Other childhood experiencesincluded living and workingduring holidays on a farm outsideSydney becoming familiar with theanimals and machinery of Austral-ian agriculture in the early 20th

century.

Carter attended state primaryschools in Sydney, NSW, from1917 to 1923. His secondaryschooling, from 1924 to 1928,was at Fort Street Boy’s HighSchool in Petersham, NSW, ofwhich he was to become SchoolCaptain in 1928.

In 1929 Harold Carter entered theSchool of Veterinary Science at theUniversity of Sydney, graduatingwith a BVSc.(Sydney) in 1933. Thiscourse was chosen not as a

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qualification for veterinarypractice, but “as the most relevantprofessional and scientific oneavailable at the time for anyoneinterested in the problems ofAustralian animal production.”

From January 1933 to March1936, with a scientific liaison withthe CSIR. (Council for Scientificand Industrial Research) heworked on a 32,000 acre Merinosheep station in New SouthWales. There he gained firsthandexperience of the animals andenvironments of Australian woolgrowing, and of the men andwomen involved in its primaryproduction. It provided “wideexperience in the current prob-lems of the livestock industriesand especially of stud sheepbreeding, directing attention tofundamental gaps in biologicalknowledge.”

While generations of sheepbreeders had successfully achievedthe fine wool fleeces of theAustralian Merino, a slew ofproblems remained – fleecequality was highly variable,reversion to lower fleece qualitycould readily occur, climate andenvironment could have majorinfluences on quality and quantityof fleece yield etc.. Scientificunderstanding of successfulsheep breeding and management,or indeed of the biological natureof the fleece itself, was almosttotally missing. Such knowledge,Carter was now convinced, wouldbe necessary for a competitive

future for the Australian woolindustry. What had to be under-stood was the totality of theinfluences upon wool quality –physiology, environment, diet,genetics and whatever else mightbe relevant. Hence forward, all thedirections of his working lifewould arise from, and to beginwith were focused upon, thesingle question - “What scientificknowledge is needed to achievethe best economic value forAustralian Merino fine wool?”

Leaving his work experienceamongst the Merino studs ofsouth eastern Australia, in 1936Carter gained a Walter and ElizaHall Fellowship in VeterinaryScience. This would base him inthe McMaster Laboratory inSydney, with affiliations also inMelbourne and Adelaide. Itenabled him to contemplate hisfirst independent scientific planscentring around investigations onthe “growth, development andvariation of the skin and fleece ofsheep.” Following a year-long triparound the world to laboratoriesin Pretoria (South Africa), Leedsand Edinburgh (UK) and the USA,he returned with greatly expandedscientific and technical training forthe path he intended to follow.

On his return to Australia in April1938, Carter now entered fullyinto what was to become the firstperiod of his working scientific life- 15 years of often intense activity.As a CSIR scientist Carter and agroup of associates formed the

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Laboratory of Wool Science at theMcMaster Laboratory in Sydneywithin the Division of AnimalHealth and Nutrition headed byLionel Bull. In 1940 he marriedMary Brandon-Jones, a youngEnglish doctor.

With world war in progress, manyof Carter’s immediate colleagues,friends and family were nowdrawn into military service.Carter’s work, however, wasdeemed essential to the post warprosperity of the nation and hewas retained within his civilianpost. Carter and his group beganexperiments on influences, e.g.dietary and genetic, affectingwool growth. They undertookpioneering studies on the histolo-gy of the wool fibre through itsembryonic development tomaturity, describing the formationand growth of fibres of “primary”and “secondary” origin.

Carter’s connections with thepastoralists and their Merinostuds continued. At a populationlevel he began to discover thevariety of fleece forms amongAustralia’s Merino studs. Adefining feature of the Merinofleece in comparison with othersheep breeds was, not only thegeneral fineness of the woolfibres, but also the much greaternumber of secondary fibresrelative to primary. When differentMerino studs were examinedstriking variation was foundamong them in the uniformity ofthe individual fibres of primary

and secondary origin. The highestquality fleece derived from thosestuds which produced greatestuniformity in fibre diameter. Thework demonstrated a majorcomponent of the basis of Merinofleece “quality”. Other studiesindicated a strong genetic basis tothe variation. A foundation hadbeen laid towards a scientificunderstanding of “quality” inMerino fine wool.

Carter, however, was not satisfiedthat the issues were by any meansdealt with. Much more, herealised, must be known andunderstood to guide policy for theeconomic development ofAustralian fine wool. All aspectsof the study of sheep and woolbiology - physiological, cellular,dietary, climatic and genetic -would have to be broughttogether in an interconnected setof scientific investigations.

To this end, during 1942, heconceived the idea of a centralnational laboratory for thescientific investigation of sheepand wool biology. The ideas wereto be shared and discussed withLionel Bull and with Ian CluniesRoss.

Ten years Carter’s senior, CluniesRoss was also a graduate of theSydney veterinary school. He hadbeen the first officer-in-charge ofthe McMaster Laboratory from itsfounding in 1931. In 1937 heaccepted a three year secondmentto the London headquarters ofthe International Wool Secretariat,

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created to promote wool ininternational markets. CluniesRoss was elected its first Chair-man. He returned to Sydney in1940 as Dean and Professor ofVeterinary Science.

Carter’s plans developed throughearly 1944 and a site was identi-fied for the laboratories atProspect Hill in the environs ofSydney. In the following year, aftersittings by a parliamentary panelof enquiry at which Clunies Ross,Bull and Carter were calledindependently as witnesses, thebuilding of a “Sheep BiologyLaboratory” was authorised underthe 1945 Wool Uses PromotionAct of the Australian Parliament.

There seems to have been nodoubt in the minds of thosedirectly involved in the project thatHarold Carter would continue tobe the front man in overseeing itto completion and, in the eyes ofsome, an obvious choice for itsfirst director.

The next several years were,indeed, ones of intense activity.Progression of the Prospectproject formed only a part of thisalong side his own scientificresearch on the biology of theMerino fleece. In 1946 he wasappointed officer-in-charge of theWool Biology Laboratory withinBull’s Division of Animal Healthand Production. Carter’s principleassociates included MargaretHardy and Ken Ferguson. Hardywould achieve the first in vitroculture of sheep skin as a further

means towards its histologicalstudy, and was later Professor inthe Ontario Veterinary College atthe University of Guelph inCanada. Ferguson, a physiologist,would become a leader in animalscience in Australia and, from1978 to 1986, the year of hisretirement from governmentemployment, was the first Directorof CSIRO’s Institute of Animal &Food Science within which allaspects of research on animalscience were, by then, gathered.He was to become a strong criticof the hegemony of quantitativegenetics in Australian governmentsheep breeding policy as it was toemerge in the late 1940’s onward.

Meanwhile, within a packed andcomplicated programme ofactivity, Carter’s own researchwork frequently involved extensiveoverland travel with his fieldlaboratory equipment mounted ina Chevrolet truck. In it he woulddrive thousands of miles betweenMerino stud sheep stations insouth eastern Australia collectingmaterial for analysis in thelaboratory.

The years 1951 to 1953 saw theerection of buildings at ProspectHill to the point where the firstanimal experimentation couldbegin. Harold Carter was incharge of on-site managementthroughout. However, when acommittee was appointed to finda director of the laboratories itselected, not Carter himself, butSydney University’s Professor of

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Veterinary Physiology, C WEmmens, as Acting Officer-inCharge. Carter now had theadditional task of briefingEmmens - who had had noinvolvement with its creation - onthe concepts and purpose of thelaboratory.

An additional frustration was adecision by Ian Clunies Ross, nowChairman of the CSIRO., Austral-ia’s governing scientific body, toexclude genetics from the remit ofthe Prospect laboratory. In 1953Carter resigned from the CSIRO.and accepted an appointmentwithin the UK’s Animal BreedingResearch Organization (ABRO) inEdinburgh, Scotland.

With his family settled in theenvirons of Edinburgh, Carterbegan work that involved geneticexperimentation with a small flockof Tasmanian fine wool Merinos.Carter had negotiated the waiverof an Australian Governmentembargo on their export on thecondition that they were forexperimental purposes only. Basedon his experience in developingthe laboratories at Prospect,animal housing and laboratorieswere built at Dryden farm near thesmall town of Roslin, outsideEdinburgh. Experiments were setup and sampled for at least threeyears after his arrival.

All, however, was beginning to gofar from well. Relations betweenCarter and the Director of ABROsoured. In 1963, still in ARC.employment, Carter took a

placement at the University ofLeeds, Department of Agriculture.There he developed a strongworking connection with the woolfirm, Sir James Hill & Son, Brad-ford and Keighley. Its Director,David Knight, provided Carterwith laboratory space in one of hiscompany’s mills. Its purpose wasto gather and apply biological andgenetic knowledge of the woolfibre to its performance inmanufacture.

In 1970 Harold Carter retired fromthe ARC. to the village of Con-gresbury in Somerset where helived with his wife, Mary, for theremainder of his life. It was not,however, one of idleness. Fromthis base he developed his secondworking life - that of sciencehistorian.

Carter’s interest in Merino originshad begun long before his arrivalin the UK in 1954. It was anintegral part of his larger quest. Inhis view the key to the future ofthe Australian Merino lay as muchin its past as in any other scientificaspect of its study.

On arrival in Edinburgh thisinterest continued. It’s first fruitcame in 1964 with the publicationby Angus and Robertson Ltd ofSydney, of His Majesty’s SpanishFlock. It was a significant achieve-ment. The writing had involvedassembling, transcribing andmastering a vast number oforiginal writings, mainly in theform of correspondence. This hecombined with detailed scholar-

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ship of trade, politics, diplomacy,war, agriculture, manufacture andmuch else that surrounded theactivities of the men and womenwho in the late 18th century were,for the most part unwittingly,enacting the birth of the Austral-ian wool economy. Prominentamongst the players were KingGeorge III of the United Kingdom,and, above all, the figure of SirJoseph Banks.

Arising from his research for thewriting of His Majesty’s SpanishFlock, Carter had located a largecollection of the letters of JosephBanks in the Sutra Library in SanFransisco. It unlocked the task thatwould occupy him for the rest ofhis working life and culminate inhis Banks biography, Sir JosephBanks, 1743 – 1820 by Harold BCarter, 1988, BritishMuseum(Natural History). To servethis work “The Joseph BanksArchive Project” had beenestablished within the BritishMuseum (Natural History) atCromwell Road, Kensington,London with Carter as its found-ing Director. In addition to theBanks biography, The Sheep andWool Correspondence of SirJoseph Banks 1781-1820 editedby H B Carter, was published bythe Library Council of New SouthWales and the British Museum(Natural History) in 1979. Theseand related publications, however,he saw as by products of his largertask – the ordered assembly intoone location of more than 15,000

items of correspondence andother papers relating to the 55years of Banks’ working life, foruse in historical investigation. Tothis and to his own originalresearch and writing much of thepresent recognition of thesignificance and influences of thelife of Sir Joseph Banks can beattributed.

In 1996 Harold Carter wasawarded an Honorary Degree ofDoctor of Veterinary Science by hisAlma Mater, the University ofSydney and in 1999 he wascreated a Member of the Order ofAustralia (AM) in recognition ofhis contributions to wool scienceand to the historical backgroundto Australia’s wool economy. Inthe Foreword to the 2007 editionof The Australian Merino byCharles Massy (Random House,Australia), Ken Ferguson con-cludes, “There is little doubt thatHarold Carter was the mostimportant figure in establishingthe post-war biological researchfacilities for the wool industry inAustralia and leading the researchon the histology of the woolfollicle.”

In his lifetime Harold BurnellCarter had indulged the energyand optimism of youth for apublic good in which he trulybelieved. As a young man herevelled in his work, its outdoornature, the land and the animalshe lived among, and a camarade-rie with the people with whom heworked shoulder to shoulder.

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Never apparently hurried, heworked inexorably. Four hours perday was, he said, a day’s work;and, indeed, to be with him wasto experience calm efficiency. Yet,as his travel diaries and personalmemoire record, there were timeswhen he worked, hard physicaland mental work, for most of a 24hour day and for days on end. Hisscientific data records are exten-sive and meticulous. His historicalwork was likewise based uponthousands of hand-typed tran-scriptions of original letters (ofBanks and his correspondents andothers) meticulously filed andindexed.

In the latter decades of his life, onhis retirement to Congresbury andthe home, Yeo Bank, that heshared with Mary his wife, HaroldCarter became an apparently moresecluded figure. Yet the evidenceof his correspondence andactivities in historical researchshow him to have remained asenergetic and engaged asthroughout his life.

Mary, his wife, survived HaroldCarter by three years less a day.They are survived by their threesons.

Richard Carter

Harold Burnell Carter, AM. BVSc, DVSc (Hon), FRSE, FSB, FLS. Born 3 January1910. Elected FRSE 1964. Died 27 February 2005.

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Bob Clark – zoologist, scholar, andfounding editor of the MarinePollution Bulletin.

Professor RB (Bob) Clark, thefounder and long time editor ofThe Marine Pollution Bulletin andFellow of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh, died quietly at hishome on 28th September 2013,shortly before his 90th Birthday. Heis survived by his wife Sue,daughter Juliet, son Stephen andhis grandson Gus.

Bob Clark had a long and distin-guished academic career,graduating first in physics (Chel-sea Polytechnic , 1944) beforereading Zoology (Exeter University,1950). His research and writingoften reflected that early trainingas a physical scientist in a zoologi-cal context. As a Zoologist, hespecialised in the biology of themarine worms (Polychaeta:Annelida), a group with morethan 12,000 species, and he wasundoubtedly among the leadingpolychaete biologists of hisgeneration. He held posts atGlasgow University and at BristolUniversity prior to his appoint-ment to the Chair of Zoology andDirector of the Dove MarineLaboratory at Newcastle Universityin 1965 [1]. During the early yearshe worked extensively in the USAat Universities of Washington and

Robert Bernard Clark

13 October 1923 – 28 September 2013

University of California (Berkeley),where briefly held a post asAssistant Professor, and heworked extensively at the FridayHarbor Marine Laboratory (Wash-ington) which he continued asVisiting Scientist throughout hiscareer. He forged many profes-sional relationships in the USAincluding that with his first wife,Mary Clark and travelled widelyforging scientific links in Chinathrough his association with thelate professor Wu Bao Lin. He wasawarded a DSc by University ofLondon in 1965 and appointedFellow of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh in 1970.

As a polychaete biologist, BobClark published original researchpapers and influential reviewscovering a remarkably diverserange of subjects - morphology,behaviour, ecology and biogeog-raphy, in addition to hispioneering studies in biomechan-ics, the new field ofneurosecretion , and in experi-mental endocrinology of growth,regeneration and reproduction.He created vibrant researchschools in the Zoology Depart-ments at Bristol and NewcastleUniversities. Subsequently manyof his post-graduate studentshave pursued successful researchcareers that took his polychaete

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work forwards into the molecularage. He encouraged his PhDstudents to publish independentlyand through them his influencecontinued through followinggenerations as his own careerdeveloped in new directions. Hehad an encyclopaedic knowledgeof the literature and his writingwas always a model of lucid,succinct analysis with a rigorousattention to the details of citationand precedent. His outstandingscholarship enabled him torecognise new and rapidlydeveloping fields of study and toset these in the context of classicalZoology. His book “The Dynamicsof Metazoan Evolution” [2] is amasterpiece of scholarship, inwhich, uniquely, he analysedtheories relating to the evolutionand inter-relationships of animalgroups in the context of function-al biomechanics. He argued thatany putative ancestral, or primitiveorganism, must obey the samephysical laws as living organisms,a conclusion that is as valid now,in the ‘molecular age’, as it wasthen, and which underpinsongoing research into therelationships between animalgroups now informed by bioinfor-matics.

At Newcastle University ProfessorClark was a dynamic and success-ful Head of Department guidingstrategic appointments andattracting visiting scientists fromUSA and around the world. He

was a stimulating teacher particu-larly at advanced level, and had astrong influence on degreeprogramme development. Heencouraged undergraduateteaching that involved studentresearch emphasising the role thatUniversity teaching has, not onlyin imparting knowledge, “butmore importantly, to give studentsthe ability to think independently,to form judgements which theycan justify and support withtested evidence”. Following theTory Canyon disaster in 1967, heforged an entirely new career inMarine Pollution and his visionand foresight was crucial inestablishing this subject as ascientific discipline, a subject inwhich he achieved pre-eminence,and for which he will be particu-larly well remembered. He wasappointed to the Royal Commis-sion on Environmental Pollution,working on the 8th RCEP report OilPollution in the Sea [4], thefindings of which he published ina hugely influential paper inTransactions of the Royal Society[5]. He saw the need for a dedicat-ed forum to address issuesrelating to marine pollution. Toaddress this need he began aseries of newsletters, at firstproduced locally and often sreporting on work of the ‘oiledseabird unit’ in the NewcastleZoology Department, but thenewsletters rapidly increased inscope and carried influential

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editorial content, most oftenwritten by himself. He brought the‘newsletter ‘ under professionalpublishing house management asthe Marine Pollution Bulletin [6,]and as the long term editor ofMPB, under its various publishers,he lead it to become the foremostacademic journal in its field that itremains under his successor aseditor Professor Charles Shepard.His unrivalled knowledge andunmatched skill in lucid, precisewriting, resulted in the publica-tion in 1978 of his text bookMarine Pollution [3]. This hedeveloped through five editions(the last in 2001), and the textbook remains as an ideal intro-duction and objective summary ofa highly complex field. Bobcontinued his career as aninternational consultant in marinepollution for many years after hisretirement from formal academiclife; he continued to travel widelyand advising government agen-cies on oil pollution incidents asfar afield as Alaska, China andAustralia. He provided evidence atthe Royal Commission Enquiry onoil drilling on the Great BarrierBarrier Reef (Australia) an enquirythat was instrumental in definingthe boundaries of the GBR Marine

Park, later declared a WorldHeritage Area. Bob Clark was veryactive in the scientific life of hisadopted home in North EastEngland, he was for instance anactive member of the NaturalHistory Society of Northumbria,and the successful editor (1988-1997) of the Transactions during acritical period. He was also amember of the Farne IslandsAdvisory Committee. His commu-nity work in the North Eastincluded service as a SchoolGovernor and as a long standingChurch Warden at St GeorgesChurch, Jesmond, in which role beexhibited the same incisivenesscoupled with wit and deepunderstanding that underpinnedhis scientific life.

Bob Clark was one of the out-standing scientists of hisgeneration - a great scholar, writerand editor, fondly rememberednot only for his scientific work,but for his wit, good humour andfriendship. We extend sympathyto the family and friends whosurvive him.

Peter Olive, Emeritus Professor,School of Marine Science and

TechnologyNewcastle University

Robert Bernard Clark, PhD(Glas), DSc(Lond), FSB. Born 13 October 1923.Elected FRSE 1970. Died 28 September 2013.

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No attempt has been made at a complete bibliography for RB Clark - itwould run to hundreds of scholarly publications.

1. Zoology at Newcastle Nature October 30 1965 page 483.

2. Dynamics in Metazoan Evolution 1964, Oxford University Press,Oxford pp 313

3. Marine Pollution (fifth edition) 2001 Oxford University Press, (firstpublished 1986) pp 237

4. 8th report of Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution : OilPollution in the Sea 1981 HMSO, London

5. The long term effects of oil pollution on marine populations 1982.Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B297, 183 -433

6. From mimeos to e-copy – a tribute to Professor RB (Bob) Clark,founding editor of the Marine Pollution Bulletin. MPB 46(9) 1051-1054.

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For seven decades John Croftonconducted a professional andpublic battle against tuberculosisand lung disease.

For a quarter of a century, from1952 to 1977, he held the Chairof Respiratory Diseases in theUniversity of Edinburgh. A worldauthority, from 1984 until 1988he was Chairman of the Interna-tional Union against Tuberculosisand Lung Disease.

John Wenman Crofton was borninto a medical family, the son of aGP. After a rigorous education atTonbridge, for which he wasforever grateful, he went up toSidney Sussex College, Cam-bridge, where, under thedirection, among others, of theNobel Prize winner C.T.R. Wilson,the originator of the CloudChamber used to detect particlesof ionising radiation, he graduat-ed with First Class Honours in theNatural Science Tripos in 1933. Hisundergraduate career gave morethan a few hints of what was tofollow, with many prizes andawards. He then went to StThomas’s for clinical training until1937.

Three years after qualifying,Crofton found himself a captainin the Royal Army Medical Corpswith the British ExpeditionaryForce south of Dunkirk. In the

Sir John Crofton

27 March 1912 - 3 November 2009First published The Independent – 5 November 2009.

Reproduced by permission of The Independent

field hospital he learned how tooperate at great speed – a speedwhich his professional colleagueshave told me they really admired.Suddenly, he received an order tomove, field ambulance unit andall, to an area south of Dieppe.The casualties stopped coming.Crofton did not know that mostof his colleagues had been cut offin the Dunkirk enclave.

All medical specialists weretransported to Brittany; there hehad to help deal with the after-math of an ammunition train hitby the Luftwaffe, resulting inmany casualties. As soon as themost urgent casualties werehelped as best the doctors could,Crofton and the other specialistswere ordered to St Malo. “I didnot manage to get all the bloodoff me until we scrambled intoPortsmouth,” he said.

With no leave, he was on anotherboat, around Africa, bound forthe Western Desert and Wavell’sArmy. Sent to the Eritrea Cam-paign, he then returned to Malta,where more permanent medicalfacilities allowed him to hone hissurgical skills on wounded Britishand American troops evacuatedfrom Italy. He ended the war inGermany, going into Belsen – laterhe was to spend a day in 1946 atthe second Belsen Trial – and

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Auschwitz, where he was takenround by a Polish doctor. “It wasthe only time in my life when Icould not sleep at night.”

Upon leaving the services hemoved fast; he was awarded hisMD in 1947 and became alecturer in medicine at the RoyalPostgraduate Medical School atthe Hammersmith. This was adramatic and exciting time.Scientific method had for decadesand even centuries been widelyapplied in the physical and naturalsciences. But with all but a fewshining exceptions, medicine hadbeen an art, immune from suchanalysis.

While the cobwebs of history wereto linger on in many places, theHammersmith and a few otherinstitutions were stressing theapplication of scientific method:sort out the basic science; under-stand the physiology; criticallyanalyse whether your treatmentsactually do work, rather than justremembering the apparentsuccesses and convenientlyforgetting the many, manyfailures. Then learn the lessonsand move on.

Into this academically criticalenvironment were thrownintellects of the calibre of Crofton.And here was the truly happycoincidence, because it was at thistime that the tools were becomingavailable to treat the pre-eminentglobal scourge, tuberculosis. Thefirst drug, streptomycin, was

primarily an American discovery.What made Crofton’s name,laying the foundation for aninternational reputation, was hislandmark 1950 British MedicalJournal paper on the treatment ofpulmonary TB with streptomycin –and the subsequent investigation,in which Crofton played a leadingpart, a controlled trial of com-bined therapy with streptomycinand para-amino salicylic acid.There was another trial of inter-mittent therapy with streptomycin,and then trials of isoniazid. Thesestudies, which ultimately contin-ued for almost 40 years, set thestandards for the treatment of TBthroughout the world.

He was elected one of the young-est-ever Fellows of the RoyalCollege of Physicians – most haveto wait a little after consultantstatus before that happens. Plainlythe Royal College thought theyought to get in a bit quick, andthey were right to do so becausehe had been a Senior Lecturer forjust a year before he was appoint-ed to the Chair of RespiratoryDiseases and Tuberculosis inEdinburgh, one of the twoestablished chairs in the UK.

They plainly thought in Edin-burgh, let’s not worry about awise old head; let’s get a brilliantyoung one. And they got it, with avengeance. So a look at the jobtitles of the authors of his papersis instructive. Crofton J., strepto-mycin registrar, takes just four

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years to metamorphose intoCrofton J., Professor of Respirato-ry Disease.

Crofton took tuberculosis inEdinburgh and its treatment bythe scruff of the neck and shookit, and did the same to much elsebesides. He continued to contrib-ute to the multi-centre studiesand all that they achieved; thisbustling, small-of-stature mangalvanised the hospitals, to theextent that he was able to closeover 90 per cent of the TB beds inEdinburgh. Among many othertherapeutic achievements heshowed, to the everlastinggratitude of the working man,that you could continue to workwhile being treated for TB. Thelate Michael McGahey, Commu-nist president of the ScottishMiners, told me that whenCrofton was made a knight, it wasthe first and last time he had evercongratulated anybody on adeserved ennoblement, such wasthe gratitude of the miningcommunity in Fife and theLothians.

Crofton soon became a majorpower in the University of Edin-burgh, serving on the UniversityCourt, the Senatus, the Commit-tee of Patronage, and much else.He was so well organised that hewas one of those rare people whocould be Dean of the MedicalFaculty as well as driving on withhis own research. It says a lotabout Crofton that unlike most of

the university establishment of theday, who were apoplectic about ayoung student called GordonBrown getting himself elected asRector of the University, Croftonopined that Brown was provinghimself a good chairman of theUniversity Court. He was quick tospot what he liked to call “over-reaction”.

He expressed himself strongly insupport of the General MedicalCouncil in the wake of theShipman Affair, contending thatgood systems should not bedestroyed by unique cases – “Iwould not like to think there aretoo many Shipmans around!”

Never going anywhere without aTB related purpose, Croftontravelled the world. Having closeconnections with Basra, he set upa scheme by which the brightestIraqi young doctors could come toEdinburgh and other Britishuniversities to improve theirqualifications. He was in theBaghdad Hospital in the late1970s when Saddam came on avisit at 9 o’clock, ordering thedoors to be locked and ordering(temporarily) that all medical staffwho were due to be in thehospital and were late, should besacked.

My abiding memory is of travel-ling to northern France withCrofton and his doctor-wife of 60years, who had written an excel-lent History of the Scottish Nursesand Doctors of Royaumont, 1917-

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Sir John Crofton, MA, MB, MD(Cantab), Drhc(Bordeaux), HonDSc(ImperialCollege), FRCP, FRCPE, HonFRCPE, HonFRCPI, HonFRACP, HonFACP,HonFFCM, Hon Member of Academies of Medicine of Argentina, Cataloniaand Singapore. Born 27 March 1912. Elected HonFRSE 1997. Died 3November 2009

1918, where they performedmiracles for wounded returningfrom the Front. They knew morethan I did about Dr Elsie Dalyell,my mother’s friend and cousin,who was an Anzac physician atGallipoli, in Serbia and finally inFrance. But then the Croftons,both life-enhancers, knew somuch about so many things.

As a mid-nonagenarian Croftontook three holidays in the Scottishhighlands. He enjoyed an activesocial life with friends, concertsand lectures. He also continuedwith his professional commit-ments. His book on tuberculosisfor high-prevalence countries,which he wrote with two col-leagues, has appeared in 22languages and he was working ona third edition when he died. Hisbook on tobacco for a similarreadership has been translatedinto six languages, includingChinese, and he was helping withthe planning of going into yetmore languages.

In 2001, Dr John Moore-Gillon ofthe Department of Respiratory

Medicine at Bart’s, presentingCrofton with the Galen Medal forTherapeutics from the WorshipfulSociety of Apothecaries ofLondon, said: “This awardrecognises, above all, contribu-tions to therapeutics, and so it iswith particular pleasure that thisevening the Society of Apothecar-ies is able to honour somebodywho is actually a master clinician,a remarkable teacher, an academicadministrator of consummateability, a leader in campaigning ona global basis on health issues,and on top of all that has hadsuch an influence on the ways inwhich we make progress intherapeutics.”

At 94 Sir John Crofton was stillbeing consulted on the problemsof global TB and engaged ininternational TB advocacy andfund-raising. He was presentedwith the “chairman’s award” fromthe vast European RespiratorySociety at its Glasgow conferencein 2004. Few have extended theirworking life up to three-quartersof a century.

Tam Dalyell

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It is with a mixture of sadness athis passing and joy at his memorythat we pay tribute to BarryDawson, an outstanding scientistand great man. Barry was passion-ate about igneous geology andvolcanism, and undertook alifelong quest to understand themineralogical constitution of theEarth’s upper mantle and theprocesses required to yield thelow-volume melts erupted in, forexample, the African Rift Valley.This led him to carry out in-depthresearch on kimberlites and theirxenoliths (rock samples carriedfrom depth by magma), rift-related magmatism, and thegeology, properties and genesis ofcarbonatite magmas. In all theseareas he had a great ability tostimulate other workers withcomplementary skills and ap-proaches. His work significantlydeveloped these fields andimproved our understanding ofthe nature of the mantle beneaththe continents. Not only that, buthis superb rock collection ofmantle samples and East AfricanRift volcanic rocks will remain anoutstanding resource for geosci-entists for decades to come. Inmany ways Barry Dawson could beregarded as the ‘Indiana Jones’ ofigneous petrology. His researchtook him to remote regions of

John Barry Dawson

19 June 1932 – 1 February 2013

Africa from where he returnedwith truly exceptional geologicalspecimens (samples of kimberlite,carbonatite and numerous anddiverse xenoliths) thanks to hisexcellent observational skills, andalso many an amazing tale torecount.

Barry began his geological studiesat Leeds University in 1953. Hisstudies there were interrupted byNational Service which took himto Canada in the Air Force. Therehe learned to fly and developed apassion for maps that lastedthroughout his life. He graduatedfrom Leeds with a 1st-classHonours Degree in 1957 andstayed there to study for a PhD onthe kimberlites of Basutoland(now Lesotho) under the supervi-sion of Oleg von Knorring in theResearch Institute of AfricanGeology. His field work wascarried out from 1957 to 1958,often in the company of his friendand fellow Leeds PhD studentPeter Nixon.

Barry maintained this early interestin kimberlite and other highlyalkaline igneous rocks throughouthis career. He is rightly recognisedinternationally for his significantcontributions to the study ofmantle-derived xenoliths sampledby these alkaline and kimberliticmagmas. Barry’s early work on

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kimberlite magmas and theirxenoliths led to his publication in1980 of the excellent and influen-tial book Kimberlites and theirXenoliths. Key contributions toxenolith and kimberlite studiesincluded his 1975 discovery ofdiamond in garnet lherzolitenodules, his recognition of theMARID (Mica-Amphibole-Rutile-Ilmenite-Diopside) suite of mantlexenoliths, and his mineralogical,geochemical and isotopic studiesof metasomatism in the sub-continental lithospheric mantle.

On obtaining his doctorate in1960 Barry joined the TanganyikaGeological Survey and was turnedloose to map a virtually unex-plored part of the African RiftValley. There he witnessed the1960 eruption of the extraordi-nary volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai inwhich many of the lava flows weremade of molten sodium carbon-ate (or natrocarbonatite) insteadof the usual silicate magma. At astroke he resolved a controversyover the origin of carbonatites inthe most dramatic way possible -by discovering them beingerupted from a volcano. Hepublished this work in 1962 in aseminal paper in Nature, simplytitled “Sodium Carbonate Lavasfrom Ol Doinyo Lengai”. Thiswork rightly achieved considerablefame through its description inthe 2nd edition of Arthur Holmes’great book Principles of PhysicalGeology.

Barry’s subsequent work on OlDoinyo Lengai and its natrocar-bonatite lava flows documentedthe physical and chemical proper-ties of the lavas and theimplications these have for thegenesis of carbonatites in general.He re-visited Oldoinyo Lengai in1988 to witness it in an eruptionphase and stimulate further workon the unique attributes of thisamazing volcano. His widerexpertise on the nature of themagmas involved in continentalrifts, in particular from the EastAfrican rift, led to his publication,in 2008, of the authoritative andinvaluable Geological Society ofLondon Memoir The Gregory RiftValley and Recent volcanoes ofnorthern Tanzania.

On leaving Tanganyika in 1962,Barry moved back to Canada totake up a Postdoctoral Fellowshipin Dalhousie University in Halifax,Nova Scotia. From there he tookup a lectureship in the Depart-ment of Geology in the Universityof St Andrews in 1964 and wasquickly promoted first to Readerand then to Professor in 1975. Heleft St Andrews in 1978 tobecome the Sorby Professor ofGeology in the University ofSheffield and worked there untilhe and his wife Christine movedto Edinburgh in 1989. Barry wasProfessor of Geology in Edin-burgh until his retirement in1997, after which he continued inEdinburgh as a very active Emeri-

336


tus Professor - his latest paper waspublished only a few months ago,in January 2013. Despite his manyyears in Scotland, nearly 40 in all,Barry remained a proud Yorkshire-man all his life. He rejoiced infollowing cricket, and enjoyed theinevitable banter that ensuedwhenever an Ashes series was inprogress (especially more so in thepast few years of success forEngland!). He, together with hismuch loved wife Christine, had agreat love of the Scottish High-lands, bagging many a Munroover the years and staying forperiods in their cottage nearGlencoe.

In addition to being an outstand-ing scientist, Barry wasexceptionally generous with histime, experience and insights.Always available to discussmatters petrological and volcanic,he was very popular with post-graduate students, providingthem with wise advice andfeedback on their work. He wasexcellent company and a greatraconteur, always ready with a taleor two based on his experiences inAfrica and elsewhere, and alwaysfull of energy and enthusiasm. AtEdinburgh the postgraduates runan annual weekend-long academ-ic and social event known as the‘Edinburgh Graduate SchoolConference’. Barry attended allbut one of these over the past 20years, the latest less than a weekbefore he died. Needless to say,

Barry was up dancing to thestrains of the ‘Dashing WhiteSergeant’ at the ConferenceCeilidh, full of fun and optimism.It says a great deal about the highesteem in which Barry was heldthat the Edinburgh postgraduatesbrought a bottle of malt whisky tothe petrology seminar held in theweek following his passing sothat we could all drink a toast tohim.

Barry lives on through his scientif-ic legacy. He published around200 papers, a seminal textbookon kimberlites, and collaboratedwith scientists in most parts of theworld. He gained many prestig-ious awards for his work. Theseincluded the Hallimond Lecturerof the Mineralogical Society in1980/1, the inaugural Norman LBowen Award of the AmericanGeophysical Union in 1987 for hisoutstanding contributions tovolcanology, geochemistry andpetrology, election to the Fellow-ship of the German Academy ofSciences in 1994, the Cloughmedal of the Edinburgh Geologi-cal Society in 1999, and theMineralogical Society’s CollinsMedal in 2012. Elected to theRoyal Society of Edinburgh in1973, Barry served on the EditorialBoard of the journal Transactionsof the Royal Society of Edinburgh:Earth Sciences for six years (four ofthese as Chairman) and on theSociety’s Meetings Committee.

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Barry’s wife, Christine, died in2004, and he is survived by a sonand two daughters. We will allmiss Barry, but he hasn’t gonecompletely. Like the Cheshire Cat

John Barry Dawson, BSc, PhD(Leeds), DSc(St And), CGeol, FGS, FellowLeopoldina. Born 19 June 1932. Elected FRSE 1973. Died 1 February 2013.

This obituary appeared previously on the Geological Society Website. http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/About/History/Obituaries-2001-onwards/Obituaries-2013/John-Barry-Dawson-1932-2013

in Alice’s Adventures in Wonder-land, he’s faded but his grin willremain with us for a long time tocome.

Simon Harley & Godfrey Fitton

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Gordon Bryce Donaldson, FRSE,died in Glasgow on November 28,2012, at the age of 71. He wasProfessor of Applied Physics at theUniversity of Strathclyde and aleading member of the worldwideapplied superconductivity commu-nity. Through most of his careerhe was deeply involved in thedesign of superconductingdevices or SQUIDs and their manypractical applications.

Gordon was born in Edinburghon August 10, 1941, but wasbrought up and educated inGlasgow, which was so very muchhis home city. After attendingGlasgow Academy he won ascholarship to Christ’s College,Cambridge to study physics. Hethen stayed at Cambridge to do aPhD, working in the low-tempera-ture Mond laboratory ontunnelling in superconductors.After graduating in 1966 he wasappointed to a lectureship in thephysics department at the newly-established Lancaster University.Here he continued his work onlow temperature physics, inparticular superconductors andthe Josephson effect.

In 1975 after a sabbatical at TheUniversity of California Berkeley(with Professor John Clarke’sgroup) he moved back to Strath-clyde University to a lectureship in

Gordon Bryce Donaldson

10 August 1941 – 28 November 2012

the Department of AppliedPhysics, where he founded a newresearch group to make and useSQUIDs. From quite modestbeginnings, with just two staffand one tiny laboratory the groupgrew steadily, acquiring newfacilities and members, until in the1990’s it had well over 20 mem-bers, plus a host of collaboratorsfrom elsewhere in Glasgow andabroad. He was appointed to apersonal professorship in 1985and became Professor of AppliedPhysics two years later. He wasalso head of department for twoyears from 1984 and again from1993 to 1998.

Gordon’s research interestsextended well beyond Strathclyde.In 1988 with funding from theWellcome Trust he started a ten-year collaboration with GlasgowUniversity and the SouthernGeneral Hospital to establish anew laboratory there to usesuperconducting devices orSQUIDs made at Strathclyde forbio-magnetic measurements onpatients and volunteers.

1986 brought the unexpecteddiscovery of high-temperaturesuperconductivity. This was verysignificant and exciting, with anexplosive interest in superconduc-tivity, and with funding worldwideto match. In due course a UK

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National Committee for Supercon-ductivity was established. Gordonbecame its Coordinator for threeyears from 1990. Its role was topromote and support UK super-conductivity research in industryand academia, and he and histeam visited all UK groups verymany times, making sure supportwas effectively and fairly distribut-ed. He was especially proud ofhaving established the CambridgeWinter School in Superconductiv-ity, first held in 1991, which ranevery year for a decade, bringingtogether experts for an intensiveweek of training for PhD studentsand young research staff from allparts of the UK and beyond. Healso led missions to the USA,Europe and Japan to promote theUK’s position. He also made otherfact-finding trips abroad onbehalf of other governmentagencies.

In 1998 he became editor ofSuperconductor Science andTechnology (SuST), a London-based international journal. Hewas editor until 2008, remainingon their Editorial Board for someyears after. He was a key memberfrom 1990 to 1993 of the LowTemperature Group of theInstitute of Physics in London andbecame its Chairman for the lastthree years of his tenure.

Through all this time he was muchinvolved in teaching and also inmany university matters. He wasparticularly fond of the How

Things Work course that hedeveloped and taught for fifteenyears, which was so much inkeeping with his passion foruseful practical physics andscience. He was appointed to theInstitute of Physics DegreeAccreditation Committee (for UKand Ireland).

He was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh in1991 and served on the GrantsCommittee and also as Convenorof the Physics Sectional Commit-tee. He was a Trustee of the JamesClerk Maxwell Foundation, also inEdinburgh.

Gordon thrived on the interna-tional social interaction soimportant for scientific creativity.There were sabbaticals to Virginia1981 and to Sydney Australia in1999, where he made lots of newfriends and he brought homemany new research ideas. Andthere were trips to China andtwice to India, and many lecturesto summer-schools throughoutEurope. He also organised andchaired two international confer-ences, one in Glasgow in 1991(ISEC) and a larger one (EUCAS) inEdinburgh in 1995, plus manysmaller specialist meetings.

Gordon made many contributionsto the advance of superconduct-ing technology. His long list ofpublications and contributions tobooks attest to this. He will beespecially remembered as a co-inventor of SQUID gradiometry

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and an independent originator ofnon-destructive evaluation (NDE)of materials and structures usingSQUIDs.

Gordon Bryce Donaldson, MA, PhD(Cantab), CPhys, FInstP. Born: 10 August1941. Elected FRSE: 1991. Died: 28 November 2012

He is survived by his wife Chris-tine, his son Ian and daughterAnne, and two grandchildren.

Colin Pegrum

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Kenneth James Dover was born inLondon on 11 March 1920, thecherished only child of Percy (Pop)and Dorothy Dover. Early brilliancein Greek at St. Paul’s school wasfollowed by an outstandingperformance as a student atBalliol College, Oxford with a firstin both Mods (1940) and Greats(1947). The intervening years,1940-1945, were occupied byarmy service in Egypt, Libya andItaly. After a relatively shelteredearly life this was a fundamentallylife-changing experience, andyears afterwards Dover would stillreminisce about the earthyattitudes – and language – of themen he met at that time. But hereturned promptly to the seclu-sion of academic life, becoming afellow at Balliol in 1948. This wassoon after his marriage, whichwas to be long and conspicuouslyhappy, to Audrey (Latimer) inMarch 1947. There were twochildren: Alan (born 1948) andCatherine (born 1950).

Then, in 1955, came a turningpoint in Dover’s career. To thesurprise of many (in both northand south) he accepted appoint-ment as Professor of Greek at theUniversity of St. Andrews, electingto leave a comfortable niche in awell-populated classical environ-ment and instead to face the

Kenneth James Dover

11 March 1920 – 7 March 2010

challenge of heading a tiny Greekdepartment, albeit one with along and distinguished history. Itis remarkable – and will seemincredible to today’s academics,harried by constant demands forcontinuing publication – that atthat time Dover had published nobooks at all (unless we count hisrevision, 1954, of Denniston’sGreek Particles) and only a fewarticles. However, the appoint-ment was visionary: books soonbegan to pour out and the streamcontinued over many decades. Thevery first was Greek Word Order(1960), an austerely preciselinguistic study matched by thevery last, The Evolution of GreekProse Style (1997).

This continuing linguistic depthwas accompanied by a corre-sponding literary range andhistorical sweep, displayed inworks on many diverse genres,ranging from the comedy ofAristophanes to the history ofThucydides, and on many differ-ent topics, including a remarkablyopen account of Greek homosex-uality, a prevailing but at that time(1978) little discussed practice inancient Greek society. Dover nevershrank from the sexually explicit;indeed some critics suggestedthat he courted it inappropriatelyand to excess. Certainly he was

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ahead of his time in frank speak-ing. When Dover arrived in St.Andrews, he lectured to first yearstudents on the Aristophaniccomedy Clouds on which he wasthen preparing a commentary. Theclass was electrified by much talkof the padded phallus and muchuse of four letter words, allentirely germane to the topic andall uttered in the same impeccablyprecise delivery as that used forattention to minutiae of lan-guage, metre or textual tradition.

Dover’s teaching was never dulland his standards were alwaysexacting. Some of his innovationsprefigured general developmentsin the teaching of the subject:introduction of a beginners’language class (for which hehimself produced a typicallyimaginative and typically difficultcourse), introduction of a non-linguistic class in ‘classical culture’(which he regarded as a purelyancillary course, unsuitable as afinal degree subject), introductionof special subjects (where hehimself taught Greek drama:Aristotle’s Poetics and one playeach of Aeschylus, Sophocles,Euripides, Aristophanes andMenander – all examined in asingle three-hour finals’ paper).

Dover made a substantial adminis-trative as well as academiccontribution to the university,serving twice as Dean of theFaculty of Arts, and in the wideracademic community he held

office as President of both theHellenic Society and the ClassicalAssociation. He was elected afellow of the British Academy in1966 and of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh in 1975. But heresisted academic blandishmentsto leave St. Andrews until 1976,when he became president ofCorpus Christi College, Oxford.He was knighted the followingyear. Dover’s tenure of the collegepresidency was successful but notalways easy and not withoutcontroversy; in particular, it wasmarred by the suicide of a difficultsenior fellow. Controversy attend-ed too his time as President of theBritish Academy, when he had todeal with the complexitiessurrounding the ‘Blunt Affair’.These events are amply chronicledby Dover himself in his trenchantautobiography, Marginal Com-ment (1994).

On retirement (1986) Kennethand Audrey Dover returned to St.Andrews, where they made theirhome for the rest of their lives.Dover had already been electedChancellor of the University in1981 and he continued to holdthis position until 2005. At firstthere were many invitations andmuch academic travel. One regulardestination was Stanford, whereDover spent the first three monthsof each year over a five-year period(1987-92) as a highly valuedcontributor not only to under-graduate and postgraduate Greek

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teaching, both lectures andseminars, but also to matters oforganisation and administration.When Dover heard that a Fest-schrift was planned to mark hisseventieth birthday he took adisconcertingly active interest inthe volume (published in March,1990 with the title Owls toAthens). First, he questioned thelist of contributors and in theevent, a strict criterion had to beapplied, excluding all associatesexcept former students or col-leagues. Then he insisted that thepresentation should take place onneutral ground (neither Oxfordnor St. Andrews); it took placeaccordingly at the Senate House inLondon.

In his later years, while Greekstudies remained a centralpreoccupation and he was alwaysready to comment on the work ofothers, Dover focused increasingly

on his love of gardening (or‘horticultural engineering’ as heliked to describe it, with referenceto his large plot of land) and ofthe outdoors (especially bird-watching). He was a kenspecklefigure in the town of St. Andrews:tall and distinguished in appear-ance, with an air of old-fashionedcourtesy, marked by habitualdoffing of the hat to passingladies long after that practicebecame obsolete. He alwaysenjoyed a party and respondedespecially to young company.After his wife Audrey suffered astroke and was housebound,confined to a wheelchair, Kennethcared for her devotedly. Prede-ceased by Audrey (December,2009) he followed a few monthslater on 7 March 2010, just a fewdays short of his ninetiethbirthday.

Elizabeth Craik

Sir Kenneth James Dover, FBA FRSE. MA DLitt(Oxon, (Brist), Liv, Lond, StAnd), LLD(Birm, St And). Born 11 March 1920. Elected FRSE 1975. Died 7March 2010.

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Professor of Physiology at theUniversity of Glasgow, JohnDurnin, who has died aged 84,was an international authority onthe energy expended in a widerange of human activities and abook he co-authored is still thereference standard.

He and his small team mademeticulous measurements onpeople engaged in various formsof work, leisure and householdactivities. Some of these measure-ments were made on workersthemselves (eg miners, bricklayers,lumberjacks), but others werecarried out on volunteers. Eitherway Durnin was usually able tocombine his work with pleasure.Sometimes it was of great practi-cal value to himself and family: egpersuading students to have theirenergy expenditure levels meas-ured in his garden and housewhile digging, hoeing and sawingtrees.

Durnin was also known interna-tionally for his work on themeasurement of obesity andweight reduction. He demonstrat-ed the pitfalls of using height andweight measurements as anindicator of obesity, and promot-ed the use of skinfold callipers asa more accurate measure. Hecompiled tables for the calculationof body fat from skinfold meas-

John Valentine George Andrew Durnin

23 April 1923 – 23 August 2007

urements, and these are stillwidely used.

This work involved measuring thebody fat of more than 1000individuals of a variety of buildsand types by weighing themunder water and then measuringtheir skinfolds at a number ofsites.

The underwater weighing alsooften had its interesting aspects,and we met a number of interest-ing and even famous individualsin this way: Edwin Morgan forexample, and Antoinette Sibley,Anthony Dowell, David Wall andMargot Fonteyn.

He also was able to show thatFonteyn (then in her sixties) wasable to push her heart rate up toalmost 190 per minute - onlyslightly less than young fit adultsare able to do - because of herhaving maintained her fitnesslevel so high throughout her life.

Durnin, a father of six whose wife,Joan, predeceased him, was ahandsome man whose oftenlugubrious expression disguisedthe kick that he got from life.Nothing appeared to faze him. Hewas able to assimilate newmaterial to include in a lectureright up to the time of delivery,and would arrive for work some20 minutes before his lecture wasdue to start with words such as

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“what do you know about theliver?”

Many other things could be saidabout Durnin: his expertise atsquash and skiing, his studies onroughage and digestibility, hisenthusiasm for travel and thegood life. He was not afraid to bedifferent.

Before beginning a paper at aconference in Nice one hot andsunny afternoon, he announced -to much applause - that he wouldnot show the slides he hadbrought, but if the blinds couldbe drawn aside and the windows

John Valentine George Andrew Durnin, MA, MB, ChB(Aberd), DSc(Glas).FRCPG, FSB. Born 23 April 1923. Elected FRSE 1977. Died 23 August 2007

First published in The Herald, Saturday 13 October 2007.Reproduced by permission of The Herald

opened he would simply talk tothe audience.

He demanded high standardsfrom others. On a trip to give apaper in London we breakfastedat Euston Station and he made atleast six complaints about variousaspects of the environment, foodand service. On suggesting thatmaybe he could let it go at that,he replied: “If it wasn’t for peoplelike me, b*****s like youwouldn’t get a decent serviceanywhere”. In these days ofassessments, appraisals andconformity, we’re unlikely to seehis like again.

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Sandy Fenton was among the verygreatest scholars of the Ethnologyand Antiquities of Scotland of thisage - or of any age. For 15 yearshe was a member of the AncientMonuments Board for Scotland,from 1979 to 1994.

My wife was one of the Boardmembers, and they had thecivilised habit of allowing payingspouses to come on their annualexpeditions to those parts ofScotland well endowed withantiquities. Thus I saw at firsthand Sandy Fenton’s charmingerudition, which was a marvel ofserious scholarship to us all.Indelibly etched on my memory isFenton’s explanation of life at theBlack House at 42 Arnol in thenorth end of the Island of Lewis.His written description, firstpublished in 1978 and reissued in1989, is the greatest record of away of life that once dominatedso much of the Highlands andIslands.

Sandy Fenton was born in 1929 atShotts, then a mining town at theheart of the productive NorthLanarkshire coalfield. Amongfamily and friends were theHerbisons; Margaret Herbison waslater to be the miners’ MP,Chairman of the Labour Party (UK)and Harold Wilson’s first Ministerof Pensions. His father, also

Professor Sandy Fenton

26 June 1929 - 12 May 2012First published in The Independent, 15 May 2012


Alexander Fenton, and his wifeAnnie Stronach moved north toTurrif, where Sandy Fentonattended the academy andprogressed to Aberdeen Universi-ty.

Aberdeen had the tradition ofsending its most talented gradu-ates for further study inCambridge and Fenton enteredand completed the archaeologicaland anthropological tripos withan optional subject of Norse andmedieval language. For archaeolo-gy he sat at the feet of GlynDaniel, who educated us all ontelevision, and at the feet ofMeyer Fortes, the great anthropol-ogist and expert on indigenouspeoples.

Fenton was grateful for theinspiration of Cambridge beforegoing on to complete a DLit inEdinburgh, which led to hisbecoming a Senior AssistantEditor of the Scottish NationalDictionary between 1955 and1959 combined with part-timelecturing in English as a foreignlanguage. He became AssistantKeeper of the National Museumof Antiquities in Scotland,progressing to Deputy Keeper andDirector. He combined this withbeing part-time lecturing in theDepartment of Scottish History atEdinburgh University.

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Professor Alexander Fenton, MA(Aberd), BA(Cantab), DLitt(Edin),HonDLitt(Aberd). CBE, FSAScot, FRSGS, HRSA. Born 26 June 1929. ElectedFRSE 1985. Died 12 May 2012.

As Rector of the University from2003 to 2006 I know that thenow flourishing Department ofScottish Studies regarded Fentonas one of their founders. Later hewas to occupy the Chair ofScottish Ethnology and Director ofthe School of Scottish Studies.

However, Fenton was no insular,narrow scholar. He was a foreignmember of the Royal Gustav AdolfAcademy at Uppsala, Sweden,appointed in 1978, and of theRoyal Danish Academy of Sciencesand Letters in 1979. He was giventhe honour of becoming anhonorary member of the Volk-skundliche Kommision FurWestfalen in 1980. In 1983 hewas made a member of theHungarian Ethnographical Societyand became a jury member in1975 - and subsequently for 20years of the Europa Prize for FolkArt.

He was also President of thePermanent International Commit-tee of the International Secretariatfor Research on the History ofAgricultural Implements. HearingFenton on site on some wind-swept landscape describing theuse of a particular agricultural

instrument in ancient and medie-val times was a revelation. He wasalso Honorary President of theScottish Vernacular BuildingsWorking Group and of theScottish Country Life MuseumsTrust. Many modest if interestingbuildings owe their survival toFenton’s work.

Fenton’s writing is characterisedby the greatest detail teased outof ancient records. In the 1970she illuminated the place names ofShetland and his book ScottishCountry Life (1976, republished in1999) won the Scottish ArtsCouncil Book Award. His TheNorthern Isles, Orkney andShetland, (1978, republished in1997) won him the Dag Strom-back Award. In 1985 he publishedan essay under the title “If All TheWorld Were a Blackbird”, whichhe translated from the Hungarian.Almost as difficult as Hungarian isthe language and dialect ofBuchan, but Fenton’s 1995 workCraiters - or Twenty Buchan Tales,and Buchan Words and Ways in2005, really saved a subculturewhich but for Fenton would havevanished.

Tam Dalyell

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Bill, as all his colleagues knewhim, was an Aberdeenshire manby birth. He attended InverurieAcademy briefly, and then movedto Robert Gordon’s College,Aberdeen (1946-50), where hewas modern languages dux. Heheld a bursarship when he did hisMA at Aberdeen, graduating in1953. As was quite common atthat time, he did his law degree atAberdeen at the same time as hislegal apprenticeship, completingboth in 1955, when he wasadmitted solicitor.

Bill then did his National Service inthe Royal Navy, a period which heenjoyed, before returning to thelaw as an Assistant in Jurispru-dence at the University ofAberdeen, 1957-60. He marriedIsabella in June 1957, and theyhad four children.

David Daube was Professor ofJurisprudence at Aberdeen from1951 to 1955, and greatlyinfluenced the young Bill. Hewrote an engaging account of hisexperience as the sole undergrad-uate member in the first year ofthe Advanced Class in Roman Lawtaught by Daube in 1953-54,although it was also attended byPeter Stein, a lecturer in theFaculty. Bill was initially attractedto Roman law because he lovedLatin, and Daube engaged

William Morrison Gordon

3 March 1933 - 1 September 2012

intensely with the linguistic aswell as the legal aspects. PeterStein was technically his Doktor-vater, but Bill always felt thatDaube was his academic grandfa-ther. His PhD was achieved in1963.

In 1960 he moved to Glasgow,where he was to spend the rest ofhis life. He became a Lecturer inCivil Law when JAC (Tony) Thomasheld the Douglas Chair of CivilLaw. In 1965 Bill moved tobecome Senior Lecturer in PrivateLaw, a Department headed byDavid Walker. In 1969, after thedeparture of Alan Watson, TonyThomas’ successor, to Edinburgh,he was appointed to the Chair ofCivil Law, which he held for thirtyyears. In those days there wereseparate Departments in the LawFaculty; all the former depart-ments were amalgamated into theone School of Law in 1993. On hisretirement in 1999 he became anHonorary Professorial ResearchFellow in the School of Law, andcontinued to publish. His scholar-ship was careful, cautious, andthorough, a fair reflection of hischaracter.

His chief publications were:Studies in the Transfer of Propertyby Traditio (1970), a reworking ofhis PhD thesis, a sign of his lastinginterest in the law of property. It

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Obituary Notices

was also indicative in that it dealtwith both Roman law and thelater history of Roman law. Billwas the inspiration, as well aspart-author, of European LegalHistory (1st edition 1985, 3rd in2000), a textbook based on acourse he developed which stillfinds a market. The massiveScottish Land Law first came out in1989, reaching a third edition in2009. Over its successive editionsthe book tracked and explored thefundamental changes in itssubject, in particular the finalabolition of feudalism in Scotlandwhich took effect in 2004. Thework is a monument to hisscholarship in both its historicaland practical interest. He was alsoa substantial contributor – oncorporeal moveable property - toKenneth Reid’s Law of Property inScotland (1996), where hisunderstanding of the Roman lawbasis of Scots law was particularlyuseful. That was also the case withhis treatment of donation in theStair Memorial Encyclopaedia, firstpublished in 1992 and then againin a revised version in 2011, whichis the most complete analysis ofthe subject in Scots law. Bill tookover as editor of The Court Bookof the Barony and Regality ofFalkirk (Stair Society 1991) afterthe lamented death of DoreenHunter. He was also editor ofBankton’s Institutes (threevolumes, Stair Society 1993-5),which was notable for its detailedwork on the previously neglected

figure of Bankton himself. As well,he pioneered the study of thesixteenth-century ‘practicks’ ofScottish lawyers as a guide to thenature and content of other, nowlost, sources. He was translator ofBooks 28 and 29 of the Digest inAlan Watson’s edition for theUniversity of Pennsylvania Press(1985), and joint editor andtranslator of the Institutes ofGaius (1988). He edited jointly theProceedings of the Ninth BritishLegal History Conference, entitledLegal History in the Making(1991), and edited Miscellany IIIfor the Stair Society (1992). Healso produced a stream of articlesand of contributions to Festschrif-ten, the many invitations for thelatter being a mark of his interna-tional reputation, as well as lesshistorical contributions to theStair Memorial Encyclopaedia andthe Journal of the Law Society ofScotland. And then there were thenumerous book reviews forScottish, British, and Europeanjournals. A selection of his work,Roman Law, Scots Law, and LegalHistory: Selected Essays waspublished in 2007 by the Edin-burgh University Press.

Bill’s teaching reflected this verywide range of interests, for heestablished various courses inScottish as well as European legalhistory. His teaching, like hisscholarship reflected the man. Hislectures were seriously researchedand carefully prepared. There wasnothing showily attractive, but

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intellectually curious studentswho attended conscientiouslywould find themselves at the endof his courses in possession of adetailed and comprehensivesurvey of their theme.

Apart from his teaching andresearch, he took his fair share inthe administration of the Universi-ty and in the wider world of law.He was Sub-Dean for five years,1964-69, and later Dean, 1974-76; he served as Senate Assessoron the University Court, 1983-88.Thereafter he became a memberof the Selection Committee forScottish Studentships. He was alsothe Faculty’s representative on theUniversity Library Committee formany years, where his wideknowledge of Scots Law as well asRoman Law and legal history wasof great benefit to his colleagues.Beyond Glasgow, he became aMember of Council of the ScottishUniversities Law Institute in 1980,he was the Literary Director of theStair Society 1984-99, and he wasa member of the Editorial Boardfor the Juridical Review, 1991-2001. He was very proud to havebeen elected as Vice-President ofthe Stair Society in 2011. He waselected FRSE in 1995, and LLDhonoris causa, Aberdeen, in 2005.He also engaged with the practicalworld of the law, serving asChairman of Rent AssessmentCommittees in Scotland, 1982-91,

and regularly responding toScottish Law Commission andother consultations on lawreform. His willingness to put hisscholarly knowledge and capacityfor work at the disposal of othersmade him a much respected andadmired figure in the legalcommunity.

Bill was a loyal member of theKirk, and apart from serving asSession Clerk at Jordanhill ParishChurch 1989-98, where he wasan elder for some 45 years, he wasa member of the Joint Commis-sion on Doctrine of the Church ofScotland and the Roman CatholicChurch in Scotland, and then,from 1990, a member of theChurch of Scotland’s Panel onDoctrine. He nearly alwaysmanaged to keep his golf handi-cap in single figures, despite allthe claims on his time and energy.Certainly time on the golf coursewith his wife Isabella gave himsome of his most happy moments.

He was a man of quiet wit. Iparticularly like his comment on astatement that Lord Stair had laid“an imperishable foundation forthe law of Scotland” – ‘it might beargued that a bio-degradableelement was added at the Unionof 1707.’ Fine scholar, goodcolleague, honourable man, weshall all miss Bill.

Olivia Robinson, withHector MacQueen

William Morrison Gordon, MA, LLB, PhD(Aberd), HonLLD(Aberd), FRSE. Born3 March 1933, Elected FRSE 1995. Died 1 September 2012

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The death of Alistair Grant at therelatively young age of 63 was notunexpected. He had been fightingcancer and was forced to resign asgovernor of the Bank of Scotlandin 1999 and as chairman ofScottish & Newcastle Brewerieslast year, due to ill-health. But heremained one of Scotland’s mostinfluential businessmen.

Grant was born in 1937 andeducated at Woodhouse GroveSchool in Yorkshire. He wassubsequently commissioned inthe Royal Signals during hisNational Service. In 1958 hejoined Unilever as a managementtrainee, moving to J. Lyons & Co in1963 and Connell May & Steaven-son in 1965. His big chance camein 1968, when he became anexecutive director of Fine Fare atthe invitation of its chief executiveJames Gulliver.

Fine Fare was a recently acquiredsubsidiary of Associated BritishFoods and Gulliver had beengiven the job of turning it roundby ABF’s legendary chairman,Garfield Weston. Grant wasrecruited to help in the recovery,which he did with great success.He was charming and enthusias-tic; people listened to what hesaid and worked hard for him. Inseven years, Fine Fare’s sales

Sir Alistair Grant

6 March 1937 – 22 January 2001First published by The Independent 24 January 2001Reproduced with permission from The Independent

surged from pounds 75m topounds 200m.

In 1972, Gulliver unexpectedly leftFine Fare and bought a smallcompany, Oriel Foods, for pounds1m. Grant went with him to beOriel’s managing director. Theywere joined by the merchantbanker David Webster as financedirector. Gulliver announced thathis plan was to concentrate onsupplying “what a woman wouldwant to put in her shoppingbasket”, and went on a takeoverspree to create a wholesalegrocery business worth pounds100m in five years’ time. Over thenext few years, Oriel Foodssucceeded beyond most of itsbackers’ wildest dreams.

In 1977, Gulliver and his teamsold Oriel Foods and startedagain, this time forming the ArgyllGroup. This started from a biggerbase and within a few years was asignificant force in the Scottishfood and drinks industry. Gulliv-er’s ambitions, though, were farfrom satisfied and in 1986 he putin an unexpected but well-planned bid for Distillers.Scotland’s premier drinks groupfound itself on the verge of fallingprey to the upstart. In despera-tion, it turned to Ernest Saundersof Guinness for help. Saundersemerged triumphant in April

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1986 after a bloody battle duringwhich Guinness’s share pricemysteriously jumped from 280pto 350p, dramatically increasingthe value of its offer to Distillers’shareholders.

Gulliver was bitterly disappointedby the way in which Argyll wascheated out of Distillers, althoughhe rallied quickly to take over theUK stores belonging to SafewaysInc. Grant was made chief execu-tive and swiftly transformed theshops into one of the UK’s mostpowerful supermarket chains.

Matthew Alistair Grant, HonDBA(Strath, Napier), HonDSc(Cran), Drhc(Edin).KStJ, FRSE, FRSA. Born 6 March 1937. Elected FRSE 2007. Died 22 January2001.

David Webster, who succeededhim as chairman of Safeways, asArgyll soon renamed itself, said,“Alistair was an inspirational,charismatic and gifted leader. Hecommanded the respect of allwho knew and worked with him.He will be remembered as a greatson of Scotland and one of itsfinest ambassadors.”

Grant became chairman ofSafeways in 1993 and retired fouryears later at the age of 60. Hewas appointed chairman ofScottish & Newcastle Breweries in1997 and governor of the Bank ofScotland the following year.

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George Gray was an outstandingand pre-eminent organic chemistwho became the world’s leadingauthority on liquid crystal materi-als for use in displays. Heinvented the first stable liquidcrystal materials that enabled theLCD technology used in televi-sions, laptop and tabletcomputers, mobile phones, iPods,digital clocks and watches andmany other items of electronicequipment. He was also inspiring,enthusiastic and a true gentle-man, blessed with Scottishcharisma, a great sense of humourand considerable modesty.

Born in Denny, Scotland, to Johnand Jessie Gray in 1926, Georgepicked up an enthusiasm forchemistry and molecules from hisfather, who owned a pharmacy inthe town. This led him to studychemistry at Glasgow University,graduating with a BSc and, at thebehest of Brynmor Jones, movingto University College Hull - thenpart of the University of London -in 1946 to resurrect their chemis-try laboratories after the war.Under the tutelage of BrynmorJones, George became fascinatedby materials called liquid crystals,which were neither crystals, norliquids, but a new, so called“mesomorphic”, phase of matter.Their existence had been knownsince 1888, but there was almost

Professor George William Gray

4 September 1926 – 12 May 2013

no detailed academic knowledgeabout the molecular structure andproperties of such materials. Hewas invited to stay on at Hull, asan Assistant Lecturer, and tocommence research on liquidcrystals for his PhD, which hereceived from the University ofLondon in 1953 for a thesisentitled “Mesomorphism ofAromatic Carboxylic Acids”. Thatsame year, George marriedMarjorie Canavan and theyremained together and raisedtheir 3 daughters in Hull. Havingachieved his PhD, George pro-gressed, through Senior Lecturerand Reader at Hull, to becomeProfessor of Organic Chemistry in1978 and then GF Grant Professorof Chemistry in 1984.

George spent the 10 years afterhis PhD, understanding the formsof various liquid crystal molecules,what phases they exhibited andwhat sorts of properties theypossessed. This seminal researchallowed him to formulate criteriafor the design and synthesis ofmaterials with desired properties.This body of understanding waspublished in his book, “MolecularStructure and the Properties ofLiquid Crystals” in 1962. Re-search on liquid crystals was thenregarded as something of abackwater and he found itdifficult to obtain funding for his

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work from the then SERC, thenatural source of funding forresearch in chemistry. Faced withsuch diffidence, George soughtand obtained funding from theMedical Research Council andfrom Reckitt and Colman to studythe liquid crystal nature of the cellwalls in bacteria, focusing onlipopolysaccharides in Pseu-domonas Seruginosa. This alsoallowed him the freedom tosynthesise and research thederivatisation of biphenyl andterphenyl moieties. His success atthis led to him submitting aproposal to SERC, which wasrejected with the advice that heshould employ the services of acompetent organic chemist. Sincehe was then a Senior Lecturer inOrganic Chemistry, this was notwell received, nor was it forgotten.It illustrated, however, that themembers of the relevant boarddid not understand the ratherarcane and academic science ofliquid crystals. Things were aboutto change, however.

George’s opportunity to see hisacademic knowledge appliedcame in the late 1960s, as a resultof a challenge, from (the nownotorious) John Stonehouse, whowas the Minister of Technology, tofind an alternative to the shadowmask colour TV tube, since the UKwas paying royalties to use thisthat exceeded the developmentcosts of Concorde. This challengewas taken up by Cyril Hilsum, anIndividual Merit top scientist at

the Royal Radar Establishment(RRE, subsequently RSRE, DERAand then Qinetiq) in Malvern, whoconvened a working party toexplore whether the discovery byUS researchers that a thin layer ofimpure liquid crystal could beused to make a crude optoelec-tronic display, might offer somehope for meeting this challenge.At their initial meeting, Georgesufficiently distinguished himselfand his knowledge to be awardedan MOD contract to explore thispossibility further. Concurrently,in 1971, researchers in Switzer-land had discovered andpublished a new display mecha-nism, the Twisted Nematic effect.This was a pure field-effect anddid not require the presence ofimpurities, and George focusedon finding new materials for this.

A typical twisted nematic displayconsists of a thin layer (~ 5microns in thickness) of a nematicliquid crystal, sealed betweenglass plates that have shapedlayers of a transparent conductorand rubbed alignment films ontheir inner surfaces. The align-ment layers caused the rod-likeliquid crystal molecules to twistsmoothly through 90o within thelayer. When placed betweencrossed Polaroid sheets, whichnormally appear black, the celleffectively untwists the sheets toallow light to pass through andgive a bright OFF state. Applyinga low frequency alternatingvoltage to selected electrodes

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locally creates an electric field thatreorients the molecules anddisrupts this twisted state, so thatthese activated ON areas show theblack appearance of the crossedpolaroids. Removing the voltageallows the surface alignmentlayers to reimpose the twisted OFFstate. Such a display can be usedwith a reflector, or a backlight,behind it. The display contrastcan be inverted if the Polaroidsheets are made parallel andfurther elements, such as tinycolour filters and Thin FilmTransistors (TFTs) can be incorpo-rated to produce complex, colourLCDs. The turn ON time dependson the strength of the appliedvoltage, but the turn OFF timedepends principally on the layerthickness and the viscosity of theliquid crystal and may be around10 milliseconds, or longer.

The liquid crystal materials knownthen had to be heated to 70oC ormore, usually decomposed in afew minutes and were ratherviscous, which made their re-sponse sluggish. Invariably theycomprised two benzene ringsjoined by a double, or triple, bondlinkage that was easily broken byphotolysis or hydrolysis. George’sdefining achievement was to usehis deep knowledge and longexperience of liquid crystals toeliminate this linkage entirely andto synthesise a number of biphe-nyl molecules, with a cyano groupat one end, two directly coupledbenzene rings in the middle and

an alkyl chain of a defined lengthat the other. Three of thesecyanobiphenyl compounds wereliquid crystalline over a narrowinterval at around room tempera-ture and these were revealed tothe world forty years ago in ascientific publication on 22 March1973. Working in collaborationwith scientists at the RRE, led byPeter Raynes, further compoundswere synthesised and evaluated.These cyanobiphenyl compoundshad a low viscosity, provedextremely stable (as George hadpredicted) and, formulated aseutectic mixtures, they couldremain liquid crystalline from -10oC to +60oC. These werepatented and subsequentlylicensed by the MOD, through theaegis of Cyril Hilsum, since theuniversity baulked at the costs andrisks involved. They were thenpublished in the peer reviewedscientific literature.

This turned the field of researchon LCDs into an expandinginternational activity, with ade-quate supplies of the materialsbeing available, under licence,from Merck Ltd (then BDH Ltd),due to the foresight of BenSturgeon, their Research Director.Many companies exploitedGeorge’s materials in their LCDs,the most successful being largeJapanese corporations. In the UK,George, BDH, RRE and potentialmanufacturers participated in aconsortium set up by Cyril Hilsumto advance LCD research and a

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number of further breakthroughswere made, all based on usingmaterials from George and hisgroup at Hull. Later on, Georgeadapted his knowledge tosynthesise and evaluate a varietyof quite different liquid crystalmaterials, including new, ultrafast,ferroelectric liquid crystals andmaterials for large flat-panel TVscreens. It can fairly be said thatGeorge’s principal invention ofthe cyanobiphenyls enabled amulti-billion pound industry thatspawned a very wide range ofproducts now in everyday use bythe young and the not so young,around the world. It is estimatedthat 750 million LCD products,with an estimated value of £56billion, were manufacturedworldwide during the last year.There are now many more LCDs inexistence around the world thanthere are people! Part of George’slegacy is to have enabled such aphenomenal benefit to humanity.Others may have manufacturedthe products, but George was theindividual that created the keymaterials that made it possible.

George received considerablerecognition for his contributionsto LCD technology. Together withhis principal collaborators, he wonthe Queen’s Award to Industry forTechnological Achievement in1979 and the Rank Prize forOptoelectronics in 1980. He waselected a Fellow of the RoyalSociety in 1983 and a Fellow ofthe Royal Society of Edinburgh in

1989. He was appointed a CBE in1991 and received honorarydegrees from Hull and many otheruniversities. He was also aMember of the Royal Irish Acade-my. Beyond this, he personallywon the Clifford Paterson Lectureand Prize from the Royal Society in1985 and the 1987 Royal SocietyLeverhulme Medal. In 2005, theRoyal Society of Chemistryawarded Hull University a Histori-cal Chemical Landmark tocommemorate more than 50 yearsof liquid crystal research based onGeorge’s work. He also gainedsignificant international personalrecognition and was awarded theprestigious Karl Ferdinand BraunPrize in 1996 by the Society forInformation Display, havingreceived the even more prestig-ious Kyoto Prize for AdvancedTechnology in 1995. After thepresentation of this, George andMarjorie travelled to Tokyo tomeet with the Japanese Emperorin the Imperial Palace. In recogni-tion of his achievements, HullTrains named their first British RailClass 222 ’Pioneer’ high-speedtrain Professor George Gray andthe British Liquid Crystal Societyhonoured him by creating theirGeorge W Gray Medal, awardedfor contributions to liquid crystalresearch and technology.

George retired from the Universityof Hull in 1990 and was succeed-ed by John Goodby, his formerresearch student, whom he hadpreviously managed to attract

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back to Hull, from his work at BellResearch Laboratories in the USA,based on an industrial fundingpackage. George became both anHonorary Professor at Hull and aVisiting Professor at SouthamptonUniversity. He also moved toPoole and became AdvancedMaterials Consultant at Merck Ltd.In September 2006, George andMarjorie celebrated George’s 80th

birthday with many of their closestfriends and colleagues at theRoyal Society in London.

George W Gray, BSc(Glas), PhD(Lond), HonDSc(Hull, Nott, Soton, E Ang,Aberd, Exe, CChem, FRSC, HonMRIA, FRS, FRSE. Born 4 September 1926.Elected FRSE 1989. Died 12 May 2013

Although dedicated to theadvancement of research intoliquid crystals he admitted to alove of gardening and an enthusi-asm for philately. After furtherquiet and happy years at Poole,George died on 12 May 2013,just two weeks after the death ofhis beloved Marjorie. They aresurvived by their daughtersCaroline and Veronica. Their thirddaughter, Elizabeth, predeceasedthem.

Ian Shanks

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Matthew Howard Kaufman

29 September 1942 - 11 August 2013

Matthew Howard Kaufman wasthe Professor of Anatomy at theUniversity of Edinburgh from1985-2007 and a world-famousfigure in mouse embryology in thelatter half of the 20th century. Thiswas due to his experimental workon early mouse development, hismajor role in the discovery ofmouse stem cells (1981) and hisAtlas of Mouse Development(1992). This book is still a neces-sary reference work in everymouse laboratory throughout theworld and was the basis forseveral key mouse informaticsresources. In his later years,Kaufman published many booksand papers on the history ofScottish medicine and its majorpractitioners in the 18th and 19th

centuries. He was elected a Fellowof the Royal Society of Edinburghin 2008, just after his retirement.

Matt Kaufman was born in 1942in Stoke Newington, London, intoa very orthodox Jewish family. Hisfather, an electrician, wanted himto become a scribe, writing thefive books of Moses on parch-ment in Hebrew using a quill (thismay have explained his exquisitehandwriting). He was howeverclever enough to escape this fate:he passed the 11+ exam and wentto the local grammar school andon to Edinburgh University where

he qualified in medicine (1967).He then practiced as an obstetri-cian in England before returningto Edinburgh for his first taste ofresearch with Professor AnneMcLaren (1970). From there, hewent to Cambridge where he dida PhD on mouse reproductivephysiology in the laboratory ofProfessor C.R. Austin, and thiswas followed by a year at theWeizmann Institute in Israel. Hethen returned to Cambridge as ademonstrator, then lecturer in theDepartment of Anatomy and waselected a fellow of Kings College(1975-85) where he was a directorof studies.

By the time that Kaufman re-turned to Cambridge, he hadalready published a dozen paperson the very early stages of mousedevelopment, on parthenogenesis(the subject of his first book,1983) and on implantation withinthe general context of in vitrofertilization. This work continuedover the next five years andextended into studies on howembryos responded to anaesthe-sia, excess copper, alcohol andother potentially harmful sub-stances - he was particularlyinterested in understanding theorigin of birth defects (and later inhis career, he taught a popularhonours course on the topic). By

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1980, he had become extremelyskilled in dissecting very earlyembryos and was thus an idealcollaborator to work with MartinEvans on obtaining and thenanalyzing in culture the behaviourof the inner cell mass (ICM), thevery small group of around 40cells in the pre-implantationconceptus that actually forms theembryo (the remainder formsvarious membranes). In culture,the ICM proliferates to generatewhat were first called Evans-Kaufman (E-K) cells and are nowknown as mouse embryonic stemcells. It should be noted that, bythe time that Evans and Kaufmanpublished their first paper on thisin 1981, Gail Martin was doingsimilar work in the USA. It was forthis and for his subsequent workwith stem cells that the now SirMartin Evans received the NobelPrize in 2007.

By 1984, Kaufman had published5 research papers with Evans andother collaborators on stem cellsand their potential, and therewere another 30 or so on otheraspects of mouse development,demonstrating a work rate thatnever flagged over his entirecareer. Kaufman ceased workingon stem cells in 1985 when hewas offered the chair of anatomyat the University of Edinburgh, aposition that had been initiated in1605 when the Professor ofAnatomy was a very importantperson. Some four centuries later,

the professorial office was stillmuch larger than that of thePrincipal of the EdinburghUniversity, and was soon piledhigh with books, papers andcurios from the university’swonderful anatomical museum.

This was not a particularly happyappointment for either side:medical teaching everywhere wasbeginning to undergo majorchanges as the teaching require-ments of genetics, medicalsociology and molecular medicinemade increasing demands on thecurriculum at the expense ofother, more established subjectsincluding anatomy, whose time-honored importance was beingdiminished. Kaufman howevertook the traditional view that allof medicine emerged from thecadaver and hence that studentsneeded to understand anatomyproperly. I recall a fascinatingsession when, surrounded by agroup of them in the dissectingroom, he discussed the heart ofthe cadaver, how it formed,possible congenital abnormalities,how it worked, what might gowrong and how heart diseasecould be handled medically andsurgically - it was a tour de forceand the students were gripped.Unfortunately, Kaufman failed torealize that only he had therichness of background thatallowed such teaching and thatthere was no longer time for thisapproach in a modern syllabus. He

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lost more battles than he shouldhave because he never reallyunderstood the politics ofEdinburgh University MedicalSchool. The net result was thatanatomy teaching was cutdramatically and the museumshut; it is only recently that his oldcolleagues have managed toreverse some of these cuts and tohave the wonderful museumreopened.

It is fair to say that Kaufman andthe medical establishment inEdinburgh University did not geton well for two other reasons.First, Kaufman was diagnosed inthe ‘90s with polycythaemia, ablood platelet cancer, and given 3months to live. He did remarkablywell on drugs and regular bloodlettings for almost two decades,but, for all of his energy, he wasnever really healthy again and theunpleasant side effects of thedrugs did not make him theeasiest of people. Second, he andthe establishment had differentstyles of arguing: Kaufman hadclearly been brought up torespond to any request by saying“no”, and his colleagues unfortu-nately took this at face value.What he meant of course was thatthis was his initial position and hewas ready to argue, but fewothers were prepared to join inthe ritual – he was just viewed asdifficult. I joined his departmentin 1994 and realized that, if hesaid “no”, all I had to do was to

say “fine” and raise the pointagain the following day in adifferent way and he would, aslikely as not, say “yes”. For me, hewas a kind, helpful and knowl-edgeable colleague and a verygood friend, if not always themost modern of administrators.

Kaufman took refuge from thepolitical battles in research and,over the next few years, exploredthe developmental anatomy of themouse embryo from fertilizationto birth in a depth that had neverpreviously been attempted for anyorganism. Mouse embryogenesistakes about 19 days and thisperiod had been divided by KarlTheiler (1972) into 26 stages onthe basis of external appearance.Kaufman had embryos from eachstage embedded and seriallysectioned to give sets of coronal,sagittal and transverse sections,with up to 3000 sections per set.He then proceeded to analyze andphotograph these sections toexplore exactly what was happen-ing anatomically as the mousedeveloped, spending eveningafter evening at his desk carefullylabeling the micrographs. Theresulting Atlas of Mouse Develop-ment (1992) has several thousandpictures, each with anything up toa hundred labels, together withcomplete descriptions of eachanatomical system at each stageand lengthy discussions aboutspecialized aspects of mouseembryogenesis.

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Much to the surprise of thepublishers, the book was animmediate best seller (by academicstandards). It is still in print afteralmost 25 years and remains a keyreference resource for anyoneworking on mouse embryos. Thisis because the book came outsoon after the world of moleculargenetics were starting to maketransgenic mice in which a specificprotein had been altered so as towork out the role of that proteinand this was usually duringdevelopment. Slightly to thesurprise of those early mousemolecular biologists, however, itturned out that making a trans-genic mouse was usually easierthan analyzing it and Kaufman’sbook was their first port of call: itsannotated pictures and detaileddescriptions provided the baselineinformation for evaluatinghundreds of mutant phenotypes.

The book led to further importantacademic work but in a directionthat perhaps surprised Kaufman.Although he was well aware ofthe importance of mouse molecu-lar genetics, he had no knowledgeof bioinformatics or its increasingsignificance in making moleculardata available online. His compu-tational and developmentalcolleagues at the MRC HumanGenetics Unit in Edinburgh rapidlyrealized that the information andthe pictures in the book couldprovide the anatomical details foran informatics resource of mouse

development. Together, weproduced a formal ontology ofthe mouse embryo (essentially aparts hierarchy for each stage) andthis provided the anatomicalinfrastructure for a databaseholding gene-expression andother data (known as GXD andmaintained by the JacksonLaboratory in Maine, USA).

The other spin-offs were howeverof greater interest to Kaufman:the index that the ontologygenerated for his beloved Atlasand the graphical version of theGXD database. Before he arrivedin Edinburgh, Richard Baldock,Duncan Davidson and I hadstarted computational work onmaking a graphical gene-expres-sion databases at the MRC Unit,but Kaufman’s knowledge andsectioned material were key toproducing a resource that wouldallow a user to explore onlineboth the 3D anatomy of theembryo and its gene-expressiondomains (thewww.emouseatlas.org site). Hewas the mouse authority to whomall queries were addressed andwhose presence gave the work itsanatomical strength, and it was avery rich, enjoyable and long-lasting collaboration. Unlikebooks, informatics resources arenever complete and Kaufman wasinvolved in the ongoing informat-ics work well after he retired anduntil shortly before his death. Asupplement to the Atlas of Mouse

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Development that incorporatesrecent work on mouse cell lineageand modern imaging is currentlybeing written and will join theonline resources to become hisacademic memorial.

Kaufman played a prominent rolein the wider Edinburgh academicworld: he was elected FRCP(Edinburgh, 1996) and FRCS(Edinburgh, 2000) and was, formany years, an examiner for theFRCS exams there. He was alsochairman of the William RamsayHenderson Trust that held, forphrenological reasons, a wonder-ful collection of 17th and 18th

century life and death mask andfrom these he produced a memo-rable exhibition for the EdinburghFestival in 1989. He was alsoawarded the Symington memorialPrize by the Anatomical Society(1979), the Evian health award(1988) for his work on the effectsof alcohol on embryonic develop-ment, and a Jackson laboratoryaward (2006) for his research onmouse development.

In his last few years in the Depart-ment and after he retired,Kaufman focused on his long-held interest in the rich history ofanatomical and surgical medicine,the Medical School and the greatanatomists and physicians ofScotland. With his customary

attention to detail, he went backto the records and produced manybooks and articles on the rich andinteresting characters who workedon the subject he loved so much,and particularly on those who hadbeen at the University to which hewas so devoted. In 2005, soonbefore he retired, he curated awell-attended exhibition tocelebrate the 400th anniversary ofthe creation of the chair ofanatomy at Edinburgh and thisserved to mark a reconciliationbetween Kaufman and the Facultyof Medicine.

Throughout his career, Kaufmanwas sustained by a very happymarriage to Claire, originally anurse whom he met early in hismedical career, and by their twosons, Simon and David. He hadmany outside interests, particular-ly old Scottish documents, English18th and 19th century porcelainand a 1930s Lagonda sports carthat spent three times as long inthe garage as it did on the road.But these interests were second-ary: Kaufman lived to work and towrite, as his 250 papers and adozen books bear witness. Hereally was one of the greatanatomists, albeit in a somewhatVictorian way – they don’t makeand certainly don’t appointacademics like him any more!

Jonathan Bard

Matthew Howard Kaufman, MBChB, DSc (Edin), MA, PhD, ScD (Cantab),FRSE, FRCP (Edin), FRCS (Edin). Born 29 September 1942. Elected FRSE2008. Died 11 August 2013.

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Born in Russia and brought up inGermany, the physicist NicholasKemmer was personally educatedby Max Born, Werner Heisenbergand Wolfgang Pauli, becoming aPhD student in Switzerland, a warworker in Canada, and a universitylecturer in Cambridge.

From there he was hand-picked in1952 by the Vice-Chancellor ofEdinburgh University, Sir EdwardAppleton, and by Max Born (bothFRS and Nobel prizewinners), forone of the historic Chairs inEdinburgh University, that of theTait Professor of MathematicalPhysics. For the next quarter of acentury Kemmer was to occupy itwith distinction and to the greatadvantage of generations ofgifted undergraduates andpostgraduates - less than giftedstudents shy away from theformidable challenges of abstrusemathematical physics.

Professor Sir Martin Rees, theAstronomer Royal, said: “He reallywas an exceptionally clevermathematician who is remem-bered by those whom he taughtand who read his papers andlearned journals on both sides ofthe Atlantic.”

In 1957, as the young secretary ofthe Edinburgh Fabian Society, Iinvited Kemmer to speak to us. He

Nicholas Kemmer

7 December 1911 – 21 October 1998First published byThe Independent on 24 October 1998


chose as his topic “Scotlandthrough a newcomer’s eyes.”Candid friends can be tiresome.He was compelling and fascinat-ing and the Fabians wereentranced by his deployment ofinsights on the theme “as otherssee us”.

His thoughts modestly offeredwere crystal sharp, expressed in asoft Germano-English voice whicha Sherlock Holmes would immedi-ately have identified as havingspent time in English-speakingCanada. I formed a friendshipwith him over the meal theFabians gave him - a friendshipthat lasted 40 years.

Kemmer was born into theintellectual society of pre-FirstWorld War St Petersburg. HisLutheran father, from a Germanicfamily of the Baltic States, was apurchaser of rolling stock fromthe West for the Tsar’s govern-ment; he also worked for a Britishsubsidiary of the American firm ofWestinghouse. Nicholas Kemmerwould say wryly that he was a realmongrel since his mother, albeitborn in Moscow, came from afamily in the Upper Volga, wherehis grandfather had a dachawhich Kemmer remembered fromearliest childhood, before he leftRussia in 1916.

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He always retained a love for theRussian people and said repeated-ly that he wanted to talk toRussians in a happy way, whetheror not he came with dollars forthem. It was his early mastery ofthe Russian language whichenabled him half a century later todo the translation of Professor LevLandau and Professor G.B.Rumer’s mightily important bookWhat is the Theory Of Relativity?(1959). Of all Western Europeanphysicists Kemmer was probablythe closest to Landau and thebrilliant mathematicians whosurrounded him.

His mother was old RussianOrthodox and in his early child-hood there was a great discussionas to what religion Nicholasshould take on; it was eventuallydecided by his Lutheran fatherand Russian Orthodox motherthat he should be baptised in aRoman Catholic ceremony. This hesaid taught him an early lesson in“Encephalitis Lethargica”. Bywhich he meant that circumstanc-es sometimes dictated that thingsshould be allowed to work out forthemselves and gave him asympathy later in life with Heisen-berg’s uncertainty principles.

Having left Russia partly onaccount of their Germanicbackground, the Kemmer familymade for Hanover where hismother’s family, the Stutzers, hadrelations. Nicholas had the goodfortune to go to Bismarckschule in

Hanover to which he said he owedeverything to the rigorousteachers.

Sent as a student by his physicsmaster to the University ofGottingen with a letter of intro-duction, he was taken under thewing of Max Born, whom ironical-ly he was to follow as StokesLecturer at Trinity College Cam-bridge and later as Tait Professorin Edinburgh. He was also taughtby Werner Heisenberg.

Born at that time was publishinghis books Mechanics of the Atom(1927), Atomic Physics (1935), andThe Restless Universe (1936).When in 1933 Born “got the sackfrom Hitler” and left for England,Kemmer, who did not have a dropof Jewish blood in him, decided itwas time for him to leave since, asan Auslands Deutsche with aBaltic name (Kemmer is a placenear Riga), he was under pressureto join the Hitler Youth.

Born gave Kemmer letters ofintroduction to his friends inZurich: Wolfgang Pauli andGregor Wenstel. In Zurich he didhis PhD along with VictorWeisskopf, later to be Head ofCern in Geneva. Pauli, on tellinghim that he had got his PhD withdistinction, said: “Nicholas, yourEnglish is better than mine. Shall Iwrite more promising or mostpromising?” In 1936, Pauli’srecommendation gained Kemmera Beit Scientific Fellowship atImperial College, London.

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Kemmer used to joke self- criticallythat in 1917 he had just missedthe Russian Revolution, in the1930s he had just missed beingforced into the Hitler Youth and in1940 he just missed the Blitz. Atthe start of the war Kemmerstayed in the house of OrlandoWagner, father of Sir AnthonyWagner, Garter King of Arms1961-78.

In 1940 he was sent to Canadaand Chalk River. Brian (Lord)Flowers FRS, later Rector ofImperial College, London, remem-bers Kemmer both as a teacherwho thought on his feet as helectured and, as a colleague atChalk River, enormously hard-working and yet entering into thefun of canoe races organised byFlowers.

As a member of the UnitedKingdom Government AtomicEnergy Research teams based inCambridge and working fromChalk River, Kemmer contributed

to the building of the atomicbomb. This was an exciting periodin atomic physics, lightened as heput it by going out on pub crawlsin the company of Klaus Fuchs.

After the war Kemmer became apacifist, a Pugwasher and amember of CND for the rest of hislife.

On the recommendation of SirRudolph Peierls and ProfessorNicholas Kurti he was made aUniversity Lecturer in Mathematicsimmediately after the war andelected to a Fellowship of TrinityCollege, Cambridge. Professor SirJohn Cadogan, Director Generalof the Research Councils, said ofhim: “As his colleague in thesame faculty of EdinburghUniversity and as Professor ofChemistry I had the greatestadmiration for Nicholas Kemmer,and we found him a charmingman.” He worked on relativity andvector analysis and producedmany papers on the theory ofnuclear forces.

Tam Dalyell

Nicholas Kemmer, MA(Cantab), PhD(Zurich), FRS, FRSE. Born 7 December1911. Elected FRSE 1958. Died 21 October 1998.

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Donald A. Low, who died in 2001,was one of the ‘quiet men’ of 20th

century Scottish literary scholar-ship and one particularly notednow for his work on Robert Burns.A modest individual, gentle andrespectful of others, Low was aman who also celebrated the rebeland the rebellious. He had a keensense of humour, a passion formusic and sport and a real love ofthe land. Having spent most of hisearly summer holidays on familyfarms in Angus, it is perhapsunsurprising that Low, as aliterature undergraduate, woulddevelop a natural interest in theploughman poet of Ayrshire. Butthe magnetism of Burns was allthe more powerful to him becausehis teachers at St AndrewsUniversity pushed Burns to oneside, failing to see him as a keyfigure in the literary history of thelong 18th century. The young Lowrecognised how unacceptable thiswas. He believed that Burns’scontribution was as visionary asthat of William Blake, whosewriting received a great deal moreattention. And when he cameback to St Andrews to take up hisfirst teaching post in the 1970s,after completing a doctorate atPembroke College, Cambridge,Burns became part of the under-graduate course.

Donald A Low

14 May 1939-15 November 2001

From 1974 Low’s output ofeditions of and articles aboutvarying aspects of Burns’s life andwork continued until just a fewyears before his untimely death.They cover the range of academicexperience: from short articles onspecific manuscripts and editorialconundrums, to popular editionsand accounts for the generalreader. Moreover he was editor ofat least four major critical worksthat were to make a notablecontribution to the new wave ofscholarly interest in Burns in thefinal decades of the 20th century.Indeed much of his later work isnow providing a major stimulusfor parts of the new OxfordUniversity Collected Works ofRobert Burns just underway at theUniversity of Glasgow.

Delving into Low’s impressivebibliography shows just hownaturally Burns fitted within hisportfolio of interests. His firstmajor publication was a study ofRegency Britain entitled, withreference to Coleridge’s ‘KublaKhan’, That Sunny Dome (pub-lished by Dent in 1977). Focussingon the Regency decade 1810-20,and growing out of his doctoralwork on John Scott of the LondonMagazine, Low’s study maps thisperiod’s rich creativity, andexamines, in particular, the

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overriding theme of freedom as itis found both in contemporarylives and literature. His fascinationfor exploring how the arts and lifeintersect is demonstrated by theway in which his discussionincorporates a wide variety ofcontemporary media; frompersonal writings, journalism,fiction, poetry, the developingworld of print culture, and in fineart. While this work addresses theliterary activity of Wordsworth,Shelley, Scott, Byron and Austen,his next monograph explored ‘TheRegency Underworld’. EntitledThieves Kitchen (also published byDent, 1982 and still in print),Low’s unveiling of the lives of thethieves, gamblers, pick-pockets,brothel-keepers and body-snatchers of London, provides afascinating and vibrant contrast tothe goings-on of the Georgianparlour or drawing room. Andhere the ‘underdog’ comes to thefore. It’s little wonder that the twoliterary personalities of the periodwho most inspired Low’s scholarly,as well as deeply personal inter-ests, were none other than Burnsand Byron, the most famous ofthe ‘wild cards’ of Romanticliterature. Low was to edit Byron:Selected Poetry and Prose forRoutledge’s English Texts, a seriesedited by his long-standing andclose personal friend, JohnDrakakis, in 1995. He alsoprovided a fascinating article onthe relationship between Byron

and Burns for Studies in ScottishLiterature some three years beforethis (SSL, 27(1992), 128-142).

This Regency study apart, DonaldLow’s major contribution toliterary scholarship is undoubtedlyhis work on Robert Burns. Heedited the popular Everymancollection of Burns’s poems andsongs across the 1980s and ’90s.He was one of the first Burnsscholars to edit The KilmarnockPoems (published by Everyman in1985) and this edition was thenexpanded and re-titled RobertBurns: Poems in Scots and Englishwith new notes and introductionin 1993 and re-issued in 1996. Asmaller version of this collection isstill available, published byPheonix in 2003. Low was alsocommissioned to write a briefcritical monograph of Burns forthe Scottish Academic Press seriesof studies of ‘Scottish Writers’ in1986. This allowed him not onlyto visit Burns’s biography, but alsoto provide accounts of Burns’s useof ‘voice and verse form’. His studypresents accessible readings ofkey poems such as ‘The TwaDogs’, ‘The Cottar’s SaturdayNight’ and ‘To a Mouse’. He alsoexamines Burns’s satires as well asfocussing on two of his greatest‘tales’, namely ‘Death and DrHornbook’ and ‘Tam o’Shanter’.This little volume concludes with aseparate section on ‘song’,allowing Low to begin surveyingwhat was to become one of the

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most important elements of hisBurns legacy. It also shows Low athis most accessible. This series isaimed at the student and thegeneral reader, and Low seems tothrive here, furthering a detailedunderstanding of the poetry andsongs of Burns with ease.

Donald A. Low helped re-establisha wave of first-class scholarship ofBurns’s work through the remain-ing decades of the 20th century.The first of his major works wasRobert Burns. The Critical Herit-age, which appeared in 1974 aspart of the invaluable seriespublished by Routledge & KeganPaul. This is a volume still usedregularly today and is the onlyrepository of reviews and discus-sions of Burns and his work. Lowsought out contemporary criticalreviews of Burns’s first ‘Kilmar-nock’ and first ‘Edinburgh’editions of Poems, Chiefly in theScottish Dialect of 1786 and1787. Cromek’s Reliques ofRobert Burns of 1808 is also amajor focus for materials aboutthe poet, and Low’s editionpresents opinions of Hugh Blair,Henry Mackenzie, the Words-worths, Coleridge, Scott, ThomasMoore, William Hazlitt, JamesHogg, Thomas de Quincey andmany others. This is a vital sourceof materials about how keyRomantic writers saw Burns and ithas underpinned new scholarshipon Burns and his work withinBritish Romanticism more widely –

a baton now carried in a recentedition of essays by Fiona Staffordand David Sergeant.

Hot on the heels of The CriticalHeritage came Low’s edition ofCritical Essays on Robert Burns of1975, which clearly stimulated agreat deal of interest in revisitingBurns’s work and reception. Thisvolume, again published byRoutledge & Kegan Paul as part ofits ‘Scottish Series’, includedessays by leading scholars of themoment. Low secured contribu-tions from both David Daichesand Thomas Crawford. Daicheshad published his Robert Burns in1950 and a new edition hadappeared in 1966; and Crawford’spivotal study of the poems andsongs had also appeared in twoeditions in 1960 and 1966. Low’sCritical Essays also included apreviously unpublished lecture byJames Kinsley, editor of the three-volume Oxford edition of Burns’sPoems and Songs of 1968, andthis collection included other keycontributions by Alexander Scott(who had just established the firstDepartment of Scottish Literatureat the University of Glasgow),David Muireston (Editor of theScottish National Dictionary) andScottish composer Cedric ThorpeDavie. Low’s wife, Sheona,remembers this time clearly, as itmarked the beginning of manysuppers at the Low’s house inBridge of Allan, just a stone’sthrow from the University of

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Stirling where Low had movedand was soon to become Profes-sor of English Studies. Burnsscholars, and lovers of Scottishliterature more generally, came toeat, drink, chat and develop ideasfor further work, and here Low’srole as a facilitator should benoted. He acknowledges, in hisCritical Essays, the importance andsupport of the then UniversitiesCommittee of Scottish Literature,but it would be true to say thatLow had a skill not simply forsharing his own work but forgently galvanising others! Heparticularly enjoyed a longfriendship with G. Ross Roy, whocontributed to his Critical Essays,and whose major re-editing of DeLancey Ferguson’s The Letters ofRobert Burns was to be publishedby Oxford in 1985. Low was oneof the first Ormiston Roy Fellowsat the University of South Caroli-na, where he was able to developthis friendship and to work withthe unique G. Ross Roy Collec-tion. It is notable that Low’sedition of Critical Essays was thefirst of a series then to flowthrough the 1980s towards the1996 bicentenary: those edited byR.D.S. Jack & Andrew Noble(1982); Kenneth Simpson (in 1994and 1997); Robert Crawford (alsoin 1997); and Carol McGuirk (in1998). And it is thus highlyappropriate that the most recentsuch collection, Gerard Carru-thers’s Edinburgh University Press

Companion to Robert Burns of2009, is dedicated, amongstothers, to Donald A. Low.

The final area of Low’s work tomake a long-lasting mark onBurns scholarship is connectedwith song. Although JamesKinsley had included the songs inhis famous Oxford edition (withmelodic notation too), Lowclaimed that no single study onthe songs had been forthcomingsince James C. Dick’s volume of1903. While he was not a musi-cian in the same guise as Dick,Low’s major contribution to Burnsstudies in the 1990s – andpossibly singly his most importantcontribution to Burns studiesoverall – was his editing of the1853 facsimile of James Johnson’sThe Scots Musical Museumpublished by Scolar Press in 1992(and now available through theHardie Press in Edinburgh),followed swiftly by his ownedition of The Songs of RobertBurns (again published byRoutledge) in 1993.

These two editions were really theculmination of a project long inthe planning. In the 1970s, whenworking on both The CriticalHeritage and its partner CriticalEssays, Low was introduced to thefolksinger Jean Redpath. Over theintervening years their creativefriendship inspired Redpath tofurther her knowledge of Burnsand, moreover, to sing the songsto the original melodies which

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had inspired Burns’s lyrics. Thesewere the tunes most often printedwith Burns’s lyrics in Johnson’sScots Musical Museum. Low’sintroduction to his edition of theMuseum assesses Burns’s contri-bution as collector and songwriterfor this major project. He identi-fied Burns’s part in some 220 ofthe 600 songs Johnson publishedbetween 1787 and 1803. UntilLow’s facsimile edition appearedeven fine Burns scholars had nottaken on board the magnitude ofBurns’s relationships with bothJohnson’s and subsequentlyGeorge Thomson’s collections.Burns’s songs were seen, at best,as poems with tune titles andwere buried amongst his better-known and more highly regardedpoetic output. Low’s focussing ofattention particularly on theMuseum project, and then his re-presentation of Burns thesongwriter/collector/recreator inhis door-stopping Songs editionof 1993 completely changed thegeneral attitude to Burns’s songsat the end of the 20th century. Lowstated right at the beginning ofhis Songs edition: ‘It is all too easyto take songs for granted, andeven easier to make the mistake ofdismissing, as undeserving ofserious attention, the words ofsongs such as those of Burns’. Buthis introduction laid down achallenge to all interested inBurns to really understand theimportance of melody to Burns’s

songs, and, moreover, the crucialplace of performance. Until Low’sinvolvement with Redpath’ssinging of the songs, mostrecordings of Burns’s songs in the20th century featured classicallytrained singers and often stylisedmusical arrangements of thesongs. While all are interestingand much enjoyed, Redpath’ssimpler, unaccompanied rendi-tions presented the songs muchas Burns would have understoodthem, and helped inspire a newgeneration of singers to revisitBurns’s work. Many of these werereleased by Douglas Young’sScottish Records in the early1980s, though sadly they are nowvery hard to come by. But again itis surely testament to Low’sachievement in his 1993 Songsthat it was this very collectionwhich inspired Fred Freeman topersuade Linn Records to recordall the songs in the Low editionfor its 12-disc collection of TheComplete Songs of Robert Burns,performed by the moment’sleading folk performers andcompleted in the mid 1990s.

At home Low’s family life was full,positive and inspirational. Nearlyall his major scholarly work isdedicated either to his wifeSheona, and/or their children fortheir ‘unstinting encouragement,totally positive outlook, and senseof fun’. Sheona, herself anexperienced and quite extraordi-nary teacher, had met Donald

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when he was a student. Theyshared an insatiable appetite forliterature, languages, music, sport,cooking and dogs. She was alwaysclosely engaged with Donald’swork and was the most encourag-ing and positive support networkas his health, due to MultipleSclerosis, deteriorated across theyears. But this did not hold eitherof them back, with regular trips tospend time with friends and

colleagues in the US, London andseveral other European destina-tions. They were always able andindeed enthusiastic to stop andspend time to talk and engagewith others and with new ideas.Sadly, Sheona died in 2013. Theyare survived by their son Chris anddaughter Kirsty.

Kirsteen McCueCo-Director, Centre for Robert

Burns Studies at the Universityof Glasgow

Professor Donald Alexander Low. MA, BPhil(St And), PhD(Cantab), FSAScot.Born 14 May 1939. Elected FRSE 1985. Died 15 November 2001

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An MP, in the nature of hisresponsibilities, gets to know theboss of a factory which employshundreds of his constituents at ahigh technical level pretty well. For17 years, from 1968 to 1985,when he was the general managerof the important Scottish Houseof Ferranti’s, and in direct chargeof the new huge, then state-of-the-art factory at Crewe Toll inEdinburgh, I had monthly deal-ings with Donald McCallum. Hewas quiet, softly spoken, some-what taciturm, a technicallysupreme and manageriallycompetent leader of industry.

The union officials and shopstewards would acknowledge thatMcCallum was straight and alwayscourteous to them, and wouldpunctiliously honour any agree-ment. McCallum was, equally,accorded respect by his seniormanagerial colleagues, some ofwhom, like Bill Gregson, werethemselves heavyweights in theUK’s industry affairs. McCallumcommanded authority in Scottishindustry.

Born and brought up in Edin-burgh, McCallum had an excellentgrounding in mathematics atGeorge Watson’s College andcompleted a BSc at EdinburghUniversity, where he was not only

Sir Donald McCallum

6 August 1922 – 18 October 2011First published in The Independent 16 November 2011

Reproduced with permission of The Independent

taught by, but taken under theproverbial wing of, the TaitProfessor of Physics, the greatGerman-Jewish Nobel Prize-winner, Max Born. Bornrecommended McCallum to theAdmiralty Signal Establishment,where he participated in cutting-edge work in the detection ofU-boats. McCallum told me yearslater that his time at the ASE hadimbued him with a sense ofurgency and decisiveness whichheld him in good stead through-out his industrial responsibilities;“career” is not quite the rightword to associate with McCallum.

On demobilisation, after a shortperiod at the Standard Telecom-munication Laboratories,McCallum chose to be close to hisparents’ home and return toEdinburgh to join the then smallbut go-ahead firm of Ferranti’s.Here he was spotted by JohnToothill (later Sir John), who hadbeen the dynamic general manag-er since 1943.

Toothill, author of the seminalReport on the Scottish Economy(1961), which bears his name,leant heavily on McCallum, as heacknowledged, for both back-ground information andproposals. The flamboyantToothill and the reserved Baptist

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McCallum worked effectively inharness. Eric Jamieson, physicistand marketing manager forFerranti and a company director,recalled, “Donald McCallum wasthought by all of us who workedfor him to be a superb boss.”

As one of McCallum’s successes, adecade later, in the three-yearposition of president of theScottish Council of Developmentand Industry, I was often advisedby the experienced and wisesecretary of the SCDI, Alan Wilson,“This is the line that DonaldMcCallum would have pursued.”

Apart from being an authoritativemanager of a significant business,McCallum’s other achievementwas his contribution to technicaleducation. Chairman between

1984 and 1987 of the ScottishTertiary Education AdvisoryCouncil, he had also given hugeservice as a member of the Courtof Heriot-Watt University, andduring the development of NapierPolytechnic (1988-93), whichbecame Napier University.

A few weeks after I took myparliamentary seat in June 1962, Iasked a Question about industryin Scotland to Basil de Ferranti,MP for Morecombe and Lonsdaleand the young ParliamentarySecretary to the Ministry ofAviation. A few days later, Basilobserved to me in the Commonscorridor, “If you don’t believe me,go and ask Donald McCallum.” Idid – and went on asking himquestions for the next 30 years.

Tam Dalyell

Sir Donald McCallum, CBE DL. BSc(Edin), HonDUniv(Stir), HonDSc(H-W,Napier), HonLLD(Strath, Aberd), FREng FRSE, FREng, FIEE, FRAeS, FRSGS,CIMgt. Born 6 August 1922. Elected FRSE 1972. Died 18 October 2011

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Dame Anne McLaren, who hasdied aged 80 in a car accidentwhile travelling with her formerhusband Donald Michie fromCambridge to London, was one ofBritain’s leading scientists in thefields of mammalian reproductiveand developmental biology andgenetics.

Her research in the basic scienceunderlying the treatment ofinfertility helped develop severalhuman-assisted reproductiontechniques. Her work also helpedfurther recognition of the impor-tance of stem cells in thetreatment of human disease. Asshe put it, she was interested in“everything involved in gettingfrom one generation to the next”.Both of these areas raise seriousethical issues, and Anne was aleading contributor to the debatesin the UK needed to developacceptable public policy regulat-ing them. Among her manyhonours, she was the first womanto hold office as vice-presidentand foreign secretary in the morethan 300-year-old Royal Society.

Anne was the daughter of HenryMcLaren, 2nd Baron Aberconway,and Christabel McNaughten. Thefamily had homes in London andBodnant, north Wales, and shegained a zoology degree at LadyMargaret Hall, Oxford. During

Anne Laura McLaren

26 April 1927 - 7 July 2007First published in The Guardian, 10 July 2007Reproduced with permission of The Guardian

postgraduate years at Oxford, sheworked under JBS Haldane, PeterMedawar and Kingsley Sanders,and in 1952 obtained her DPhil.

The topic of her thesis concernedmurine neurotropic viruses, whichshe studied under Sanders, and inthe same year that she obtainedher doctorate she married DonaldMichie. They then worked togeth-er at University College London(1952-55) and at the RoyalVeterinary College, London (1955-59). During this period they wereinterested in the nature versusnurture problem, studying theeffect of the maternal environ-ment in mice on the number oflumbar vertebrae.

This work led them to take aninterest in the technique ofembryo transfer and implantation,and in collaboration with me, inshowing it was possible to culturemouse embryos in a test tube andobtain live young after placingthem in the uterus of a surrogatemother. In 1959 Anne and Donaldwere divorced, although they bothmoved to Edinburgh. Annecontinued her work on mammali-an fertility, embryo transfertechniques, immunocontraceptionand the mixing of early embryosto form chimeras (organismsconsisting of two or more geneti-cally different kinds of tissue) at

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the Institute of Animal Genetics.Her book on chimeras, publishedin 1976, is a classic in the field.

In 1974 she became the directorof the Medical Research Councilmammalian development unit atUniversity College London. It wasthere that she developed herenduring interest in the develop-ment differentiation ofmammalian primordial germ cells.She wrote another classic book,this time on Germ Cells andSoma, in 1980. After retirementfrom the Medical ResearchCouncil in 1992, she becameprincipal research associate at theWelcome Trust/Cancer ResearchUK Gurdon Institute in Cam-bridge, a position she held at thetime of her death. During hercareer she was an author of morethan 300 papers.

Many of the areas in which Anneworked are associated withserious ethical issues. One of herprincipal contributions was as amember of the Warnock Commit-tee, which produced a whitepaper that played a major role inthe passage of the 1987 FamilyLaw Reform Act and the 1990Human Fertilisation and Embryol-ogy Act. The latter established theHuman Fertilisation and Embryol-ogy Authority, on which Anneserved for 10 years. More recentlyshe had been participating in thediscussions on the ethical issuesinvolved in developing embryonic

stem cells and the use of thera-peutic cloning.

Anne remained very informal,unpretentious and approachableeven after she had acquired awide international scientificreputation. Her visits to researchlaboratories were always popularwith even the shyest of graduatestudents and postdoctoralfellows. After willingly listening toa description of their researchprojects, she would quicklyidentify the salient problems andcome up with valuable sugges-tions. She always conveyed thefeeling that research is fun.

Her hospitality was renowned,and many visitors to Londonstayed in her house. She was anavid football fan, and when anyinternational match was ontelevision it was a waste of timetrying to talk to her.

Anne was also a great communi-cator. She became known as afascinating lecturer and had manyinvitations to speak at meetingsall over the world. Her thoughtswere always clearly presented inperfectly enunciated English, andshe was a “natural” on television.She interviewed the philosopherBertrand Russell with ease, and onanother occasion when sheexplained that she and I hadsuccessfully cultured mouseembryos in a test tube andproduced young after puttingthem into the uterus of surrogate

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mothers, she had a white mouserunning up and down her arm.

She was always concerned thatscience be explained simply butaccurately to the public. Frequent-ly she would come out with asuccinct statement such as:“When the embryo is outside thewoman’s body, genetics tells usthat father and mother have equalrights. When the embryo is insidethe body, physiology tells us thatthe woman’s right is paramount.”

Politically Anne was a liberal.During the early stages of the coldwar she and Donald kept in activecontact with scientists behind theiron curtain. For a while they werepenalised by being deniedentrance to the US. The barrierwas finally overcome when the USgovernment wanted her advice onseveral committees, including onerelating to Nasa.

Anne never felt she was discrimi-nated against as a woman,although she was aware of theproblem. In an interview inCambridge for the Association forWomen in Science and Engineer-ing (AWiSE), of which she waspresident, she said: “When I wasyoung I never thought of myselfas a woman scientist, just as ascientist, and as a woman. Therewas no statutory maternity leave,we just had children and got onwith things as best we could.”

She received innumerable hon-ours. In 1975 she was elected afellow of the Royal Society, in

1986 a fellow of the RoyalCollege of Obstetricians andGynaecologists, and in 1993 shewas made a DBE. She was alsopresident of the Society for theStudy of Fertility, president of theSociety of Developmental Biology,president of the British Associa-tion for the Advancement ofScience in 1993-94, and fellow ofKing’s College, Cambridge, from1992 to 1996. At the time of herdeath she was a member of theEuropean group on ethics thatadvises the European Commissionon the social and ethical implica-tions of new technologies.Among her many awards were theScientific Medal of the ZoologicalSociety of London (1967), thePioneer Award of the Internation-al Fertility Society (1988, withDonald Michie) and the RoyalMedal of the Royal Society (1990).

A symposium attended by closefriends and colleagues was held inCambridge in April on theoccasion of her 80th birthday. Shewas an inspiring colleague, andmy oldest, dearest friend.

Although her marriage to Donaldwas dissolved, they remainedgood friends, taking regularholidays with their children. Sheleaves her son Jonathan, twodaughters, Susan and Caroline,and stepson Chris from Donald’sfirst marriage.

Mary Warnock writes: I have neverenjoyed working with anyonemore than with Anne McLaren.

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For me and the other “lay”members of the committee ofinquiry set up by government in1982 to examine the then newtechnique of in vitro fertilisationand related questions, she was anindispensable teacher and guide.

She taught me what a truescientist should be: a combinationof vision and caution, of enthusi-asm and a strict demand forevidence. Above all, she hadpatience, not only with the slowprogress of scientific proof, butwith the ignorance of her pupils.She was also a model of goodsense, a rock in the increasinglyfraught atmosphere of thecommittee, as our differencesemerged, our sometimes irrational

fears escalated, and our deadlineapproached.

She described herself as an ethicalignoramus, and was sometimesamazed by the passions her workamong the pregnant mice seemedto arouse. But her judgment wasalways listened to with respect.

We continued to work closelytogether in the six years thatelapsed between the publicationof our report in 1984 and thelegislation that incorporated it. Inthose years she always seemed tofind time for us to address groupsof MPs, students or members oflocal women’s institutes. Ourdouble act was not only informa-tive, but always, for me, enormousfun.

Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren, DBE, FRS, FRCOG. DPhil(Oxon), HonDSc(Edin,Cantab,York). Born 26 April 1927. Elected FRSE 1971. Died July 72007

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Professor Donald Michie and hisformer wife Dame Anne McLaren,distinguished scientists in sepa-rate fields that overlapped at onepoint, have died together in a caraccident; Donald was 83.

He made contributions of crucialinternational significance in threedistinct fields of endeavour.During the second world war, hedeveloped code-breaking tech-niques which led to effectiveautomatic deciphering of Germanhigh-level ciphers. In the 1950s,he worked with Anne on pioneer-ing techniques which werefundamental in the developmentof in vitro fertilisation. Donaldsubsequently became one of thefounders of the field of artificialintelligence, an area to which hedevoted the remainder of hisacademic career. It was within thisfield that I came to know Donaldas an inspirational supervisor ofmy PhD at Edinburgh - not onlyinsightful, forceful and evenheroic, but possessing a wickedsense of humour.

Donald was born in Rangoon. Heattended Rugby school and wasawarded an open scholarship tostudy classics at Balliol College,Oxford, in 1942.

In 1943, inspired by his father todo “something unspecified but

Donald Michie

11 November 1923 – 7 July 2007First published in The Guardian 20 July 2007Reproduced with permission of The Guardian

romantic” behind enemy lines inChina, Donald attempted to enrolon a Japanese language coursefor intelligence officers. On arrivalat the School of Codes andCiphers in Bedford, he was toldthat the course was full, anddecided instead to take uptraining in cryptography. A fastlearner, he was soon recruited toBletchley Park in Buckingham-shire, and was assigned to the“Testery”, a section working onsolving the German high-levelteleprinter cipher, code-namedFish.

Owing to recent declassification, itis now clear how profoundlyimportant Donald’s wartimeresearch was. In April 1944 heinvented a technique for using theColossus computer, developed atBletchley, to automatically decodethe secondary wheel of theLorentz machine, which theGermans used for encoding Fish.

The innovation, tested by Donaldand Jack Good, endowed themachine with a degree of general-purpose programmability and ledto a radical last-minute enhance-ment in the construction ofColossus II. The results weredramatic. Texts which previouslyhad taken days to decipher couldnow be completed in hours,

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allowing repeated effectiveinterception of enemy attacks.

During this period at Bletchley,Donald held frequent lunchtimediscussions with Alan Turing onthe possibility of building compu-ter programs that would displayintelligence. Before the war,Turing had developed the mathe-matical basis for modern digitalcomputation, and was applyingthe principles he had developed inthe decoding efforts at Bletchley.Both Donald and Turing wereinterested in programmingcomputers to play chess, as well asdeveloping programs which couldlearn automatically from experi-ence.

Following the end of the war,Donald decided to take up hisoffer from Oxford. His wartimeexperience had diverted his formerinterest in classics into a passionto study science. Supported by aBalliol College war memorialstudentship, he received his MA inhuman anatomy and physiologyin 1949. During his subsequentDPhil degree at Oxford, Donaldput his boyhood hobby ofbreeding pet mice to work in aseries of genetic studies publishedin the journal Nature.

In Oxford, he married his fellowstudent Anne McLaren in 1952.The following year, he received hisDPhil in mammalian genetics andwent on to work with Anne ontechniques related to in vitrofertilisation, first at London

University and then at Edinburgh.Donald and Anne were divorcedin 1959.

While working at the departmentof surgical science in Edinburgh,Donald co-wrote one of the firstintroductory textbooks on thenew science of molecular biology.However, his heart and mind werealready elsewhere. From 1960, hisattention returned to his wartimediscussions with Turing, and inparticular the question of whethercomputers could be programmedto learn from experience.

For demonstration purposes, hedeveloped a noughts-and-crossesplaying machine called Menace,for which he developed a general-purpose learning algorithm calledBoxes. Since no computers werethen available to him, he hand-simulated the Boxes algorithm,using a device made from anassembly of matchboxes. By 1963,Donald had assembled a smallartificial-intelligence researchgroup at Hope Park Square inEdinburgh. With the support ofthe Edinburgh vice-chancellor, SirEdward Appleton, Donaldestablished the experimentalprogramming unit in 1965.

In 1966 he was joined in Edin-burgh by Richard Gregory andChristopher Longuet-Higgins,both interested in the develop-ment of a brain research institute.The following year, he wasappointed to a personal chair ofmachine intelligence and became

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the first director of the depart-ment of machine intelligence andperception.

The period up to 1973 is widelyperceived as one of the mostfertile in the history of artificialintelligence research, and itshistory is documented by thefrequently cited Machine Intelli-gence book series of whichDonald was editor.

His crowning achievement was thedevelopment, under a team heled, of Freddy II, the world’s firstdemonstration of a laboratoryrobot capable of using computervision feedback in assemblingcomplex objects from a heap ofparts. Unfortunately, a series ofevents conspired to bring thisperiod of rapid achievement to anend.

Disagreements concerning thepriorities of the field broke outbetween Donald, Longuet-Higginsand Gregory. At the same time,the growing economic crisis at thebeginning of the 1970s wascutting into the budget of theScience Research Council, whichwas starting to look for savings.

Sir James Lighthill, a well-knownBritish fluid dynamicist, wascommissioned by the ScienceResearch Council to analyse theprospects for the high-costrobotics project in Edinburgh. Theresulting report, published in1973, called a halt to artificialintelligence research in all but twoareas.

The robot program was discontin-ued with knock-on effects forsimilar research programs in theUS. The resulting dissolution ofDonald’s research group inEdinburgh left him isolated in theresearch unit. There he continuedhis research studies into computerchess and machine learning forthe remainder of the 1970s.

By the early 1980s, automatedassembly robots in Japan wereoutstripping traditional methodsof manufacturing in othercountries including the UK.Additionally, computer systemswhich imitated the decision-making of human experts werebecoming increasingly successful.As a consequence, governmentsin the UK, Europe and US resumedlarge-scale funding of artificial-intelligence projects in responseto the Japanese Fifth Generationproject.

In 1986, as head of the TuringTrust in Cambridge, Donaldfounded the Turing Institute inGlasgow, in honour of his formercolleague’s key contributions tothe field. Under Donald’s leader-ship, the institute conductedadvanced, industrially orientedresearch in machine learning,robotics and computer vision.

Following his retirement in theearly 1990s, he continued activelyin research on machine learningwith his third wife, Jean Hayes-Michie. They had married in 1971,

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but she died from cancer in 2002,after which he resumed hisfriendship with Anne. His firstmarriage, to Zena Davies, hadended in divorce in 1949.

Donald Michie, MA, DPhil, DSc(Oxon), HonDSc(NCAA, Salford, Aberd),HonDUniv(Stir). Born 11 November 1923. Elected FRSE 1969. Died July 72007

Donald is survived by his sonChris, from his first marriage, andby his daughters Susan andCaroline and son Jonathan fromhis marriage to Anne.

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That Bruce Millan, a DefenceMinister, Secretary of State forScotland and a well-regarded andeffective British Commissioner inBrussels, chose not to go to theHouse of Lords says a lot aboutthis modest, principled, intelligentand committed Labour politician.He preferred to return to Glasgow,where he had been one of thecity’s MPs.

He had a quality rare amongpoliticians – lack of rancour. AsSecretary of State for Scotlandfrom 1976-79 he was the ministertasked with getting the 1978-79Scotland Bill through the House.Doubtless exasperated by me, andother stalwarts of Labour’s VoteNo campaign, Millan might havebeen bitter and acerbic, but hemaintained his impeccablemanners and decent relationswith colleagues determined toscupper the devolution policy.

He was the son of David Millan, aroadsweeper, dustman, long-shoreman and caulker in theDundee shipyard, who enduredperiods of unemployment. Theeldest of three brothers, he wasbrought up in a two-roomtenement. He never forgot whathe owed to dedicated teachers athis primary school, Rockwell, andHarris Academy, and was deter-

Bruce Millan

5 October 1927 – 21 February 2013First published in The Independent, 27 February 2013


mined that teachers’ pay andconditions should be a govern-ment priority.

As war ended Millan trained inthe Royal Signals and was postedto Graz and Klagenfurt in Austria.As an EEC Commissioner herecalled that though he did notreally enjoy National Service histime in Austria had given himinsights into European culture.

When Millan was 24 Will Mar-shall, the canny andtalent-spotting Fife miners’ leader,recommended him to the WestRenfrewshire constituency tocontest the 1951 Election. Afterthe count, the victorious (andgenerous) Jack Mackay said hehad been impressed by his youngadversary, adding, “One day youmay well be Secretary of State forScotland.”

In 1950 Millan qualified as achartered accountant, and thanksto his good professional reputa-tion he was chosen to contest themarginal seat of GlasgowCraigton, losing narrowly to theScottish Office Minister of State JNixon Browne. He turned thetables in the most keenly contest-ed of the Scottish seats in 1959,by 19,649 votes to NixonBrowne’s 19,047. By 1964 he hada majority of 6,247.

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He was appointed ParliamentarySecretary at the Ministry ofDefence, with responsibility forthe RAF. In the autumn of 1965 aflight-sergeant whose family livedin my West Lothian constituencyfell into deep trouble at RAFGütersloh; it was typical of Millanthat on his next visit to BAOR hewent to Gütersloh to ascertain thefacts, and on his return, evercourteous, he confronted the AirMarshals, who acknowledged thatthey had been over-hasty inrubber-stamping the stationcommander’s decision.

In 1966 he was promoted toMinister of State at the ScottishOffice, enjoying excellent relationswith the Secretary of State, theformidable Willie Ross. In 1976,when Wilson dramatically re-signed, Ross went to theincoming James Callaghan andtold him, “Jim, if you appointDickson Mabon as my successor, Iwill make you sack me. If you optfor Bruce Millan, I will resign withtotal goodwill.” This was awk-ward, since Mabon had been oneof Callaghan key campaignmanagers. But Millan it was.

At the top of Millan’s intray wasthe thorny issue of Sundaydrinking. He was not a teetotaller,and said “I enjoy a whisky andother things, and I’m prepared tolisten to the opinions presentedto the Government about open-ing pubs on Sunday, but I’ll needa lot of convincing.” He wanted to

ensure that he was not going toincrease the danger to health andsocial conditions that excessivedrinking had already brought toScottish families.

One of Millan’s causes wasequality for women, but his mainpriorities were jobs and devolu-tion. He was a very private person,and I am not at all sure what werehis thoughts about a Scottishparliament; in every publicutterance he was loyal to Labourpolicy, and to the minister in day-to-day charge of the Scotland Bill,John Smith. The Scotsman inSeptember 1976 reported that hehad appealed to an internationalgathering of economists for helpin solving the “difficult problem”of financing a Scottish Assembly.The chartered accountant in himhad a clear inkling of the prob-lems of dismantling the UK taxregime, problems which rumbleon to the present day. After anSNP government was formed, Iasked, “Bruce, do you haveregrets?” He replied, “I’m dis-mayed, but not surprised – and Ithink, Tam, that you and I shouldleave it at that.”

The some-time PermanentSecretary at the Scottish Office, SirWilliam Kerr Fraser, told me, “TheCivil Service regarded Bruce Millanas a man of great integrity. We goton well, in circumstances whichwere not easy. Once he had said‘Yes’ or ‘No’ we knew that thatwas the firm decision. Civil

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servants value decisive ministers –but, unlike ministers nowadays,Millan had a crystal-clear andproper idea of the respective rolesof ministers and civil servants.”

In 1988, required to nominate aEuropean Commissioner from theLabour Party, Margaret Thatcherchose Millan. Sir Julian Priestley,Secretary General of the EuropeanParliament from 1997-2007, heldMillan in the highest regard. “Heinitiated the move from a tokenistapproach to supporting structuraldevelopment in the regions to aposition in which structuraldevelopment became a majorinstrument of economic develop-ment, particularly in new memberstates. Whatever the currentproblems of Spain and Portugal,just look at their roads, and othersuperb infrastructure. That is thelegacy of Bruce Millan.”

On retirement from the EC, Millanreturned to Glasgow, serving asConvenor of the charity Childrenin Scotland and as a member ofthe Board of the Scottish Associa-

tion of Mental Health, whose thenChair, Lady Marion Fraser, recalledhim as “immensely caring in aquiet way, immensely well-versedin the problems he was confront-ing, both on the human side andthe medical side.” He was theobvious choice in 1999 as chair ofa committee established toconduct a review of Scotland’smental health legislation. The“Millan Committee”, as it becameknown, recommended numerouschanges to legislation, practiceand procedures, proposing, forexample, to extend the definitionof “nearest relative”, This wasencapsulated in the Adults withIncapacity (Scotland) Bill, whichallowed couples in same-sexrelationships to act as legalguardians of partners whobecome incapacitated.

He married Gwen Fairey in 1953;their daughter Liz became a seniorsocial worker, while their sonMark became a research scientistin animal behaviour at Cam-bridge.

Tam Dalyell

Bruce Millan, HonLLD(Dund, Abert, Glas), HonDLitt(H-W), HonFellow(Pais),DUniv(Athens Panteios, Sheffield Hallam), PC, HonFRSE. Born 5 October1927. Elected Hon FRSE 1995. Died 21 February 2013.

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My first encounter with DesmondMisselbrook could not have beenmore inauspicious.

In 1972, I was the 10-year-old (inparliamentary terms) MP for WestLothian, representing two-fifths ofthe infant new town of Livingston.The Chairman of LivingstonDevelopment Corporation was asenior Glasgow councillor andsolicitor, Bill Taylor, appointed byWillie Ross, Harold Wilson’sSecretary of State for Scotland, in1965. Taylor was doing a goodjob, and, immersed in new townplans, wished to continue.Unexpectedly, the incomingConservative government declinedto reappoint Taylor, and put in hisstead Desmond Misselbrook,widely seen as a place man, and“one of their own”.

Alex Eadie, representing three-fifths of the new town, and Iexploded in public. We said thatthe actions of Gordon Campbell,as Edward Heath’s Secretary ofState, constituted politicalvengeance, and that Misselbrookwas a political appointee, singu-larly inappropriate, for a Labourex-shale-mining, coal-mining area.The hullabaloo dominated thepress north of the border forsome days.

Eadie and I met Misselbrook. Themeeting was unsurprisingly

Desmond Misselbrook

28 May 1913 – 5 March 2005First published in The Independent, 23 March 2005Reproduced with permission from The Independent

cryogenic on both sides. Yet, aswe began to work together,relations thawed, and withinmonths Eadie and I realised thatwe were dealing with a heavy-weight, who won our respect, andsoon our friendship.

If the new town of Livingston is asuccess today - and it is moresuccessful than most new towns -it owes much to the steely goodsense of Desmond Misselbrook,and his six years’ chairmanship.Not only did he build on thefoundations laid by Taylor, and hislong-term General Manager,Brigadier Arthur Purches, butthrough his American contacts heensured the expansion of firmsfrom across the Atlantic, the mostspectacular of which was theCameron Ironworks from Houstonin Texas, who built the biggestforge in Western Europe. Thiswas, in turn, one of the majorcontributors to the North Sea oiland gas industry, whose potentialMisselbrook was one of the firstto identify.

Desmond Misselbrook’s fatherwas a provision merchant inHampshire who sent Misselbrookto Chatham House, Ramsgate,and Bristol University, where hewon first class honours in Psychol-ogy. Throughout the SecondWorld War he was a civilian,

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responsible for the selection ofnaval officers and naval ratings forparticular tasks.

In 1945, at the instigation of theEdinburgh University Vice-Chancellor Sir Edward Appleton,the Nobel prizewinner who gavehis name to the RutherfordAppleton Laboratory, Misselbrook,along with his friend JamesDrever, later Vice-Chancellor ofDundee University, set up theApplied Psychology Unit atEdinburgh.

This was based on the idea of ateaching hospital and involved agreat deal of contact with indus-try, an accepted idea nowadaysbut then most unusual.

Misselbrook left Edinburghbecause he wanted pastures newand joined British-AmericanTobacco, where he came to beregarded as both “a mind- readerand a witch doctor”. He devel-oped a scheme for worldwideremuneration of BAT employeesso that there could be an easiertransfer of staff. He inaugurated

one of the first earnings- relatedpension schemes in a majorcompany. He set up BAT manage-ment training, which brought anethos of reason, order, andultimate success to those whopassed through. Misselbrook wasa man regarded in BAT as ofphenomenal physical stamina. Itwas said that there had to be twoteams of employees dealing withhim, one from 6pm to 10pm andanother from 10pm to 2am, whenhe would often end the eveningwith a cheerful “And just so thatwe can clear our minds, one moreMartini”.

In 1969 he made the decision toexchange life in the Englishstockbroker belt for that of aStrathtay country gentleman. Hewas an immensely successfulchairman of Anderson Strathclyde,1974-77, makers of heavyequipment for the coal industry,and of Seaforth Maritime, 1977-78, besides playing a key role asdeputy chairman of Standard Life.

Tam Dalyell

Bertram Desmond Misselbrook, CBE. BA(Brist), HonDSc(Edin). FBPsS. Born28 May 1913. Elected FRSE 1978. Died 5 March 2005

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Obituary Notices

J.M.Mitchison, invariably knownas Murdoch, had a long anddistinguished career in theUniversity of Edinburgh, begin-ning in 1953. He was born inLondon into a remarkable family.His father, Dick Mitchison, was aLabour shadow cabinet memberin the 60s. His mother Naomi, wasa distinguished writer and herbrother J.B.S.Haldane was one ofthe key founders of moderngenetics. Murdoch’s two brothersare also prominent biologists.

As a boy, he won a scholarship toWinchester which he enjoyed,describing most of the teaching asexcellent. This led to a scholarshipat Trinity College, Cambridge toread medicine. He finished hisTripos in 1941 but by that timewas sure that he didn’t want toproceed further with medicineeven before he was recruited intoOperational Research (OR) for theremainder of the war. OR incorpo-rated a number of bright youngscientists, some went to BletchleyPark, others were set to investigat-ing diverse projects of militaryconcern. Murdoch was involvedwith gunnery, the calculation ofrange tables, the armour platingof tanks and – as he related it -somewhat hilarious research intothe viscosity of mud. He ended thewar in northern Italy with the 8th

John Murdoch Mitchison

11 June 1922 – 17 March 2011

Army, one of his responsibilitiesbeing the daily production of‘Mud Reps’ to help with thedeployment of armoured vehicles.

On demobilization Murdochreturned to Cambridge to start aresearch career in the zoologydepartment. Cambridge at thattime was a hotbed of new ideasand approaches to biology. Thenew science of molecular biology,whose primary interest was thestructure and function of macro-molecules, was developing fast,stimulated by researchers withbackgrounds in physics andchemistry. Murdoch interactedwith several of these molecularbiologists but maintained his ownparticular interest in the biologyof cells. The range of techniquesavailable for the study of livingcells was quite limited at thattime, However Murdoch’s skillswith machinery and knowledge ofphysics led him, in collaborationwith Michael Swann, to build hisown apparatus for investigatingthe biophysical properties of cellmembranes. He was an excellentmicroscopist and their studies ondividing sea urchin eggs revealedmajor changes in membranestiffness during the first cleavagedivision after fertilization. This wasrelated to ideas about the mecha-nism of cleavage and in turn led

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to Murdoch’s interest in the celldivision cycle. This field, in whichhe became a world leader, was tooccupy him in one way or anotherfor the rest of his life.

During the 1950s Edinburghmade some important newappointments in biology.C.H.Waddington came to theChair of Genetics, followed byMichael Swann to Natural Historywho soon persuaded Murdoch tojoin him in 1953. He was joiningat a time of exciting new develop-ments in cell biology and in aUniversity which was itselfgrowing with a number of youngstaff. It was also a very friendlyplace which was well-suited toMurdoch and his wife Rosalind(Rowy) an economic historianwhose History of Scotland (1st

edn.1970) has been a landmark inthe field. The Mitchison family – 3daughters and a son - soonbecame important members ofthe University community andbeyond. They were generous andhospitable to a fault and ageneration of young lecturers andresearch workers gained muchfrom their friendship and support.

Murdoch rapidly picked up hisresearch programme in Edinburghwhere he was appointed to theresuscitated Chair of Zoology. Theimportance his research wasrecognized by election to theRoyal Society of Edinburgh in1966 and to the Royal Society ofLondon in 1978.

He began to study in detail theway in which cells grew – theirpattern of mass increase betweenone division and the next. Afterpreliminary studies with severalmicroorganisms, he settled onstudying the fission yeastSchizosaccharomyces pombe. Itscells were larger and easier tostudy than those of bacteria andhad another key advantage. Theygrow by linear extension anddivide by medial fission. Thismeant that any pattern by whichgrowth occurred could be simplymeasured by rate of lengthincrease. Correspondingly theposition of an individual cell inthe division cycle could bedetermined by a simple lengthmeasurement. Additionally, itallowed Murdoch and his long-term collaborator Jim Creanor tomake cultures of cells that dividedsynchronously by selecting smallcells from a growing populationand allowing them to grow on.This procedure enabled them tostudy how growth, the pattern ofmacromolecular synthesis andmetabolic activity changed duringthe cell cycle. In later studies itbecame important that the fissionyeast cells, unlike those ofbacteria, are those of a eukaryote,i.e. those with a nucleus andindividual chromosomes like allplants and animals. They thusoffer a good model for studies onadvanced organisms.

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Obituary Notices

Murdoch’s ideas about the cellcycle were presented comprehen-sively in his “Biology of the CellCycle” (1971) a hugely influentialbook which brought new interestto the field and influenced a greatdeal of subsequent research. Heproposed the idea of a “growthcycle” which was largely inde-pendent of the major events ofthe cell cycle such as DNA replica-tion and mitosis. He also raisedthe question of whether cell cycleprogress was determined by amaster timer or by a dependentsequence of events.

One chapter in the book wasabout the control of cell division,an interest shared by youngresearchers such as Paul Nurse,Kim Nasmyth and Peter Fanteswhen they joined his lab in thefirst half of the 1970s. Theelongation of S. pombe cellsduring the cell cycle had beenobserved to continue when itsprogress was blocked withinhibitors and this gave PaulNurse the idea of isolatingmutants conditionally defective incell cycle progress by searching forabnormally elongated cells. Afterleaving Murdoch’s group furtherprogress on the genetic control ofcell division led to Nurse’s NobelPrize in 2001.

Murdoch always led an excellentand friendly research group. Hewould spend long periods talkingin the lab and his infectiousenthusiasm added greatly to the

ideas that were developing aboutcell cycle control at the time. Hewas a generous lab head: in spiteof the time he spent in discussion,only rarely did he ask for his nameto be included on the author listof publications, because he felthis contribution was not enoughto warrant it.

All this active research life went onin parallel with the extensiveadministration as Head of a largeand growing zoology department.Nor was his active support ofresearch and teaching confined tohis own research area at thecellular end of biology. Under hisleadership the zoology depart-ment flourished in severalbranches of this very broad field.

Murdoch was involved withnumerous professional organiza-tions here and internationally. Heserved on the then ScienceResearch Council and was afounder Board member of theRoyal Commission on Pollution.

He played a significant part in theUniversity of Edinburgh’s adminis-tration at a time when academicsplayed a much bigger role thannow. He twice served on theUniversity Court, once during thatparticularly intriguing time whenGordon Brown then a student,having been elected as Rector,chose to exercise the Rector’sprerogative and chair the Court’smeetings. Murdoch enjoyed detailand for many years skillfullychaired the University’s Works and

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Buildings Committee concernedwith the development andmaintenance of the University’shuge and scattered estate. Heknew this estate well and wasconcerned with its environment aswell as its buildings. Havingalways been a devoted and highlyknowledgeable gardener, one ofhis master strokes was to per-suade the University to appoint a‘Superintendent of Grounds’. Hewatched over and discussedlandscapes and plantings with

John Murdoch Mitchison, MA, PhD, ScD(Cantab). FSB, FRS, MemAcadEuro.Born 11 June 1922. Elected FRSE 1966. Died 17 March 2011

that first Superintendent - GeoffBrooks - who, with the long lineof grounds staff who havefollowed since, have transformedthe environment especially ofKing’s Buildings, George Squareand the Pollock Halls. Their workcontributes enormously to thequality of life of all who work inthe University. For many of us thisis one recurring memorial to agreat colleague.

Aubrey Manning, Peter Fantes

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Obituary Notices

Rosalind Mitchison was a pioneer-ing social historian who openedup a new world of social mores inthe Scotland of the 18th and 19th

centuries. She can be called thefirst historian of “sinners” and ofthe poor in Scotland.

Most of her academic career wasspent at Edinburgh University,where her last post was asProfessor of Social History. One ofher students, the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer, Gordon Brown,remembers her “not just as agreat writer but as a great teachertoo – full of energy, ideas, inter-esting information andchallenging theories. History camealive in her presence.”

She was born Rosalind MaryWrong in Manchester in 1919,one of three talented daughtersof Edwin Wrong, a historian atOxford who died before Rosalindwas 10. He had followed in hisfather’s footsteps: George Wrongwas a distinguished Canadianhistorian. After Channing Schoolat Highgate, London, Rosalindwent to Lady Margaret Hall inOxford to read History, and in1943 became an assistant lecturerat Manchester University wherethe presiding genius was sir LewisNamier. She was to emphasise herdebt to Namier and those aroundhim throughout her life – from

Rosalind Mary Mitchison

11 April 1919 – 20 September 2002First published in The Independent 21 September 2002


him she learnt to concentrate onthe details of history.

In 1947 she married John Murdo-ch Mitchison – later Professor ofZoology at Edinburgh University –one of the enormously talentedscientific sons of Naomi Mitchisonand the Labour MP Dick Mitchisonand a nephew of J B S Haldane.Their relationship was deeplyclose and, curiously, as much thatof a brother and sister as man andwife. Rowy Mitchison not onlycreated a secure and intellectuallystimulating home, but raised fourchildren, all of whom havebecome prominent. I remembervividly the Monopoly set ofEdinburgh that they had devised,now something available commer-cially in the shops but back thenin the Sixties it had been meticu-lously drawn out with all the rightsocial implications of Morningsideand Gorgie on the board.

After Murdoch Mitchison wasappointed to a lecturership atEdinburgh in 1953, and the familymoved north of the border, Rowydeveloped an interest in Scottishhistory, starting part-time in theDepartment of Economic Historyunder Professor A J Youngson.Once her children had grown up,Mitchison began to produce aremarkable stream of publica-tions, beginning in 1952 with an

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original work called AgriculturalSir John: the life of Sir JohnSinclair of Ulbster. Eight years latershe wrote A History of Scotland: itopens with the instruction “Goand stand on the Castle Rock ofStirling and look about you. Thatis the quickest way to compre-hend the basic features that havedictated Scottish history”. Thebook remains one of the requiredtext books for undergraduatesserious about Scottish history: athird edition was published thisyear.

According to Professor Christo-pher Smout, Historiographer tothe Queen in Scotland,Mitchison’s contributions toScottish history “were outstand-ing, and a breath of fresh air”.

He says

“They ranged from political andeconomic history to biographyand very pioneering demographicand price history. But whatbecame her real passion was theexploration of the lives of ordinarypeople, seen through the KirkSession records, which led herinto studies of marriage and herlast, notable book on the PoorLaw.

Her much read History of Scotlandshowed her mastery of narrative inwhich everything came together.She will be long remembered forher common sense, humour anddepth of scholarship”.

Mitchison was always interestedin demographic change and herstudy, British Population ChangeSince 1860 (1977), establishedher as an important scholar. In1978 her Life in Scotland pro-duced a new perspective on thehistory of the poor. It was fol-lowed in 1983 by Lordship toPatronage: Scotland 1603-1745.

She had a passionate interest inthe position of women, andparticularly in their continued useof abilities and intellect within thefamily, combining independentthought with the old-fashionedvalues of nurturing the young. HerSexuality and Social Control 1660-1780, co-authored with LeahLeneman, was a classic – a revisededition appeared in 1998 as Sin inthe City.

In 1991 she produced Copingwith Destitution: poverty andrelief in Western Europe. Her workThe Old Poor Law in Scotland: theexperience of poverty, 1574-1845(2000) would have been remarka-ble scholarship of anybody, letalone an octogenarian.Mitchison’s strength was meticu-lous, Namier-like attention todetail; her achievement was muchnew important information on thesocial and economic life ofScotland.

My wife Kathleen and I first metRowy Mitchison in 1966, at thegolden wedding of her mother-and father-in-law. This was a greatclan gathering, one of several over

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Obituary Notices

the years where the Mitchisonsturned up in force. Rowy’s homein Dovecote Road in Edinburghwas the perfect setting, with itslovely drawing room, windows ateither end, looking out to abeautifully romantic garden. Rowyseemed a Mitchison as much byblood as by marriage.

Rosalind Mary Mitchison, MA(Oxon), HonDLitt. FRHistS, FRSE. Born 11 April1919. Elected FRSE 1994. Died 20 September 2002,

Our abiding memory of RowyMitchison is of walking theScottish hills, and of being therecipients of her incredible powersof observation of both the builtand the natural environment.

Tam Dalyell

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Alec Panchen died on 17January2013 in Newcastle upon Tyne, thecity in which he spent most of hisworking life.

Alec was born on 4 October 1930in the City of London. After hisearly education at the TrinitySchool of John Whitgift inCroydon, Surry, he became astudent at Selwyn College,University of Cambridge. Hegraduated in Zoology in 1953 andreceived his PhD in 1957 forresearch on an unusual temno-spondyl amphibian from thePermian of Tanzania, collected byhis supervisor Rex Parrington. Theprevious year Alec had beenappointed as a Demonstrator inthe Department of Zoology at thefuture University of Newcastleupon Tyne. He became Lecturer inVertebrate Zoology in 1960 andReader in 1972. Between1963-64Alec was a Senior FulbrightScholar and temporary AssistantProfessor of Zoology at OhioWesleyan University, Delaware,Ohio, and in 1980 he enjoyed asix month position as VisitingZoologist at Monash University,Melbourne, Australia. Afterretirement in 1993 he wasappointed to an Honorary VisitingProfessorship at the University ofSunderland.

Alec Leonard Panchen

4 October 1930 – 17 January 2013

Although Alec published his firstpaper in 1951 while still anundergraduate, it took him awhile to identify a research areathat he could make his ownfollowing his postgraduatestudies. Eventually he settled onthe collection of Coal Measuresamphibians in the HancockMuseum in Newcastle upon Tyne,which had been neglected sinceDMS Watson’s work in the 1920s.In 1964 Alec published the first ofa series of monographs in thePhilosophical Transactions of theRoyal Society of London, on theCarboniferous members of agroup of early tetrapods, theanthracosaurs, which at the timewere considered to be close to theorigin of amniotes. Using modernpreparatory techniques, mostnotably the industrial airbrasivemachine, Alec revealed anatomicaldetails never seen before, and inhis beautifully illustrated descrip-tions he set a bench mark that hisresearch students have sincestruggled to match.

Ironically, as Alec became theestablished authority on anthraco-saurs he began to doubt theirclose affinity to amniotes. He setout his concerns in his contribu-tion to the Parrington Festchriftpublished in 1972, and came verynear to suggesting that micro-

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Obituary Notices

saurs were as likely to be theclosest amphibian relatives ofamniotes as the anthracosaurs.Today, no one would be tooconcerned at such a proposal butat the time it was a major depar-ture from the established view,and his natural caution preventedhim from being so bold. Hereturned to the question ofamniote origins on numerousoccasions, and we wrote about ittogether first in 1988 and againin 1994. In recognition of hisoutstanding published work, Alecwas awarded an ScD by theUniversity of Cambridge. He waselected to this society in 1991 andin 1999 was elected an HonoraryLife Member of the Society ofVertebrate Palaeontology in theUnited States.

Alec was an enthusiastic fieldnaturalist who particularly enjoyedbird watching and collecting andphotographing butterflies.Between 1973 and 1978 heundertook field trips to Corsica,Kenya, Tanzania and Sarawak tostudy butterfly ecology, mimicryand clinal polymorphism. For anumber of years he ran a verysuccessful palaeontology fieldcourse for second year undergrad-uates based at the Leonard WillsField Centre in Somerset. As wellas collecting and identifyingfossils from the Triassic andJurassic rocks of the northSomerset coast, he introducedstudents to the rigour of ammo-

nite zonation at Watchet and thechallenges of finding fossils in thefissure fills in the Mendip Hills.Many of the final year undergrad-uate research projects Alecsupervised were based on materialcollected on the field course, mostnotably the fossils in the RhaeticBonebed which proved to be theapprentice piece for three of hislater PhD students.

Alec was an inspiring and enthusi-astic teacher. His lectures werealways thoroughly prepared,engaging and challenging. Aswell as his final year course onvertebrate evolution, he gavelectures on genetics, humanorigins and evolutionary theory,and in later years ran a seminarseries on the history and philoso-phy of natural science. Alec tooka keen interest in evolution anddevelopment and the latest pieceby Stephen J Gould in NaturalHistory was often the basis of ananimated discussion in thedepartmental ‘Tea Room’. Hecoupled this with a professionalinterest in the methods ofclassification and phylogenyreconstruction and he enjoyed thecut and thrust of the argumentduring the early days of ‘cladism’.Many of these intellectual themeswere combined in his bookClassification, evolution and thenature of biology published byCambridge University Press in1992.

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Alec was a modest man, quitereserved and naturally cautious,but unexpectedly he was preparedto take risks when selectingresearch students and appointingstaff. Fortunately, for all con-cerned, his judgement was alwayssound. Perhaps his boldestdecision was to give Stan Woodhis first job in palaeontology in1976, shortly after Stan haddiscovered tetrapods and othervertebrate fossils at the Dora opencast site near Cowdenbeath inScotland. They worked togetherfor three years and Stan wasalways the first to say that hewould not have gone on to makehis discoveries at Bearsden, EastKirkton and in the ScottishBorders had it not been for Alec’ssupport at the start of his collect-ing career. In all, Alec supervised10 PhD students, whose topicsranged from Palaeozoic fishes and

Carboniferous tetrapods tomarine reptiles and butterflygenetics. Most of us were able tocontribute to his Festchriftpublished in the ZoologicalJournal of the Linnean Society in1998. This includes a comprehen-sive synopsis of Alec’s career byAndrew and Angela Milner and acomplete bibliography of hispublications.

In a career spanning more than 40years Alec laid the modernfoundations of the study ofPalaeozoic tetrapods in the UKand supervised, supported andencouraged a new generation ofvertebrate palaeontologists at thestart of their careers.

This is an expanded version of anObituary published in 2013 in ThePalaeontological AssociationNewsletter Number 82.

Tim Smithson

Alec Leonard Panchen, MA, PhD, ScD(Cantab). FSB, FRSE. Born 30 October1930. Elected FRSE 1991. Died 17 January 2013

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Obituary Notices

Edward Patterson held the Chairof Mathematics in the Universityof Aberdeen for 30 years. Heestablished an internationalreputation through his research indifferential geometry, topologyand algebra and also throughthree text books which he wroteor co-authored.

As Head of the Department ofMathematics, he guided itsuccessfully through severaldifficult periods. He had a reputa-tion amongst the students asbeing tough, fair, but alwaysavailable and approachable. Hewill be remembered as a first classresearcher, teacher and adminis-trator and also for his untiringenergy and skill in the wide rangeof duties that he undertookEdward McWilliam Patterson wasborn on 30th July 1926 in Whitby,Yorkshire. His parents wereoriginally from Northern Ireland,his father, Samuel Patterson, apolice sergeant and his mother,Emily Wright, a school teacher. Hewent to Lady Lumley’s school inPickering and then, in the 1940s,won a scholarship to the Universi-ty of Leeds, where he completedboth his BSc and PhD degrees. InLeeds, he studied for his PhD indifferential geometry withProfessor Harold Ruse, FRSE andhis thesis; “Riemannian spaceswhich admit a recurrent tensor”,

Edward McWilliam Patterson

30 July 1926 – 5 April 2013

written in 1949, laid the founda-tions for his first research topic.He then spent the years 1949-1951 as a Demonstrator at theUniversity of Sheffield.

In August 1950, he married JoanMaddick, who was also fromYorkshire, in her home town ofGoole. Joan was also a mathema-tician, having graduated inmathematics from the Universityof Leeds. Edward and Joan thenmoved to the University of StAndrews, following Edwards’sappointment as a lecturer therefor the period 1951-56 and wherehe worked closely with ProfessorDan Rutherford, FRSE. It was in StAndrews that their only child,Christine, was born. She ispresently on the staff of theUniversity of Edinburgh. After thisspell at St Andrews, the familymoved back to the University ofLeeds for a further three yearswhere Edward held a lectureship.

Edward came to the University ofAberdeen in 1959 as a seniorlecturer and, in the same year, waselected Fellow of the Royal Societyof Edinburgh. In 1965, he becameProfessor of Mathematics inAberdeen. He succeeded ProfessorStanley Potter, FRSE as Head ofdepartment in Aberdeen at thebeginning of 1974 and, togetherwith Professor Potter, presidedover a time of significant expan-

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sion of the university and, inparticular, of the Department ofMathematics. He was to be Headof Department (in rotation withProfessor John Hubbuck, FRSE) onseveral occasions from then untilhis retirement in 1989. One of hisfirst duties was to organise themoving of the Department ofMathematics from two largeinterlinked houses (with their owncroquet lawn!) on the old King’sCollege quadrangle to the newlyconstructed Edward WrightBuilding, in 1975. Together withProfessor Hubbuck he was alsoinvolved in guiding the depart-ment (and the university) throughthe difficult times of the early1980s and in the merging of theseparate Departments of Mathe-matics and Statistics into thesingle Department of Mathemati-cal Sciences, in 1989.

Edward Patterson served the widerUniversity of Aberdeen loyally andenergetically, first in his capacity ofDean of Science from 1981-1984and then as a member of theUniversity Court from 1984-1988.He was also a faithful servant ofScottish mathematics, being Chairof The Scottish MathematicalCouncil from 1974-1980. Duringthis latter period, in 1976-77, hestarted the Scottish MathematicalChallenge competition (an annualmathematics competition forScottish school pupils) anddevoted much of his time toorganising and leading the Northsection of it from Aberdeen. It still

runs vigorously today. He alsoinitiated and contributed to theAberdeen series of Royal Institu-tion Mathematics Masterclasses.His efforts in each of thesedirections continued well into hisretirement. He was President ofthe Edinburgh MathematicalSociety from 1964-1965 andserved as a Councillor for TheRoyal Society of Edinburgh from1966-1968. He also served on theCouncil of The London Mathe-matical Society and was on theCouncil of the Institute of Mathe-matics and its Applications, actingas its Vice-President for 1973-1974 (He had previously beenelected a Fellow of the IMA in1964.) His untiring efforts in theearly 1980s were tragicallysaddened by the premature deathof his wife, in April 1981 after 30years of happy marriage, abereavement which he bore withgreat fortitude.

Edward’s mathematical researchwork started in the late 1940s andearly 1950s when, amongst otherthings, he studied the theory ofrecurrent tensor fields on mani-folds and their generalisations, inparticular the theory of Riccirecurrent spaces. This work, whichformed the basis of his PhD thesis,originated with Professor GeoffreyWalker, FRS, FRSE and Edward’sPhD supervisor, Ruse. While mostof Edward’s papers on this subjectwere as sole author, he also wroteat least one joint paper withWalker. This work still continues

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Obituary Notices

amongst the mathematics andphysics communities under severalguises, one of which is holonomytheory, and has found applicationto relativity theory and quantummechanics. [Indeed, Walker’s earlyideas contributed greatly to thetheory of plane waves in Einstein’stheory, and those of Ruse were ofimportance in classification theoryin general relativity.] Whilst in StAndrews in 1956, he publishedhis book, Topology, which wasone of the first of the modernbooks on this subject attemptingto make it intelligible to generalmathematicians. One of theproblems it had to overcome wasthe proliferation of conventionsthat existed in the early days oftopology. (To set this into histori-cal context, J.L.Kelley’s book,General Topology, was publishedin 1955.) Edward’s book wentthrough several editions andtranslations and has an impor-tance well beyond its modest 128pages.

His research then turned toalgebra and, in particular, ringtheory and Lie algebras and thesewere occupying his thoughtswhen he arrived in Aberdeen. Inthis period, he published thetextbook, Elementary AbstractAlgebra (1965), in collaborationwith Dan Rutherford, and also thebook, Vector Algebra (1968). In1963, he translated the book,Topological Spaces, by ClaudeBerge from the original French. Hefinally returned to manifold

theory, publishing more workeither alone or in collaborationwith Kentaro Yano.

The excellence of his work wasrecognised early on by the awardof the Makdougall-Brisbane prizeand medal by The Royal Society ofEdinburgh for particular distinc-tion in the promotion of scientificresearch, for the period 1960-1962. Apparently his wife Joan,on reading the Scotsman atbreakfast one morning, informedhim about this award, of which hewas blissfully unaware! He spent1973 as a Royal Society VisitingProfessor at the University ofMalaya and, at this university,together with universities in HongKong, Singapore, The West Indiesand in the UK, acted as externalexaminer.

Edward had a very good reputa-tion as a teacher, being a clearexpositor and a tough tutor whowas not to be trifled with. Heinsisted on the maintenance ofhigh standards and was alwaysavailable for consultation withstaff and students alike, devotingmany hours to such matters. Irecall him asking me to take overhis Junior Honours topologycourse in 1975 and discoveringthat it was, to say the least, non-trivial. He understood studentswell, from PhD students down to12 year old school pupils attend-ing Mathematical Challenge, andthey came to realise this and torespect him accordingly. If Edwardwas considered “formal” by some

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students, this was only by way ofcomparison with the large cohortof new staff members in mathe-matics, some twenty yearsyounger than him, who had beenrecently appointed (in the mid1970s) and who had long hairand wore jeans! Another, moreamusing, recollection that springsto mind was his invitation, to allmembers of staff, to a dinnerparty at his home one evening in1978 (for which the only politeresponse was to accept). Unfortu-nately, it clashed with a ratherimportant (televised) world cupfootball match involving Scotland.To our eternal credit, we turnedout in force to what was a mostenjoyable evening.

In September 1982, Edwardmarried Elizabeth Hunter, thelatter having made her ownsignificant contribution tomathematics in Aberdeen by herfaithful service to that departmentfor many years first as seniorsecretary and then as administra-tive assistant. Thus began asecond happy marriage, alsolasting more than 30 years.

Edward Patterson’s range ofinterests was large. He was a keenstudent of nature and, in particu-lar, of astronomy, meteorologyand ornithology, and painstaking-ly kept accurate rainfall figures for

Aberdeen for many years. (On oneoccasion, during the last war, alady in the village where he livedreported to the local policesergeant (who was Edward’sfather) that a young man dressedin a trenchcoat and armed with alarge gun had been spotted andwas possibly a dangerous Germanspy. It turned out to be Edwardwith his telescope!) He frequentlyattended my seminar on relativitytheory, his knowledge of differen-tial geometry adding much to thediscussion, and was especiallysupportive of my PhD students,postdocs and academic visitors.He had a love of music, was akeen pianist and enjoyed spend-ing time by the sea and walking inthe countryside. Through his loveof number theory, he had afascination for numbers, especial-ly, according to reliable authority,for vehicle registration plates!

Edward Patterson died peacefully,in Aberdeen, on 5 April 2013. Heis survived by his widow, Elizabeth,and daughter, Christine. His olderbrother, Professor DesmondPatterson, FRSE, predeceased himby one month.

The author acknowledges kindhelp from many sources and, inparticular, from Dr ChristineSinclair (nee Patterson) and MrsElizabeth Patterson.

Graham Hall

Professor Edward McWilliam Patterson, BSc , PhD, born 30th July 1926,elected FRSE 1959, died 5th April 2013.

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Henry Desmond Patterson, orDesmond as he preferred to beknown, was born on July 17th,1924, at Whitby, Yorkshire. Hisfather was a policeman whopreviously served in Newry,Ireland, but transferred to York-shire in the face of threats fromRepublican activists.

He was educated at grammarschools in Yorkshire and won ascholarship to study chemistry atthe University of Leeds, eventhough his main interest was inmathematics. He graduated whilethe Second World War was inprogress and because of histechnical training was steeredtowards a scientific role, initially inair pollution. He worked for a yearas Assistant Experimental Of.cer atthe Department of Scientific andIndustrial Research’s Fuel ResearchStation in Greenwich.

Coming across a book by SirRonald Fisher inspired him towrite to the great man enquiringabout a job at RothamstedExperimental Station. Fisher nolonger worked there at that timebut a reply came from Frank Yateswho interviewed him and offereda job. He joined the staff atRothamsted’s Statistics Depart-ment in 1947.

Henry Desmond Patterson

17 July 1924 – 12 March 2013First published by the Royal Statistical Society

Reproduced with permission from the Royal Statistical Society

Frank Yates’s management stylewas noted for being ‘light touch’,only insisting that papers whichleft the Department be vetted, andinvariably improved, by him.Desmond thrived under Yates’sleadership. He was encouraged tostudy for a Master of Sciencedegree in mathematics at theUniversity of Leeds and Yatesacted as his mentor more general-ly for many years.

Much of his work in this periodwas stimulated by problemsarising from the analysis of datafrom the long-term rotationexperiments at Rothamsted andWoburn. Also developed at thistime was his interest in the designof experiments with papers onchange-over designs wheresequences of treatments areapplied to experimental units.Some of this work was done incollaboration with H. L. Lucaswhile visiting the University ofNorth Carolina, Raleigh.

During this period he also madefundamental contributions to themathematical understand-ing ofcomplex surveys. Although in lateryears he did not develop that sideof his work as much as hisresearch on the design of experi-ments, his papers in the RoyalStatistical Society’s jour-nals on

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the efficient design of repeatedsurveys of the same populationare still regularly cited as funda-mental.

Desmond regarded his time atRothamsted as the happiestperiod of his career. It was whilethere that he met his future wife,Janet, and that his son, Mark, wasborn. However, in 1967, withYates retired as Head of Statisticsat Rothamsted, Desmond decidedhe needed to move on and hetook up a senior post at theAgricultural Research Council’sUnit of Statistics (ARCUS) in theUniversity of Edinburgh under itsdirector Professor David Finney.

Much of his early work in Edin-burgh was concerned with thetesting of new crop varieties. Hewas asked to help to co-ordinaterecommended list trials of newcrop varieties in Scotland. Subse-quently, the UK Ministry ofAgriculture invited him to extendthis work to statutory varietytesting in the whole of the UK.From 1973 to 1983 he wasChairman of aninter-departmental committee setup by the Plant Variety RightsOffice to reorganize the statisticsand computing of official .fieldtrials. He helped the Ministry toset up a new computing centre inCambridge and advised theNational Institute of AgriculturalBotany on statistical matters.

Introducing better varieties is oneof the most direct routes to

increasing crop yields world wide.By the 1970s improvements instatistical practices in varietytesting were sorely needed.Desmond worked with cropexperimenters to overcome thetechnical difficulties that wereimpeding the use of betterstatistical practices. He introduceda-lattice designs, which are a classof incomplete-block designswhich allows virtually any numberof varieties to be tested with asfew as two replicates, and in smallblock sizes which need not beequal. These major combinatorialadvances in design theory weresupported by some exceptionallytalented researchers from acrossthe world that he attracted towork at ARCUS. Desmond wasalways open to new mathematicalideas and brought to them hisinsight into how they might beused in practical application toscience.

Making full use of these improvedexperimental designs required thedevelopment of new methods foranalysing the results. In joint workwith Robin Thompson, then acolleague at ARCUS, a method forthe analysis of data from incom-plete-block designed experimentswith unequal block sizes wasintroduced. This became knownas residual maximum likelihoodand came to have far-reachingapplications in the analysis ofseries of variety trials and inanimal breeding, as well as moregenerally for the .fitting of linear

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Obituary Notices

mixed models. It pioneered theefficient estimation of variancecomponents long before theywere being used in applicationswhere they are now common, andit is thus recognized withinmultilevel modelling as one of thefoundations of that whole area.

One of the reasons for the successof this work was Desmond’s earlyrecognition of the importance ofdevelopments in modern comput-ing, and during his time at ARCUShe took advantage of the excellentcomputing infrastructure of theUniversity of Edinburgh to leadthe development of statisticalcomputing. Both the fundamentalmathematical work which heundertook and supervised andalso the applied work on thetesting of new varieties dependedon his enthusiasm for computingapplications long before theybecame part of the normalenvironment of research.

When David Finney retired in1984 Desmond took on the roleof Acting Director of ARCUS. Thefollowing year he steered the Unitthrough a review of its futurecommissioned by the Agriculturaland Food Research Council. Withhis strong encouragement thereview recommended the settingup of a new Scottish AgriculturalStatistics Service to encompassstaff of ARCUS and statisticians inother publicly funded agriculturalinstitutions in Scotland. The newunified statistics service becameoperational in April 1987 under

Rob Kempton’s director-ship. Thisunique statistical group continuesto thrive under its current name,Biomathematics and StatisticsScotland, and embodies much ofDesmond’s philosophy, encourag-ing scientists to greater use ofprofessional statistical expertiseand undertaking statisticalresearch inspired by, and focusedon solutions to, consultancyproblems.

Throughout his career, Desmond’scapacity to work with policymakers was a model to follow,bringing scientific expertise todeliberations involving scientistsof many specialisms, civil servantsand representatives of the farmingindustry. He contributed toevidence-based policy making inagriculture well before that termhad become the common par-lance.

Desmond published more than 60papers including two papers readto the Royal Statistical Society. Hewas appointed Honorary Professorat the University of Edinburgh andawarded a Doctorate of Sciencedegree from the University ofLeeds. In 1975 he was elected aFellow of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh. His brother, EdwardPatterson, Professor of Mathemat-ics at the University of Aberdeen,was also a Fellow. Among otherhonours received was the Silvicul-tural Prize of the Institute ofForesters in 1973.

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Desmond was a modest man whowas happiest solving problems inthe application of mathe-maticsand statistics. He had a deep loveof music and literature, and wasas content discussing a Brucknersymphony or the best choice ofwords in a well-turned sentenceas he was in analysing the algebra

Henry Desmond Patterson, MSc, DSc(Leeds), FIMA, CMath, FRSE. Born 17July 1924. Elected FRSE 1975. Died 12 March 2013.

of an intractable problem incombinatorics. For his researchstudents, and colleagues whoworked with him, he set highstandards, but his enthusiasm,sense of humour and, above all,his generosity, made him astimulating and inspirationalmentor.

Mike Talbot

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Obituary Notices

David Robins was born in Purley,Surrey, England and attendedPurley Grammar School. Theenthusiastic and eventful experi-mentation of one of theChemistry teachers attracted himtowards a career in Chemistry. Heobtained his BSc in Chemistryfrom the University of Exeter in1966 and stayed on there to carryout research on the biosynthesisof pyrrolizidine alkaloids for hisPhD work under the stimulatingsupervision of David Crout (nowEmeritus Professor at the Universi-ty of Warwick). He extended thisinterest in biosynthesis during atwo year stay from 1969–1971 atthe University of Pittsburgh, USA,studying vitamin K biosynthesiswith Professor Ronald Bentley.Following brief stays at theUniversities of Surrey and Read-ing, he was appointed a lecturerat the University of Glasgow in1974. David was awarded a DScby the University of Glasgow in1987, promoted to Professor ofBioorganic Chemistry in 1990 andelected a Fellow of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh in 1994. Hewas awarded the prestigious RSCFlintoff Medal in 1999 for hiscontributions to Natural ProductChemistry, in particular for hisresearch on the synthesis andbiosynthesis of pyrrolizidinealkaloids, a very productive area,

David John Robins

12 August 1945 – 21 November 2009

which resulted in many publica-tions and patents and which ledhim into the area of anticancerdrugs.

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are impor-tant natural products because oftheir widespread occurrence andtheir hepatotoxicity. The mosttoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloidscontain a 1,2-unsaturated necinediol as part of a macrocyclicdilactone as in dicrotaline. Davidstudied the synthesis and biosyn-thesis of these interesting andimportant alkaloids for manyyears. The highlight of his synthet-ic work was the development of ageneral method for the prepara-tion of the hepatotoxic1,2-unsaturated pyrrolizidinesystem of (±)-supinidine. This wasfollowed by the syntheses of sixoptically active pyrrolizidine bases(necines), from 4-hydroxyproline,and of the macrocyclic pyrrolizi-dine alkaloid, dicrotaline.

A major part of David’s workinvolved the identification of mostof the intermediates on thebiosynthetic pathway to a varietyof necines, particularly rosmarine-cine and retronecine from Seneciopleistocephalu and S. isatideusrespectively. Feeding experimentswere carried out with precursorslabelled with 3H, 13C, and 14C. Thekey step in the biosynthetic

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pathway is the combination oftwo molecules of putrescine toform homospermidine whichundergoes a series of furthertransformations to yield retrone-cine and related metabolites.David extended his studies toquinolizidine alkaloids which arefound in Lupinus species. Keyexperiments with precursorslabelled with 13C and 15N atadjacent positions demonstratedclearly that retronecine is formedfrom a precursor (homospermi-dine) with C2v symmetry, whereasthe biosynthesis of lupinine doesnot involve a symmetrical precur-sor of this type. 13C–15N labelledcadaverine was used to showwhich C–N bonds remain intact inthe biosynthesis of a range oftetracyclic quinolizidines.

The stereochemistry of many ofthe enzymic processes involved inthe biosynthesis of a number ofpyrrolizidine and quinolizidinealkaloids was established usingprecursors labelled stereospecifi-cally with deuterium incombination with 2H NMRspectroscopy. For many years withthe aid of his wife, Helen, thou-sands of plants were grown inevery available greenhouse and intheir garden for the numerousfeeding experiments whichneeded to be carried out during

the brief Scottish summer.Pyrrolizidine alkaloids exert theirtoxic effects by bifunctionalalkylation processes. This encour-aged David to design newbifunctional alkylating agents,based on nitrogen mustards, andto study their interactions withDNA (with Professor John Hartley,University College LondonMedical School). One compoundshowed ‘amazing’ alkylatingproperties, 10000 times better atcrosslinking DNA than the well-known anticancer drugchlorambucil. David’s final yearswere devoted to designing andsynthesising even more powerfulalkylating agents. This workresulted in the synthesis of somemetal complexes, based onnitrogen mustards, which wereinactive prodrugs in normal cells,but, in hypoxic cancer cells, werereduced to produce toxic com-pounds.

David was a stimulating friendand colleague who bore his finalillness with great fortitude. He willbe remembered with greataffection by his colleagues and hismany research students. He issurvived by his wife Helen, whocontributed enormously to hissuccess as a researcher, and by hisson and daughter..

Professor J D Connolly

Professor David J. Robins. BSc, PhD(Exe), DSc(Glas). FRSE, CChem, FRSC.Born 12 August 1945. Elected FRSE 1994. Died 21 November 2009

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Obituary Notices

David Sharp was born in Folke-stone, Kent on 8th October 1931.Although his young life wasdisrupted by evacuation fromFolkestone during World War 2,his early years were happy, secureand characterised by obviousacademic ability. He completedNational Service before going upto read Natural Sciences at SidneySussex College, University ofCambridge; he always maintainedthat his prior army service was anexcellent preparation for therigours of academic life. Aftercompletion of his first degree, heembarked on PhD researchsupervised by A (Alan) G Sharpe inthe area of complex ternaryfluorides, an interest that he wasto follow, together with otherlines of research within thechemistry of the element fluorine,for many years.

Following his PhD he was ap-pointed to an AssistantLectureship in the ChemistryDepartment at Imperial College,London. Inorganic Chemistrythere was undergoing somethingof a renaissance under theleadership of G Wilkinson andDavid became part of the process,developing his Cambridge workon complex fluorides, in particularfluoroborates and other weaklybasic anions, and in collaborationwith Wilkinson, exploring the use

David William Arthur Sharp

8 October 1931 – 25 March 2013

of perfluorocarbon ligands in d-block element organometallicchemistry. A highlight from theseyears is a substantial paper,appearing in 1959 and co-authored with R (Ray) D Peacock,which was an early attempt toapply simple symmetry considera-tions to the solid state infra-redspectra of fluorometallate anions.

In 1961 David Sharp was appoint-ed to a Senior Lectureship in theDepartment of Pure and AppliedChemistry at what was then theRoyal College of Science andTechnology, Glasgow. The Institu-tion became Strathclyde Universityin 1964; during the period 1961-68, David played a major role indeveloping Inorganic Chemistryresearch and teaching togetherwith the recently appointed Headof Department, P (Peter) L Pauson.His research group, which expand-ed rapidly, explored severaldifferent aspects of fluorinechemistry, the study of substitutedderivatives of phosphorus fluo-rides, initiated by his student G(George) W Fraser, being aparticular highlight. This periodsaw also a wide-ranging pro-gramme, co-directed by D(Donald) H Brown, focused on thespectroscopic properties of d-block coordination compoundsthat did not contain fluorine. Hiscontributions were recognised by

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rapid promotion firstly to Readerthen to a personal Chair. Outsideteaching and research, much timewas spent establishing his familyin a new location, wife Margaretand two young children, Matthewand Clair; a third child, Caroline,was born not very long after-wards. The more social aspects ofleading a large research groupwere not neglected. He waspunctilious in making sure thathis students were able to flourishand was particularly watchful inthe early days of those of us whohad come from London. Althoughhe did not lead social activities, hewas very supportive and liked tobe involved. A highlight was USIC(originally the University ofStrathclyde Inorganic Club),founded by his students in themid 60s in order to organise ayearly residential chemistrysymposium for students ofinorganic chemistry throughoutScotland. The programme wasbuilt around student presenta-tions of their researches but itincluded also golf and hill-walking activities. USIC continuesto the present day and is noworganised in rotation by all theScottish Universities (recognisingthe change with the title, Universi-ties of Scotland InorganicConference).

In 1968 he and his Group movedacross the City of Glasgow, whenhe was appointed as the firstoccupant of the Ramsay Chair ofChemistry. His research was

broadened still further by neworganometallic chemistry, continu-ing the interest in this area fromhis time at Imperial College andinitiated by his student, J (Jack)Davidson. The formation ofsubstituted derivatives of a varietyof non-metal fluorides wasexplored and a study of metalhexafluoride redox chemistry innon-aqueous acetonitrile (collabo-ration with J M Winfield) wasinitiated. The latter lead to anextensive physico-chemicalcollaborative programme with S(Sid) Brownstein (NRC Ottawa)and G (Graham) A Heath (Universi-ty of Stirling and later, Universityof Edinburgh) mapping thethermodynamic solution redoxpotentials of 2nd and 3rd row d-block hexafluorides in acetonitrile.This resulted in a landmarkpublication in 1983, in whichregular variations in oxidisingabilities from left to right across dblock hexafluorides were demon-strated; later, extensions of thework to analogous hexachloridesin methylene chloride appeared.

The cyclic voltammetry measure-ments required were complex – sowere the logistics! By this time inhis career, Sharp was heavilyinvolved in University administra-tion, during this period he servedtwo terms as Director of theChemical Laboratories (equivalentto head of Department); thesewere followed shortly afterwardsby a term as Dean of Science.Research was a spare time activity

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Obituary Notices

and any practical work was donein the evenings. The very reactivecomponents of the hexafluoro-metallate, acetonitrile solutionswere contained in separatedcompartments of all glass cyclicvoltammetry cells, sealed underhigh vacuum, then transported byDavid in his car to Stirling whereGraham Heath did the electro-chemical measurements. Laterwhen the procedures were wellestablished, David ceased to bedirectly involved in the practicalwork but he continued to directthe research overall.

David Sharp had always been anenthusiastic teacher and in thelate 70s and 80s, when he wasinvolved heavily in designing anddelivering undergraduate pro-grammes, he became increasinglyinvolved with curriculum designand the examination regime in thelater school years in Scotland. Hewas drawn into Pedagogicalresearch, with A (Alex) H John-stone and, inevitably becameinvolved in education-centredcommittee work, both in Edin-burgh and London. Nevertheless,he shouldered a full teaching loadand was appreciated in this roleby the undergraduate students.David’s lecturing was characterisedby his enthusiasm for InorganicChemistry; this was infectious; asa result he could inspire hisaudience. A recollection from astudent illustrates the impact thathe had on this person. He arrivedfor a 9 am lecture with a coffee

mug and a journal in his hands,saying ‘I was in the library justnow and found this paper’. Hethen incorporated the informationcontained in the paper into thelecture. He also enjoyed being inresearch laboratories. Postgradu-ate students who were working atthe weekend could receive a visitwith an instruction to be carefuland to telephone him on a regularbasis to let him know what washappening (and to ensure thatthey were still functioning safely!).He took particular care of thewelfare of PG students fromoverseas. Whenever he heard of astudent who was ill, he would goround to their house himself, orsend a trusted Research Assistant,to make sure that they were beinglooked after in what was, to them,a foreign country.

This interest in, and concern for,overseas postgraduates translateditself into a University-wideactivity. After the breakup of hisfirst marriage, he was asked by thethen Principal to become an‘ambassador at large’ for therecruitment of overseas studentsto Glasgow. He was translatedfrom the Ramsay Chair to aPersonal Chair and for theremainder of his service atGlasgow University travelled theworld to negotiate programmeswhereby students (undergraduateand postgraduate) would studyfor all or a part of their degree atGlasgow. Eventually these activi-ties were formalised as the Office

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for Overseas Programmes; he wasinvolved in these and relatedactivities for 22 years until hisretirement in 1999, at which pointhe was appointed an EmeritusProfessor.

Although in the latter part of hiscareer, David Sharp was notinvolved in day-to-day research,his interest in fluorine chemistryremained strong and was mani-fest in Editorship of the Journal ofFluorine Chemistry, an interna-tional journal which covers allaspect of fluorine chemistry. Heoccupied an Editor’s chair for 24years, retiring as a Regional Editorin 2001. David was a sympathetic,although rigorous Editor. Hisobject was, when possible, towork with the authors to improvea manuscript rather than simplyreject an inadequate account outof hand. Authors would receivetheir mss. annotated by the Editorin his (almost) unreadable script.He remained an enthusiasticattendee at fluorine symposia andspent much time during theseevents talking to current andprospective authors about theirwork. By these means he didmuch to raise the Journal’s profilein the fluorine community. Inaddition to his editorial contribu-tions to fluorine chemistry, he wasEditor for various volumes dealing

with Inorganic Chemistry ingeneral and, perhaps mostfamously, the Penguin Dictionaryof Chemistry; he was involvedwith this, firstly at Cambridge withA G Sharp, and his final editionappeared in 2003.

Elected to the Royal Society ofEdinburgh in 1967, David servedas a member of Council from1985-88.

After his formal retirement fromGlasgow University, David and hissecond wife, Mary, establishedtheir base entirely at a cottagenear Aberfoyle, rather thandividing their time betweenGlasgow and Aberfoyle, socontacts with chemistry and itscommunity were much reduced.Their pastimes were almostentirely rural; he became anenthusiastic bird watcher andspent much time walking in thelocality with Mary and her dogs.Sadly his mobility decreasedmarkedly during the last year ofhis life and he went downhillrapidly. He died peacefully in acare home during the night of25th March 2013. He is survived byhis second wife, Mary, the threechildren from his first marriageand three grandchildren, Rosie,Adam and Jamie.

John M Winfield

David William Arthur Sharp, MA, PhD(Cantab). Born 8 October 1931.Elected FRSE 1967. Died 25 March 2013

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The Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution announces with greatsorrow the death of John H. Steeleat his home in Falmouth, Mass.,on November 4, 2013, 11 daysbefore his 87th birthday.

John H. Steele was director of theWoods Hole OceanographicInstitution for 12 years and wasan intellectual leader of thenational and international oceanscience community. He was wellknown for his development ofquantitative approaches to thestudy of marine ecosystems,having played a key role increating major research programsthat contribute to our knowledgeof the ocean’s role in globalprocesses.

Of Dr Steele’s numerous anddiverse accomplishments, he wasmost proud of his role in thebroadening of biological ocea-nography from being essentially adescriptive science to a quantita-tive, mathematically baseddiscipline. The defining momentin his career came with thepublication, in 1974, of his book,The Structure of Marine Ecosys-tems, that spelled out hismathematical approach anddemonstrated its use with actualdata.

The tools that Dr Steele developedare central to such diverse enter-

John Hyslop Steele

15 November 1926 – 4 November 2013Originally published by The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

prises as fisheries managementand predicting the ocean’s role inmitigating anthropogenic climatechange.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, onNovember 15, 1926, Dr Steelebegan his career studying mathe-matics at University CollegeLondon at the early age of 16,where his professors had tocompete with incoming Germanrockets for the attention of theirstudents. Upon graduation in1946, he served in the Royal AirForce research establishment,doing research in aeronauticalmechanics. After his discharge, in1951, he answered an advertise-ment and found a position at theMarine Laboratory in Aberdeen,Scotland. This institution wascharged with fisheries manage-ment, but Dr Steele recognizedthat doing this properly requiredan understanding of the broaderocean environment. He wasawarded a Doctor of Sciencedegree from University College,London in 1963.

Dr Steele’s initial accomplishmentsinvolved studying currents in theoceans in collaboration with L.Valentine Worthington of the U.S.,who was measuring the flow ofdeep water from the NorwegianSea into the deep North Atlantic: acritical flux that helps govern

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Earth’s climate. Dr Steele’s interestquickly evolved toward under-standing the processes thatgovern lives of the microscopicplants and animals that are thebasis of all marine food webs. Heled sustained measurements atFladen Ground, in the North Sea,that allowed quantitative analysisof nutrient supplies, plant growthand animal production at a singlelocation. He used these measure-ments to develop and test themathematical quantificationdescribed in his 1974 book.

During his years at Aberdeen, DrSteele became involved with theidea of studying smaller systemsthat might embrace the processesof the broader ocean, but thatwere small enough to allow acomplete characterization of theecosystem. One approach to thisinvolved measurements in LochEwe, on the Scottish west coast; asecond, bolder approach involvedthe use of large, two-meter-opening, plastic bags calledmesocosms floating in the ocean.About this same time, Dr Steele’sinterests broadened to embracethe entire marine ecosystem.

The success of his efforts wasrecognized with many honors,including receiving the AlexanderAgassiz Medal from the U.S.National Academy of Sciences in1973 and his election to the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh in 1968, andRoyal Society in 1978.

During the 1950s, Dr Steelebegan his long-term relation withthe Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution in Massachusetts. Hisearliest success there, with CharlesYentsch, was an explanation ofpeculiar vertical distributions ofmicroscopic plants in the ocean.These are critical because they arethe base of the marine food web,playing a role similar to grass inprairie settings over land.

Dr Steele’s ties with Woods Holestrengthened over the years until,in 1977, he became the Institu-tion’s director, a position in whichhe served until 1989. He used thisplatform not only to enhance theInstitution’s international leader-ship, but to serve the interests ofthe broader oceanographiccommunity. Thus, he played acentral role in the development ofseveral international oceano-graphic projects that ultimatelydealt with the ocean’s role indefining Earth’s climate. Theseprojects incorporated oceancirculation, chemistry and biologi-cal activity.

Dr Steele never let his scientificresearch lapse, even when servingas director. Following his retire-ment as director, he returned to avery active research career thatcontinued until his death. He alsofound time to serve as a boardmember of several organizations,including the Bermuda BiologicalStation for Research (now theBermuda Institute of Ocean

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Sciences), the Exxon Corporationand the Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation.

Dr Steele and his wife, Evelyn,were justly famous for theirhospitality and generosity andshared a lifetime passion forboating and entertaining. Al-though U.S. citizens, the Steelesretained strong ties to Britain,

John Hyslop Steele, BSc, DSc(Lond), FRS, FRSE. Born 15 November 1926.Elected FRSE 1968. Died 4 November 2013

making visits to their cottage nearAberdeen, Scotland, and spend-ing time with their son Hugh (ofHenley-on-Thames, England),daughter-in-law, Jenny, andgrandsons Adam and Owen, whoalso spent their summers withthem in Woods Hole.

Submitted byMary Schumacher

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It was a discussion over coffeeforty years ago at the ImperialCancer Research Fund (ICRF)Laboratory in London. A group ofyoung researchers,deprecating theproductivity of a well knownbiologist, was quietly interruptedby the Fund’s director, MichaelStoker, who pointed out that theobject of their criticism had madetwo distinct contributions thathad both changed her field ofresearch. He added that, if any ofthe disparagers achieved thesame, they should consider theircareers a success. Stoker’s owncareer, which did much to placeBritain at the forefront of researchinto both virology and cancer,clearly attained this benchmark.

Michael Stoker, the son of amedical practitioner, had littleinitial enthusiasm for medicinebut decided to study it as the leastunattractive of the career optionssuggested by his father. He was,however, immediately stimulatedby the teaching he received inCambridge and he completed hisqualification at St Thomas’Hospital in 1942, amid theupheaval of the Second WorldWar. The global conflict, whichcaused dramatic changes in somany lives, saw Michael draftedinto the Royal Army MedicalCorps and posted to India in

Michael George Parke Stoker

4 July 1918 – 13 August 2013

1943. After a year of clinicalpractice he was assigned asMedical Officer to a Ghurkacolumn in Orde Wingate’sChindits and prepared to bedropped behind enemy lines inBurma, a highly dangerousoperation, fortunately cancelledbecause of the Japanese retreat.

With the Chindits disbanded,Michael pursued a developinginterest in laboratory medicine atthe Central Military PathologyLaboratory in Poona (modern dayPune). There he worked at theBase Typhus Research Unit,initially under the tutelage ofRonald Seaton from the LiverpoolSchool of Tropical Medicine. Heconsidered this introduction toresearch as the most formativeperiod of his career, his work ontyphus earning him a CambridgeMD and it was to Cambridge thathe returned after demobilisationin 1947, becoming a lecturer inthe Department of Pathology andFellow of Clare College.

There he initially continued hiswork on typhus-like diseases butswitched to examining Herpessimplex virus infections, aninterest that led him to contactcolleagues elsewhere in theUniversity who were working onthe emerging science of virology.These included electron micro-

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scopists at the Cavendish Labora-tory, where he also befriendedleading molecular biologists, suchas Perutz, Kendrew, Watson andCrick. Work on the viruses ofbacteria had made an importantcontribution to the “new biolo-gy” espoused by these pioneers,because in 1952 it confirmedDNA as the chemical determinantof inheritance, the year beforeCrick and Watson elucidatedDNA’s structure. Michael andothers appreciated that the recentdevelopment of techniques togrow viruses in cultured animalcells would enable the conceptsand quantitative methods ofbacterial virology to be applied toanimal viruses. As he learnedduring a 6 month stay in RenatoDulbecco’s Caltech laboratory in1958, infecting cell cultures withsome cancer causing viruses couldlead to changed cell behaviourand proliferation in a focalfashion that resembled cancerouschange. In 1959 he took theselessons to the University ofGlasgow, where he becameBritain’s first Professor of Virologyat the newly established Instituteof Virology and director of thecognate Medical Research CouncilVirology Unit.

Glasgow in the 1960s providedfertile soil for the flowering ofvirology. The Professor of Genet-ics, Guido Pontecorvo (Ponte) wasinternationally renowned for hisgenetic analysis of the fungus

Aspergillus, providing conceptsthat could be applied to thegenetics of animal cells, whilst cellbiology expertise was availablefrom John Paul and, later, AdamCurtis. At the Veterinary SchoolBill Jarrett led work on tumour-inducing viruses of cattle and, inthe middle of the decade, Bill andhis brother Os used the Instituteof Virology’s facilities to identifyand isolate the virus causing felineleukaemia, a finding with signifi-cant implications for thesubsequent discoveries of viralcauses for human cancers.

In this favourable environment,Michel Stoker, with his colleagueIan Macpherson, examined themechanisms by which tumourviruses transformed cells in cultureto the quasi-cancerous state thathad first been observed inDulbecco’s laboratory. A majorinitial advance was the derivationof a line of immortal cells thatwere otherwise normal in growthand behaviour. These cells couldbe grown in bulk (and were thusused to produce the first vaccineagainst foot and mouth diseasevirus) and they could also beconverted by tumour virusinfection to grow and behave liketumour cells. This reproduciblesystem was used by Michael,during the most productive phaseof his personal research career, toanalyse the nature of tumour cellsby contrasting these virallytransformed cells with their

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normal predecessors. Othercolleagues used these, and similarcell systems to pin down thegenetic basis for virus-inducedtransformation, reasoning that, ifcancers in general resulted fromstable genetic changes to the cellsof tumours, it would be difficultto find the affected genes amongthe many thousands in complexanimals. Some laboratory tumourviruses, in contrast, only containedenough genetic material for a fewgenes and, if one or more of thesewas responsible for cancer andcould be identified, the problemwas simplified. In the words ofone contemporary, it went “fromlooking for a needle in a haystackto looking at haystacks full ofneedles.” The research initiated byMichael and colleagues inGlasgow contributed greatly tothese ends.

The Glasgow years also revealedMichael’s talent as a scientificleader. The Institute of Virologywas very well resourced andcovered a wide range of expertise,from Donald Ritchie’s work onbacterial viruses to Morag Tim-bury’s clinical virology. Otherexperts recruited by Michaelincluded Peter Wildy, Kenny Fraser,Lionel Crawford and John Subak-Sharpe and all the above becameFellows of the RSE and achieveddistinction in other ways. TheInstitute rapidly became a majorinternational centre for virology,outstanding for its teaching and

research and attracting visitorsfrom all over the world. Notsurprisingly, Michael’s skills inspotting and leading talent werenoticed by ICRF (now the LondonResearch Institute of CancerResearch UK) and, in 1968, hebecame its Director of Research.

Michael was undaunted by takingthe reins of a laboratory that wasmore than five times the size ofthe Institute of Virology and inneed of new directions in itsresearch. He disbanded much ofICRF’s hierarchical structure andintroduced smaller interactive butpotentially competitive groups,many with interests allied to thosehe had initiated in Glasgow. IanMacpherson and Lionel Crawfordaccompanied him to London and,with new colleagues, the cell andmolecular biology of cancerbecame a major focus. In the nextdecade ICRF was among theleading laboratories in the worldto fulfil the promise of tumourviruses to be the key to revealingthe genetic basis of cancer. As inGlasgow, the research wasenhanced by eminent visitingworkers, two of whom, Paul Bergand Harold Varmus, would laterwin Nobel Prizes but, unlikeGlasgow, the greater resources ofICRF allowed Michael to augmentup-and-coming talent with thosealready at the top of their field.These included Renato Dulbecco,another Nobel laureate and theworld’s leading tumour virologist

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and John Cairns, former directorof the prestigious Cold SpringHarbor Laboratory, both of whomintroduced new areas of researchwhich further enhanced theFund’s international reputation.

Much of Michael Stoker’s personalsuccess could, however, beattributed to three close col-leagues on whom he relied daily.Perhaps the most significant wasBill House, who, as Chief Techni-cian, was responsible for theexcellent resources at the Instituteof Virology and then oversaw theexpansion and smooth running offacilities at ICRF, eventual becom-ing Assistant Director for ResearchServices under Michael’s successor,Walter Bodmer. Bill’s work ethichas been acknowledged as aninspiration by his son Stephen(the current Chief Constable ofPolice Scotland), whilst Michaelcredited Bill’s management skillswith allowing him to continuepersonal research. An eminentEuropean scientist, seekingMichael’s advice on how heshould lead a major laboratory,was told he “needed a BillHouse.”

John Tooze, former Deputy Editorof Nature, also eased the Direc-tor’s burden, keeping himinformed of developments inresearch and helping to monitorthe Fund’s output. With muchadministration thus devolved totrusted colleagues, Michael wasable to spend some time onlaboratory work and here he was

aided by his collaborator, JoyceTaylor-Papadimitriou. Togetherthey embarked on the difficulttask of culturing normal andmalignant cells from humanbreast and examining theirbehaviour, with particular empha-sis on how communicationbetween cells was altered incancer.

Michael later devoted more timeto this work by adopting what hecalled the “Pontecorvo solution”.Ponte, irked by the administrationand university politics associatedwith the Glasgow Chair inGenetics, had resigned at the ageof 61 to accompany Michael toICRF. There he worked in a verysmall laboratory, on his own butrelishing the intellectual joustingwith colleagues around him, anddeveloping techniques to fusetogether animal cells, an advancethat was seminal to progressingthe genetics of these cells.Michael shared Ponte’s belief thatscientists over the age of 60should cease to control, but notnecessarily cease to influence, thework of their colleagues and in1979 he too retired to a smalllaboratory. This was in theDepartment of Pathology inCambridge, where Michael’scareer had first developed andwhich was now headed by hisformer colleague, Peter Wildy. Isuspect Michael always regardedCambridge as his intellectualhome and there he continued tostudy normal and neoplastic

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breast cells until 1990. His finaldiscovery was of a moleculeproduced by some connectivetissue cells which he dubbed“scatter factor” because itinduced epithelial cells to breakcontact with one another anddisperse. This factor, shown to beidentical to the hepatocyte growthfactor found by others, is nowbeing tested for clinical applica-tions.

In many ways Michael Stoker’scharacter could appear paradoxi-cal. He was driven to succeed, yethe was a modest man, at pains togive credit to others where it wasdue. He was clearly excited aboutresearch but his emotionalresponses to triumph and tribula-tion seemed to range only frommoderate interest to mild annoy-ance and he seldom gave anopinion without pausing toconsider his words (a trait that,incidentally, did not flatter himwhen he appeared in a radio AnyQuestions programme, where thequick, if glib response would havebeen preferable). He was egalitari-an and tried to mix with his staffon a first name basis but soonrealised that, although graduatestudents might appreciate hiscompany over morning coffee inGlasgow, that was emphaticallynot the case for the cleaning staff.Importantly, he was adept at usingtact to achieve consensus but wasalso unwilling to dissemble,sometimes to the frustration ofthe public relations staff at ICRF.

At one press conference he wasasked the inevitable but almostunanswerable question on whencancer would be cured. He replied“Not in my lifetime, probably notin my children’s lifetime butperhaps in their children’s’lifetime.” It was a response that,so far, seems prescient but it wasnot the promise of imminentsuccess that the ICRF press officehoped for.

These qualities, however, madehim a leader among scientists andhe not only engendered loyaltyand enthusiasm in his staff butalso made lifelong friendshipswith eminent colleagues world-wide. This network served himwell in his role as Vice Presidentand Foreign Secretary of the RoyalSociety from 1976 to 1981. Histalents in this area were exempli-fied when he led a group ofcancer experts on a British Councilsponsored visit to Czechoslovakia(where he had several contacts) afew years after Russian troops in1968 crushed the Prague Spring.He managed to deal with govern-ment dignitaries in public andwith disaffected rank and fileacademics in private withoutoffending either group yet alsowithout comprising the integrityof his view on the situation in thatthen unhappy country. I amcertain that no other member ofour party could have achieved thisdifficult balancing act.

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Obituary Notices

In truth, much of Michael Stoker’slife was a balancing act, with theweight of demanding jobs beingoffset by the counterbalance of astable family life and, in particular,the support of his wife. Michaelmarried Veronica English in 1942but war parted them a year later,with Veronica pregnant andMichael did not meet his first sonuntil late 1946. By the time theymoved to Glasgow they had twodaughters and three sons and theUniversity initially housed thislarge family in a 28 room profes-sor’s house in The Square (nowUniversity offices). With far morespace than even they needed, asuperfluous room was used tobuild one of the earliest Mirrordinghies, sailing being a hobbythrough most of Michael’s life.They later moved to Helensburgh,inuring Michael to the daily trainjourneys which would also be afeature of his life in London andduring which he claimed to domuch of his writing. The acquisi-tion of a cottage on Lismoreprovided both the challenge ofrenovation and family holidaysand it remains in the family today.

For Veronica and the children thechallenges posed by Michael’scareer were frequent absencesinterspersed with the entertainingof eminent visitors, friends and

staff, all of this in a total of 14homes that the Stokers sharedduring 62 years of married life. Inlater years, what must have been aconsiderable burden for Veronicabecame more enjoyable. Michael’seminence was recognised in theaward of CBE in 1974, a knight-hood in 1980 and, in the sameyear, he was elected President ofClare Hall Cambridge (a founda-tion for senior scholars andFellows) a post he held for sevenyears. Veronica and Michael livedin the President’s residence and herecalled this as perhaps thehappiest period of their lives, bothof them enjoying the stimulatingcompany of the Fellowship.

Michael Stoker’s research career,like those of Ponte and thebiologist criticised by the youngresearchers at ICRF, recalls an erawhen original minds, working insmall groups, could producemajor insights. It was also a timewhen a researcher’s worth couldbe assessed over the long termrather than a three or five yearspan and we will not see thosetimes again. What will, however,remain timeless and essential arethe qualities of scientific judge-ment and leadership that are theother hallmark of Michael Stoker’slegacy.

John Wyke

Michael George Parke Stoker CBE, Kt, MA, MD(Cantab), FRS, FRCP,HonDSc(Glasgow). Born 4 July 1918. Elected FRSE 1960. Died 13 August2013.

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Both hard-headed businessmanand socially aware politician

FROM BEING a 14-year-old schoolleaver from Bellahouston Acade-my in Glasgow who had lost hisfather in France at the age of threein the First World War, to chair-manships of the ForestryCommission and the ScottishRailways Board and membershipof the international board ofMorgan Grenfell and House ofLords select committees, TomTaylor’s journey was one ofconstructive achievement. Havingto earn a living at 14, he becamean office boy in the Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Society, thenthe biggest commercial organisa-tion in Scotland; he was eventuallyto become its president.

When he was 20, in 1932, theSCWS, run by elders who reallycared about their junior employ-ees and their personal fulfilment,gave him a scholarship whichentitled him to spend a year inGermany on the eve of Hitler’scoming to power - and, crucially,to learn German.

He took an active part in theIndependent Labour Party, beingJimmy Maxton’s proverbial bagcarrier, and, at the age of 22, gothimself elected as a Glasgow CityCouncillor, fighting two parlia-mentary elections as an ILP

Thomas Johnston Taylor – Lord Taylor of Gryfe

27 April 1912 – 13 July 2001First published in The Independent, 17 July 2001


candidate subsequently, in thesecond of which, in Edinburgh in1942, he challenged the wartimeconsensus to allow the partywhich held the seat to choose asuccessor on the death of anincumbent, and was severelytrounced.

A contact with Fenner Brockwayled to a defining moment inTaylor’s life. Brockway, who wasSecretary of the IndependentLabour Party, recalled in March1938 that Taylor spoke Germanand knew Vienna. He pleadedwith him to go to Austria to assistthe illegal escape of a number ofpeople whose lives were threat-ened. Having lived in Germanyand witnessed the burning ofhomes and business premises ofJews and the beating up ofinnocent people in public bybrown-shirted storm trooperswielding their truncheons, Taylorneeded no convincing of thethreat which now faced Austrianopponents of the Germaninvaders.

His superiors in the SCWS weresomewhat surprised when theirclerk asked for his summer holidayin March to go to Austria butacquiesced, impressed by hisidealism. There followed meetingsin London with Brockway and inco-operation with exiles in Paris,

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Obituary Notices

plans were prepared. Forgedpassports with photographs andsignatures of the intendedescapees were provided andhidden in Taylor’s suitcase. He wasgiven a list of names and tele-phone numbers of contacts inVienna. He coded the information,having destroyed the numbers, bymarking certain pages in apaperback, which he carried.

At the German-Austrian border herealised how dangerous hissituation was. The train stopped -and the storm troopers ques-tioned all passengers andsearched some of the luggage. Hewas able to convince them that hewas a harmless British touristvisiting Vienna.

The intended escapees were well-known socialist activists whosetelephone numbers wouldcertainly be under the surveillanceof the Gestapo; his instructionswere to contact intermediarieswho had been alerted from Paris,were not suspect and wouldarrange a safe rendezvous. Themeetings took place in a pub orcafe with friends sitting at aneighbouring table to preventanyone overhearing the conversa-tion and to warn of any Gestaporaid. Taylor would recall thatwhenever possible he had to usepublic telephone kiosks.

His first contact was a youngAmerican couple who werestudying at the university. Thatworked well, but another was a

doctor with a consulting room inthe heart of Vienna. Taylor notedhis consulting hours and present-ed himself as a patient.Announcing that he had comefrom “mutual friends in Paris”, hewaited for him to make the nextmove. The doctor, however,looked at Taylor blankly and saidthat he had no friends in Paris. Heturned out to be a locum, thecontact doctor being off for theday. Contact with the Jewishdoctor to whom Taylor had beendirected was established two dayslater.

One difficulty Taylor encounteredwas convincing individuals thatthey should grasp the opportunityto escape. Some had families whowould be left behind. Others hadbecome accustomed to theinefficiency of the existingAustrian dictatorship and did notrealise the extent of the brutalityof the Nazi regime. It was notunknown under Dollfuss forsocialist sympathisers in the policeto warn you beforehand in theevent of any anticipated raid onyour house. Taylor had to warn hisfriends that under Hitler it wouldbe different.

After 10 days of nervous discus-sion and planning, eight refugeeswere on their way by separateroutes and on different days. Allthe main railway stations werebeing watched by the Gestapo inParis. Using an internationaltimetable Taylor made plans to

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avoid them. The journey to thefrontier would take several localtrains; to avoid suspicion, eachticket was purchased for arelatively short journey.

All missions were successfullycompleted. Taylor told me ofwalking in the sunshine on aSunday morning in Vienna, thebeauty of the place shattered bythe shouts of “Heil Hitler” andthe sharp crash of the jackbootsof storm troopers marching in agreat Nazi parade. As he made hisway out of town he caught aglimpse of Dr Goebbels in arestaurant.

The Second World War presenteda considerable dilemma for Taylor- he hated Hitlerism but at thesame time was associated with theILP, which had a long pacifisttradition. He registered as aconscientious objector but tookpart in relief work in Europe as amember of the United NationsRelief and Reconstruction Admin-istration (UNRRA), where he wasinvolved in the resettlement ofrefugees who wandered homelessin Europe in post-war reconstruc-tion.

During his spell with UNRRA, helived in the United States andobserved the changes that tookplace immediately after the war inmodern supermarket retailing. Onhis return to Scotland, he tried todirect the Co-Operative movementof which, in 1965, he was tobecome President, to anticipate

these dramatic changes. Unfortu-nately there was little responseand he resigned from the serviceof the Co-Operative Society.

In 1963, on the recommendationof Willie Ross, the ShadowSecretary of State for Scotland,Taylor was appointed by Sir AlecDouglas-Home as a ForestryCommissioner. The ForestryCommission had been institutedin 1919 to make good the timbershortages caused by the FirstWorld War, but over the 13 yearsin which Taylor was to serve -confirmed for a second term byHarold Wilson, anointed in 1970as Chairman by a Labour govern-ment, and re-anointed by TedHeath - came increasingly torecognise its recreational respon-sibilities.

Taylor worked at constructivebipartisan relations with politi-cians of different political hues.George Holmes, later to beDirector-General, but, in Taylor’stime, Research Director andHarvesting and MarketingCommissioner, recalls:

“Tom was an extraordinarycombination of a hard-headedbusinessman and a left -wing,socially aware, politician. Heworked well with my predecessoras Director-General, the effectiveAberdonian John Dickson, partlybecause he was a chairman whodid not fuss. He was a great guyto have at the helm.”

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An enthusiast for the develop-ment of wood processing inBritain, he was proud to visitalongside MPs the Wiggins TeapeCorpach development near FortWilliam. He had played a crucialpart in persuading Willie Ross,now the Scottish Secretary, andHarold Wilson to siphon offsignificant public funds to theproject, inaugurated in 1966. Hewas unapologetic in the 1980swhen Corpach ceased to producepulp, after being acquired byFinnish interests who preferred toproduce newsprint in Finland.

As Chairman he was a believer inpublic access, caravan sites, andforest cabins - though less excitedabout nature conservation. Hisfirst years of chairmanshipcoincided with reviews of govern-ment policy and much cost-benefit analysis. Policies had to betightened to provide returns oninvestment; and recreationfacilities were subject always tothe hot breath of the Treasury.Taylor has been criticised inretrospect for being too keen onwhat Marion Shoard in herseminal 1980 book The Theft ofthe Countryside called “theserried ranks of conifers” - aninsufficient sensitivity to theclaims of broad-leafed trees.

Much of his energy - it wasformidable and elastic - wasconsumed with managing theupheaval of 1974 in which theheadquarters of the Forestry

Commission was moved bygovernment diktat from Londonand Basingstoke to Edinburgh.Any such transfer is traumatic forkey staff with mortgages andchildren at secondary school.Taylor won justified plaudits forkindness and good sense at thisdifficult time for those whoworked in the senior echelons ofthe commission. He inspiredloyalty.

Taylor served 10 years, too, on theboard of British Rail, serving asChairman of the Scottish RailwaysBoard from 1971 to 1980, andbefore leaving warned theGovernment of the dangers oftheir proposed structure for theprivatised industry. He took a livelyinterest in Scottish industrial andcultural affairs. He was a memberof the Scottish Council forDevelopment and Industry, servedon the board of Scottish Televisionand was Vice-Chairman of theGlasgow Citizens Theatre. The last12 years of his business life werespent in the service of MorganGrenfell, the leading Londonmerchant bank; he was chairmanof Morgan Grenfell (Scotland) anda member of their internationalboard.

In the midst of all this activity hetook an active part in the House ofLords, to which he was sent, asLord Taylor of Gryfe, in 1968,concentrating on forestry, Scottishindustry and foreign affairs. In1977-79 he was one of the

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staunchest supporters of theLabour Vote No Campaign, whichscuppered Scottish devolution.However, by 1995 he hadchanged his mind and he told theHouse of Lords on 4 July:

A great deal has been said aboutpreserving the Union. The nobleViscount, Lord Weir, has painted apicture of decline and a slipperyslope towards independence. I tellthe House, that if we do notrespond to the wishes of theScottish people for an assembly,the descent into the demand forcomplete independence will growand will not diminish. The peopleof Scotland will feel that they havea right to their own assembly. Butif they are told that they cannothave it and that the Englishparliament has decided that they

cannot have it, the reaction will betowards more extreme demandsfor independence than areinvolved in the document whichLord Ewing (of Kirkford) asChairman of the Scottish Consti-tutional Convention hasproduced.

He left the Labour Party for theSDP in 1981 but returned in1990.

Tom Taylor believed in the silentform of worship of the Quakers,sharing a belief in pacifism withhis devoted wife Isobel, whoregularly worshipped with him atthe Friends Meeting House inGlasgow and subsequently in StAndrews.

Tam Dalyell

Thomas Johnston Taylor – Lord Taylor of Gryfe, LLD, DL. Born 27 April 1912.Elected FRSE 1977. Died 13 July 2001

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Obituary Notices

The rise of Nazism broughthorror, humiliation, death andtorture to so many free-thinkingpeople, to Jews and to otherminorities. There were somelucky ones, like the Weisskopffamily, Viennese medical intellec-tuals, who were able to escape,thanks to organisation such asthe University in Exile in NewYork.

Victor Weisskopf was born andbrought up in Austria in thespirit of German culture. He saidthat he considered his transferfrom Europe to the United Statesas an invaluable source ofintellectual enrichment. Thefamily’s forced emigration, inwhich they passed throughDenmark, France and Britain, wasan opening of a new world inmany senses “I often think,”wrote Weisskopf, “of hownarrow my thinking would havebeen had I lived as a German orAustrian professor all my life, as Ihad expected to do.” Doubtless,the same breadth of experienceenhanced Weisskopf’s physicistfriends, such as Enrico Fermi,Eugene Wigner, John vonNeumann, Edward Teller and LeoSzilard, whom Weisskopf dubbed“an intellectual bumblebee”.

Professor Victor Weisskopf

19 September 1908 – 21 April 2002First published by The Independent, April 25 2002


The high schools of Vienna (andBudapest) provided a superb,rigorous grounding. Weisskopfwas to write towards the end ofhis life:

High-school teaching is notappreciated as a great andimportant profession. In Europe,where I was raised, high-schoolteachers are called professors, andgiven their due recognition. Thedegree of social status theyachieve attracts bright students tothe profession.

His home university was Gottin-gen, where he gained his PHD in1931. A Rockefeller grant for ayear, to study at a place of hischoice, enabled him to divide histime between Copenhagen andCambridge “in order to learnfrom then two great men, NielsBohr and Paul A M Dirac”.Weisskopf says he profited greatlyfrom Bohr’s overwhelmingpersonality and way of thinkingand living. And, if he spent moretime in Copenhagen than inCambridge, it was that he wascourting Ellen Tvede, whom hemarried in 1934, and who was hissoul-mate and support for 55years. The Rockefeller $150 amonth was “undreamed of richesfor an average European”.

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Towards Dirac Weisskopf was lesswarm. “It was not easy to learnfrom him. He worked for himselfand did not have much contactwith other physicists or would-bephysicists.” But crucially, Weissko-pf became friends with anotherRockefeller student, RudolfPeierls, who introduced him torelativistic field theory – how tomake calculations with the Diracequation, a skill called “alpha-gymnastics”. Peierls also taughtWeisskopf something else – howto survive as assistant to his nextboss, the brilliant and mercurialWolfgang Pauli.

In May 1933 a letter came fromPauli asking Weisskopf to be hisassistant in Zurich, replacingHendrik Casimir, whom PaulEhrenfest, shortly before hissuicide, had called back to Leiden.(Casimir, when taking me roundhis laboratory and Philips ofEindhoven, said cheerfully that,for Pauli, Weisskopf was animprovement.)

For Weisskopf, what could bebetter for a young physicist thanto work with Pauli? It was thefulfilment of a dream. Weisskopf’sself-effacing wit is apparent in hisaccount of his first meeting withPauli:

I found out why Pauli took meinstead of (Hans) Bethe when Icame to Zurich to begin my dutiesin the fall of 1933. I knockedseveral times at the door of Pauli’soffice until I heard a faint “Come

in”. I saw Pauli at his desk at thefar end of the room and he said,“Wait, wait, I have to finish thiscalculation” (Erst muss ich fertigixen). So I waited several minutes.Then he said, “Who are you?” “Iam Weisskopf, you asked me tobe your assistant.” “Yes,” he said,“first I wanted to take Bethe, buthe works on solid state theory,which I don’t like, although Istarted it” This, then was thereason.

Pauli then gave me some problemto study – I have forgotten what itwas – and after a week he cameand asked me what I did. Ishowed him and he said, “Ishould have taken Bethe afterall.”

The numerous Pauli anecdotesperhaps give a distorted impres-sion of Pauli’s personality. ForWeisskopf he was an excessivelyhonest man, who disliked half-truths, or ideas that were notthought through. Pauli was theconscience of physics. Weisskopfonce remarked:

In Munich and Gottingen youlearned to calculate.. In Copenha-gen you learned to think. I mustsay that, in Zurich with Pauli, Ilearned both.

Weisskopf spent 1936 in Copen-hagen. Bohr interested him in theconcept of “complementarity”, todescribe situations in which thereare several mutually exclusiveapproaches to reality. Theyrepresent different aspects, one

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excluding the other, yet adding toour understanding of the phe-nomenon as a whole. Weisskopfgives the example of a Beethovensonata, which could be analysedphysically by studying the vibra-tions in the air; or, which could beanalysed physiologically andpsychologically by studying theprocess at work in the bran of thelistener. But there could beanother approach that gets closerto what we consider most relevantand essential in a Beethovensonata; dealing with the directand immediate impression of themusic. Weisskopf spent the 1930sas one of the midwives of theinfant science of quantummechanics – they key discovery forunderstanding the materialstructures we find around us, andthe properties of solids, liquidsand gases.

Partly on the pressing advice ofMrs Bohr, who was horrified atevents in Germany (an alarmedalready at the attitude of WernerHeisenberg and other Germanpupils), Weisskopf sought aposition in the US. After six yearsas Assistant Professor of Physics atthe University of Rochester, NewYork, in 1943 he was invited tojoin the Manhattan Project at LosAlamos as deputy head of thetheoretical physics division. Askedby Steven Marcus about motiva-tion, Weisskopf responded:

Let’s not forget that, even after theGermans were defeated, we werestill not sure the bomb would

work. There was still the possibili-ty that neutrons would beabsorbed too strongly to permit achain reaction, and we all hopedthat this would be the final result– that such a bomb would not bemade at all. That hop, of course,was quashed.

But then why did we go on?Maybe because it’s a human kindof drive: when you’re almostfinished with something you keepon going, until you finish. Therewere other reasons too: we weretold that the bomb would end thewar with Japan – which it did.Tens of thousands of lives werelost almost daily in the fire-raidson Japanese cities and an invasionof Japan would have cost millionsof lives on both sides. We alsobelieved that, if such a weaponwere possible, it would eventuallybe built by somebody else, andtherefore let us better develop ithere because we had such greatconfidence in the United States.But perhaps we were naïve: manyof us thought the weapon was soterrifying that it would have to be“internationalise”, that it wouldcompel all nations to get together.

We proposed an internationaladministration, and we thoughtthat surely the Soviets wouldparticipate because it was thesame threat to them as to us. Butpeople who knew Stalin and theSoviet spirit at that time certainlycould have told us that the Sovietswould never have accepted sucharrangements.

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For the rest of his life, Weisskopfwas almost obsessed with theneed to avoid the use of nuclearweapons and became a stalwartof the Pugwash movement, anexample of the ability of scientiststo appreciate sensitive questionswith greater ease and less dangerof misunderstanding, because ofthe supranational nature ofscience.

It was on the basis of his perform-ance as a team operator andleader that he was chosen for theMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology, then the mostprestigious science school in theUnited States, and later, in 1961,as Director of CERN (ConseilEuropeen de Recherches Nucle-aires).

When I mentioned to PatrickBlackett, to whom Harold Wilsonhad assigned me as a young MP,in 1963, that the Director of CERNhad invited me to Geneva, thefuture President of the RoyalSociety, and Rector of ImperialCollege London said, “Go. It isimportant you see CERN. And, it ismore important for you that youtake the opportunity to get toknow Weisskopf. He is one of themost interesting men in theworld” And so it proved.

Weisskopf warmed to me, partlyon account of a letter fromBlackett, but also because my wifeand I, having visited Abu Simbel,the oldest site in the world, hadcome to CERN for the second half

of our honeymoon to see the“newest thing” in the world.“Thirty years ago,” Weisskopfbeamed, “I went to Bohr’slaboratory on honeymoon!”

Weisskopf’s qualities as a teamleader were acknowledged byeveryone we met at Cern, from theChief Engineer, John Adams, toPhD physicists. This was partlybecause they knew that Weissko-pf’s contributions to physics werelegion. In addition to importantbokos such as Theoretical NuclearPhysics (1952), Weisskopf hadpublished hundreds of scientificarticles on theoretical physicscovering a diverse range of fields:elementary particle theory, nuclearphenomena, quantum dynamicsand electro-dynamics. Thefoundations which Weisskopfhelped to lay, CERN staff knew,supported all the research theydid on the forces of the inter-change of virtual particles. Andthey respected him for it.

Weisskopf was one of the physi-cists who helped bring CERNabout. It was run by 13 Europeannations, yet under its roof scien-tists of the whole worldcollaborate, irrespective ofpolitical differences. Americans,Russians, Chinese and Britonsworked together on the sameexperiment. Weisskopf identifieda strong urge among physicists toestablish better bonds and abetter understanding between thepolitically divided parts of human-

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kind. He thought that to someextent this came from a feeling ofguilt; that some of the greatinsights of their research hadbeen exploited to serve as weap-ons of annihilation and as a threatto the future of humankind. Hesaw CERN not only as a worldleader in particle physics, but asan ideological bridge.

On many issues, he was a manbefore his time. Even in 1964, onhearing that I had five workingcoal-mines in my constituency, heshook his head and asked what Iproposed to do about the CO2problem? The great advantage ofnuclear power was the alleviationof the CO2 problem. Nuclearwaste? “I worry, I worry. But atleast, some solutions are possible.The CO2 problem is not compara-ble; if you burn coal, you cannotavoid making CO2.”

Honours flowed to VictorWeisskopf. Chairman of the HighEnergy Physics Panel of the AtomicEnergy Commission, President of

the American Academy of Artsand Sciences. Honorary degreesand prizes galore. But I doubt verymuch if they meant that much tohim. The last time I saw him hewas pitifully concerned thatyounger people would not thinkill of his circle for having un-leashed the possibility of nuclearweapons.

Under Niels Bohr, then in hisforties, we were a tight-knit littlegroup of enthusiastic youngspirits well aware of being in thefront line of knowledge, ofshedding light on a previouslymurky and contradictory situation,in the structure of atoms, and thebehaviour of matter. Never beforehad so few contributed so muchinsight into the workings ofnature in such a short time.

Victor Weisskopf was a pivotalmember of those few. “Viki”, ashe was known to the world ofphysicists was one of the trulygreats.

Tam Dalyell

Victor Frederick Weisskopf. Born 19 September 1908. Elected FRSE 1963.Died 21 April 2002.

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“It was on a Korean hillside on adark, dank, cold night in 1951that I really came of age,” record-ed George Younger:

I realised that my platoon of Jocksof the Argyll and SutherlandHighlanders was in a perilousposition, and that I as a 19-year-old was responsible for their lives,as well as my own. Somehow wewere lucky. The Korean andChinese force did not locate us,and we survived. After that, I sawlife in perspective.

George Younger was to becomeSecretary of State for Scotland,Defence Secretary, Lord HighCommissioner to the GeneralAssembly of the Church ofScotland, an Honorary Fellow ofNew College, Oxford, Warden ofWinchester College, chairman ofthe Royal Bank of Scotland and,by personal choice of the Queen,a Knight of the Thistle. To no Scotof recent years have accrued somany honours; and no one carriedhonours with such good-humourand self-deprecating charm.

The first Viscount Younger ofLeckie, also George, left college atthe age of 17 on his father’s deathto run the family brewery. He wasPresident of the Scottish Conserv-ative and Unionist Association in1904, a position his great-

George Kenneth Hotson Younger - Viscount Younger of Leckie

22 September 1931 – 26 January 2003First published in The Independent, January 27, 2003

Reproduced with permission of The Independent

grandson was to occupy in thelatter years of the 20th century.The first Viscount was also, from1906 to 1922, Member ofParliament for Ayr Burghs, a seatwhich (as Ayr) his great-grandsonwas to hold from 1964 to 1992.

George Younger senior wascentral in the breaking up of theLloyd George coalition govern-ment and replacing it with theConservative governments ofBonar Law and Baldwin: he wasTreasurer of the Conservative Partyfrom 1923 to 1929, being createda viscount in 1923. Wags couldnot resist comparisons: the firstViscount Younger had beenresponsible for the departure ofLloyd George - as MargaretThatcher’s campaign manager in1990 the fourth Viscount wasblamed by many for beinginsufficiently zealous in the eventsthat led to her demise as PrimeMinister.

The second Viscount Younger,James, worked in the familybrewery at Alloa, fought atGallipoli, was severely woundedon the Somme and won the DSO.He had two sons, one of whomwas George Younger’s father,Edward, distinguished in thepublic life of Scotland, while thesecond, Kenneth, went off in a

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Obituary Notices

completely different direction.Born two years after the familymoved into the Leckie estate inStirlingshire, Kenneth followedthe family precedent by going toWinchester and New College,Oxford, but then joined theLabour Party. He was Labour MPfor Grimsby, and later the Directorof the Royal Institute of Interna-tional Affairs at Chatham Housebefore his death in 1976.

George Kenneth Hotson Youngerwas born at Leckie in 1931. AfterCargilfield, where he was headboy, he went to Winchester. Noneof the honours which were laterto come his way gave him suchpleasure as being Warden ofWinchester. After National Servicein Germany and Korea with theArgyll and Sutherland Highland-ers, he went up to New College,where he read Modern History.Joining the family firm of GeorgeYounger and Company, part ofBass, he rose to be a senior salesmanager - following the traditionof his great-great-great-uncleWilliam McEwan, who combined acareer as a politician with that ofsuccessful brewer (best remem-bered for Mc Ewan’s Export). Asthe Edinburgh University PublicOrator put it at the degreeceremony for Younger’s doctoratehonoris causa in 1992,

There was not for this son animmediate short cut to theboardroom. Instead he workedthrough the company in a rangeof roles from labourer to sales

manager for Glasgow. He played asignificant part not only inbrightening up the design of itscanned beers but also in thedramatic reorganisation ofScottish brewing which firstbrought together several ofcentral Scotland’s brewers intoUnited Caledonian Breweries andthen merged them with Tennantsto form Tennant CaledonianBreweries Ltd, of which GeorgeYounger was a director from 1977to 1979.

At the age of 28, in 1959, hestood for Parliament in the Labourseat of North Lanarkshire. Con-servatives in the House ofCommons heard from MargaretHerbison, who defeated him by21,152 votes to 14,883, what anexcellent Tory candidate he hadbeen. More than any of hispolitical colleagues he was at easewith the Scottish working class ingeneral and the mineworkers inparticular. The praises of Herbisoncontributed to his being chosenfor the blue-chip Tory seat of Perthand Kinross in succession toGilmour Leburn, a Scottish juniorminister who had announced hisretirement.

However, Leburn’s sudden deathin 1963 coincided with thedramatic Conservative leadershipcrisis in which the 14th Earl ofHome emerged as Prime Minister.Younger as adopted candidate,without prompting, offered hissafe seat to the Prime Minister, anact of greatest good sense which

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the Conservative Party was neverto forget. “After that,” saidGordon Campbell (later LordCampbell of Croy), “we simplyhad to find him a seat.” Campbellwas Scottish Conservative whip atthe time, and as Secretary of Statefrom 1970 to 1974 was to chooseYounger to be a junior minister inthe Scottish Office.

Sure enough, the first availableConservative seat, that of Ayr, washanded to Younger. I spent aweek canvassing for the Labourcandidate, Alex Eadie. Labour wasconfident of winning, but on an83 per cent turnout Younger heldthe seat by 20,047 to 18,346 - amajority of 1,701. Few if anyConservative candidates otherthan Younger could have won.And I am absolutely sure that on85.3 per cent turnout only he in1966 could have beaten by19,988 votes to 19,504 CharlieO’Halloran, later to be convenorof Strathclyde Regional Council.

He held on to Ayr against asuccession of excellent Labourcandidates: in 1970 he beat JimCraigen, later to be MP forMaryhill, by 4,450 votes; inFebruary 1964 Jean McFadden,later to be Labour leader inGlasgow, by 5,098 votes; and inOctober 1974 Richard Stewart by3,219. In 1987 his majority wasreduced to 182, with Youngergetting 20,942 to Labour’s20,760 (with the Liberals, 7,859,and SNP, 3,548).

These tiny majorities sharpenedhis political antenna as to whatmattered for Scottish opinion and,later, contributed to his influencein Cabinet. Patrick Jenkin, hiscolleague and member of Con-servative cabinets, remembershow Younger handled MargaretThatcher with considerable skilland was adept at confronting hisfellow cabinet ministers with thedire things that would overtakethe party in Scotland, at the handsof the SNP in particular, if moneywas not found for the ScottishOffice.

In 1964 an injection of new blood- Alick Buchanan-Smith, TeddyTaylor, Hector Monro, NicholasFairbairn and George Younger -made for a lively opposition.Younger stood out because of hisability gently to tease the formida-ble Willie Ross, Wilson’s ScottishSecretary who lived in Younger’sAyr constituency. The grudgingrespect of Ross marked outYounger for the most importantof the Under-Secretaries’ jobs inthe Scottish Office, that ofEconomic Development, when theHeath government came to powerin 1970.

Taylor remembers working withYounger in the Scottish Office as“a real delight” because,

George always appeared to berelaxed, and practical, andestablished a record for solvingproblems. In the dark and dismaldays when the Scottish Conserva-

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Obituary Notices

tives were beginning to tearthemselves apart over issues likedevolution and the EuropeanUnion, George displayed greatintegrity and understanding of allsides in the conflict and tried tobring them together. I have alwayshad a feeling that, if he had beengiven the task of dealing withNorthern Ireland, we might havemade real progress in resolvingthe problems there.

One other controversy helpedYounger enormously. In a debateon the future for Scottish regi-ments on 15 July 1968 I arguedthe case for the Scots Greys, andopined of their performance atCrater in Aden that the Argylls’commanding officer had diso-beyed orders. Younger interruptedme in genuine anger saying that Ihad made a scandalous allega-tion. The Scottish press had a fieldday. It culminated in the rowabout “Mad Mitch”, who as Lt-Col Colin Mitchell was later tobecome the Conservative Memberof Parliament for West Aberdeen-shire. The row hugely enhancedYounger’s reputation with thepublic in general and his ownparty in particular.

As development minister underthe Secretary of State, GordonCampbell, he handled theindustrial problems of the early1970s as well as any Conservativeminister could have done and inparticular, according to Sir RussellHillhouse, Principal Finance Officerand later Permanent Secretary at

the Scottish Office, persuadedHeath to give money to the upperClyde.

In the period between Januaryand March 1974 Younger becameMinister of State for Defence.After the fall of the Heath govern-ment he spoke from the frontbench and thought that, havingmade himself acceptable toThatcher as Shadow DefenceSecretary, that he would havebeen given the job when shecame to office in 1979. Howeverthe job went to John Nott, notbecause Thatcher thought thatYounger had been close to Heathand even closer to Willie Whitel-aw, but because Teddy Taylor hadlost his seat in Glasgow Cathcartand she didn’t care for thedevolutionary views of GeorgeYounger’s contemporary andfriend Alick Buchanan-Smith, andthought that Younger was moreto her taste as Scottish Secretary.

The job of Secretary of State forScotland was beset by problems:the motor industry at Bathgateand Linwood, the aluminiumsmelter at Invergordon, the pulp-mill project at Fort William andmany others. I confess that at thetime, I thought that Younger hadnot been as active in the preserva-tion of British Leyland at Bathgateas he might have been. Years later,having talked to motor-industrypeople in retrospect, I’m of theopinion that he did as much asany politician could have done to

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keep in being the motor industryin Scotland. It is certainly the casethat he did as much as any mancould have done to preserve thesteel industry at Ravenscraig, inwhich he was temporarily success-ful, and at Gartcosh, where hewas unsuccessful.

Towards the end of his period asthe longest-serving ever ScottishSecretary he found the hot potatoof rating revaluation on his plate.With some misgivings he acceptedthat the solution to what was apolitically insoluble problem wasthe poll tax - and made the fatalerror of acquiescing in theintroduction of the poll tax as aguinea-pig tax a year earlier inScotland than in England.

In January 1986 Michael Heseltineupped and left the Cabinet overthe Westland affair. In Younger’sown words:

We carried on for two or threeminutes, discussing the poll tax,then the Prime Minister called abreak for tea and biscuits. In thenext room the offer was put to meto become Defence Secretary.

Younger accepted the Defenceportfolio with alacrity, as he knewthe department having been aMinister of State for Defence inthe last days of the Heath govern-ment. His Permanent Secretary, SirMichael Quinlan, recalls that hewas “calm, steady and certainlynobody’s pushover”.

Younger was certainly aware thathis appointment in the midst of

the Westland crisis had earnedhim deep gratitude from thePrime Minister. Having come sopublicly to blows with Heseltineshe could not afford a repeatperformance with her incomingDefence Secretary. He couldtherefore set his own agendawithin the department to agreater extent than his predeces-sor.

He differed from Heseltine in thathe was more interested in policyand less concerned with trying toreorganise the Ministry of De-fence. He endorsed the Chief ofthe General Staff Sir Nigel Bag-nall’s goal of strengthening Britishtank forces, authorising anadditional batch of 76 Challengertanks from the Royal Ordinancefactory at Leeds. In naval ordering,partly as a result of his shipyardexperience in Scotland, he orderedsix Type 23 frigates and 19 newmine-hunters from yards indifferent parts of the country. Thespread of naval orders, eventhough it might have been morecostly, was a central part of hispolicy.

Backbench pressure and his owninclination led Younger to make agreat deal of extra Type 23 ordersat the 1988 Conservative PartyConference. Having tasted militaryconflict in Korea, Younger wasdetermined that men asked tofight should have nothing but thebest.

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Obituary Notices

It became clear that he would notbe promoted to the ForeignOffice, albeit he had acted asMargaret Thatcher’s campaignmanager when she was chal-lenged in 1989 by Sir AnthonyMeyer. In 1990 Younger and histeam, who included NormanTebbit and Michael Jopling, werecalled into service again and won204 votes for the Prime Minister.This was enough to defeatHeseltine but not to dispelwidespread fears in the Conserva-tive Party that Thatcher had hadher day. John Wakeham replacedYounger for the proposed secondround. Younger told me that hewas reluctant to take up the roleat all because of business commit-ments in the form of thechairmanship of the Royal Bank ofScotland.

Sir George Mathewson, thepresent chairman of the RoyalBank, describes Younger’s chair-manship of the group, from 1991to 2001, as “the most successfuldecade in its history”, culminatingin “the transformational acquisi-tion of NatWest in March 2001”.

Profits increased from pounds58m to pounds 5,800m, and it is“now the second largest bank inEurope by market capitalisation,and the fifth largest in the world”.

Michael Jopling, GovernmentChief Whip, believes that, atvarious moments in the late1980s, had the Prime Ministerfallen under the proverbial bus,George Younger would have beenthe choice of the ConservativeParty in Parliament to succeed herin 10 Downing Street.

Further, there is the widespreadview that, had Younger notcommitted himself to the RoyalBank of Scotland, and been“available”, he, and not JohnMajor, would have been PrimeMinister. Some Conservative MPs,who balked at voting for DouglasHurd, would have been comforta-ble voting for Younger.

Whether he would have won the1992 general election is a matterfor speculation, but Youngercertainly had judgement, shrewd-ness in the choice of people, andcharm - the qualities of a success-ful prime minister.

Tam Dalyell

George Kenneth Hotson Younger, MA(Oxon), HonLLD(Glas), Drhc(Edin),HonDLitt(Napier). KT, KCVO, TD, DL. Born 22 September 1931. Died 26January 2003.

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TRUSTEES’ REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2013OVERVIEW

The RSE is Scotland’s NationalAcademy. It has made a majorcontribution to Scottish societysince 1783 through Fellows, suchas Adam Smith, Walter Scott,James Clerk Maxwell and JamesBlack, whose achievementsresonate internationally. It isunique in Britain and distinctiveinternationally in the breadth ofits Fellowship which ranges acrossthe sciences, medicine, engineer-ing, the social sciences, arts,humanities, business and publicservice.

Its purpose is to promote excel-lence across the whole range ofhuman understanding and theuse of that understanding in thebetterment of the national andinternational society of which it ispart.In recent years, the activitiesof the RSE have both deepenedand diversified in contributing toScotland’s economic, social andcultural prosperity.

Over the year ended 31 March2013 we delivered a wide rangeof public benefit activities, manyin partnership with and/orsupported by others with com-mon goals in mind. In deliveringthese activities we drew upon theconsiderable strengths and variedexpertise of RSE Fellows across avery wide range of disciplines.

These Fellows played an active rolein maintaining the highest–qualitystandards of delivery and the cost

of Fellows’ time, given pro-bono,would have amounted to over£0.7m

The highlights of the year include:

• Appointments of five newpostdoctoral research Fellows,including three funded byScottish Government grant-in-aid administered by the ScottishFunding Council

• Award of eight new Enterprisefellowships throughout the UK

• Appointment of 50 newmembers of the Young Acade-my of Scotland

• Launch of the second phase ofComputing exemplificationmaterials, which receivednational and internationalacclaim

• Live Webcast by the BBC of theSchools’ Christmas Lecture byOlympic gold medalist Kather-ine Grainger – Getting to Gold

• Launch of an advice paper bythe Business Innovation Forum:The financing of BusinessInnovation in Scotland beingfollowed up through a workinggroup with Scottish FinancialEnterprise and the Institute ofChartered Accountants ofScotland

• Dissemination events followingup on the Women in STEMreport (science technology,engineering and mathematics)

• Launch of a major Inquiry intothe changing role of digital

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technology entitled Spreadingthe benefits of Digital Participa-tion

• Joint conferences with thebritish Academy entitledScotland and the UK followedby the launch of a seriesof ten events running fromMarch 2013 to February 2014to Enlighten the ConstitutionalDebate in advance of theforthcoming Referendum onScotland’s future relationshipwith the rest of the UnitedKingdom

• An exhibition celebrating therecent discovery at CERN enti-tled From Maxwell to Higgs

• In partnership with otherlearned societies, the establish-ment of a standing group onScottish Science Education

• Launch of the RSE@ Lochaberprogramme of activities acrossthe region that will last tillAutumn 2013

The consolidated financial resultfor the year of £325,106 includesseveral non-recurring items – afurther payment of a legacy fromDr Gethin Lewis of £75,000; asecond windfall payment re salesfrom the digitised historicaljournals of £55,000, a dilapida-tions payment from the outgoingtenant of the 3rd floor of thebuilding and an unplannedsurplus in restricted funds arisingfrom the early resignation of CRF

research fellows amounting to£135,000.

The underlying financial outcomefor the year was a surplus of£31,000, an improvement on thebudget, mainly as a result ofincreased investment income.

The support for new initiatives,such as the Young Academy, wasachieved within this result withoutdrawdown of legacies received inearlier years.

£’000

Total net incomingresources 325Less:Legacy – Dr Lewis (75)Sales of digital archive (55)Surplus of CRF income (135)Dilapidations payment (23)Appeal income (6)Surplus on recurringactivities 31

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCEAND MANAGEMENT

The RSE Council, chaired by thePresident, comprises fourteenTrustees, including five Vice-Presidents, the General Secretary,the Treasurer, the FellowshipSecretary and five ordinarymembers. Subject to annual re-election, Council members servefor three years, except for theGeneral Secretary and Treasurer,who may serve for up to fouryears. All are unpaid. The Councilis responsible for the strategicdirection and policies of the RSE,and normally meets quarterly. An

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Trustees’ Report and Accounts to 31 March 2013

Executive Board has delegatedresponsibility from the Council fordelivery of the RSE’s activities. It ischaired by the General Secretary,and also has as its elected mem-bers, the Treasurer, the Convenersof the main operational commit-tees and the Curator, as well asthe Chair of the RSE ScotlandFoundation, a representative ofthe RSE Young Academy andsenior executive staff. The Execu-tive Board normally meetsquarterly and reports to theCouncil.

The Council members and theoffice-bearers serving on theExecutive Board are all electedannually by the Fellowship in apostal ballot. New members ofCouncil and the Executive Boardare given an extensive inductionthrough discussions with theChief Executive and senior staff.

The Audit & Risk Committee (seeRisk Management), FellowshipCommittee, Investment Commit-tee and Prizes & MedalsCommittee report directly toCouncil.

Reporting to the Council throughthe Executive Board are operation-al committees, including theEducation Committee, Interna-tional Committee, the BusinessInnovation Forum, variousResearch Awards Committees, theMeetings Committee and theYoung People’s Committee. TheseCommittees largely, but notexclusively, comprise Fellows of

the RSE and are concerned withthe operational delivery of theRSE’s varied activities.

All Fellows are actively encouragedto participate in the RSE’s activi-ties.

In June 2012 a new connectedcharity, The RSE Scotland SCIO(the SCIO), was incorporated withapproval from the Office of theScottish Charity Regulator. Itspurposes are:

(a) the advancement of education;(b) the advancement of the arts,heritage, culture or science; and(c) the advancement of citizenshipor community development.

The SCIO will utilise the broadintellectual resources and talentsof the Fellowship of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh and relatedbodies as appropriate to enhancethe intellectual and culturaladvancement of Scotland.

Since incorporation, the SCIO hasco-ordinated the development ofthe RSE Young Academy ofScotland.

Two other charitable trustsfounded by and closely connectedto the RSE, the BP ResearchFellowship Trust (the BP Trust) andthe RSE Scotland Foundation (theFoundation), are included in theconsolidated financial statements.

The Foundation plays a leadingrole in the RSE’s public outreachactivities and manages thepremises in Edinburgh. TheTrustees of the Foundation are

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appointed for three years by theRSE Council.

Following a transfer of assets in2009, the Foundation is alsoresponsible for managing theprogramme of activities in supportof research in Scotland, funded bythe Caledonian Research Fund.

The BP Trust was created follow-ing a donation of £2m in 1988from BP to support a scheme ofpost-doctoral research fellowshipsin specified subjects and whichare awarded at the sole discretionof the RSE. The RSE President,General Secretary and Treasurerare the BP Trustees, ex officiis.

Statement of Council’s responsi-bilities

The Council is responsible forpreparing the Annual Report andthe financial statements inaccordance with applicable lawand United Kingdom AccountingStandards (United KingdomGenerally Accepted AccountingPractice).

Under charities legislationapplicable in Scotland, theCouncil is required to prepareaccounts for each financial yearthat give a true and fair view ofthe state of affairs of the RSE andof the incoming resources andapplication of resources of theRSE for that period. In preparingthese financial statements, theCouncil is required to:

• select suitable accountingpolicies and apply themconsistently;

• observe the methods andprinciples of the Charities SORP;

• make judgements and estimatesthat are reasonable andprudent;

• state whether applicableaccounting standards havebeen followed, subject to anydepartures disclosed andexplained in the financialstatements; and

• prepare the financial statementson a going concern basis unlessit is inappropriate to presumethat the RSE will continue inoperation.

The Council is responsible forkeeping accounting records whichdisclose with reasonable accuracyat any time the financial positionof the RSE and which enable it toensure that the financial state-ments comply with the Charitiesand Trustee Investment (Scotland)Act 2005, the Charities Accounts(Scotland) Regulations 2006 (asamended) and RSE’s own Laws. Itis also responsible for safeguard-ing the assets of the RSE andhence for taking reasonable stepsfor the prevention and detectionof fraud and other irregularities.

The Council is also responsible forthe maintenance and integrity ofthe charity and financial informa-tion included on the RSE’swebsite.

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Legislation in the United Kingdomgoverning the preparation anddissemination of financial state-ments may differ from legislationin other jurisdictions.

RISK MANAGEMENT

The Audit and Risk Committee,operating on a joint basis with theFoundation, the SCIO and the BPTrust, reports directly to theCouncil and the Trustees of theFoundation, the SCIO and the BPTrust. Its Chair, who cannot be aTrustee or other Office Bearer ofthe RSE, is invited to attendCouncil meetings as an observer.Its remit includes keeping underreview the effectiveness of internalcontrol and risk managementsystems of the RSE and its con-nected charities. The Councilbelieves that the existing systemsand the structure of decisiontaking and reporting throughsenior staff, the Executive Boardand the Council continue toprovide assurance that risks areassessed and carefully managed.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

The RSE vision is to continue tobuild a dynamic and relevantNational Academy for Scotland,through a Fellowship of provenexcellence that is unique in itsbreadth across the Sciences, Arts& Humanities and Commerce, andto serve as an independent sourceof public inspiration, engagementand expertise in Scotland andbeyond.The objectives, as set out

in the RSE Strategic Framework2012 – 2015, are:

Inspiration

• To stimulate, support andreward excellence in learningand research in Scotland andthe translation of new knowl-edge to business, wealthcreation and economic andsocial well-being

• To support the development ofemerging Scottish talentthat will be central to the futureleadership and vitality ofScottish society

Engagement

• To communicate with a wideaudience, including internation-ally, providing an importantwindow on the world forScotland and being a conduitfor relationships with otherorganisations on matters ofnational importance

• To enhance the public profile ofScottish intellectual achieve-ment

Expertise

• To provide independent andauthoritative advice on mattersaffecting the well-being ofScotland and its people, and toinitiate and lead public discus-sion on these matters

• To share, with others, knowl-edge and information onmatters of scientific, economic,social and culturalimportance

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ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE YEAR

This section describes the achieve-ments of RSE, the Foundation, theSCIO and the BP Trust, reflectingthe fact that the financial state-ments are presented on aconsolidated basis for this groupof connected charities. Theperformance of the RSE and itsconnected charities in the year, ascompared to the output targetsset in the Operational Plan, isreported quarterly to the ExecutiveBoard, and thereafter to RSECouncil and to the Trustees of theother connected bodies Thesereports have again shown that themajority (>95%) of the targetswere reached or exceeded. Inmany areas, additional targets,not in the initial Operational Plan,were also delivered.The corepublic benefit programmeactivities are described in moredetail below, according to theoutcomes to which they contrib-ute.

Enhancing the capacity ofworld-class science and cultureresearchers working in Scotland

RSE Research Awards continuedto support some of the mostoutstanding young scientists andinnovators working in Scotlandtoday. The Research FellowshipsAwards Programme successfullyenhance the capacity of world-class science and cultureresearchers workingin Scotland;and increase Scotland’s researchand development connections

internationally. In 2012 –13, anadditional £6.2M was attractedinto the Scottish research pool byour Scottish Government ResearchFellows. 40 collaborations wereformed across Europe, the USAand Canada in institutionsranging from Harvard MedicalSchool, the Universities of Cornell,Stanford and Dalhousie in NorthAmerica, to the National Universityof Singapore.

In Europe and the rest of the UK,connections were made withAarhus University, Basel Biozen-trum, Imperial College, UCL andthe Universities of Cambridge,Warwick, Southampton, Liverpooland Newcastle.

Although the number of awards isrelatively small, the impact theResearch Fellows have is great.They attract large sums of fundinginto the research community inScotland and help to retainresearch talent here. Europeanfunding through the Marie CurieCOFUND FP7 programme helpsScottish-based Research Fellowsbroaden their research networksinternationally and showcaseScottish talent on a global stage.

The following awards were madeduring the year:

• Scottish Government PersonalResearch Fellowships, threeawards from 33 applicants

• BP Personal Research Fellow-ships, one award from 13applicants

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• CRF Personal Research Fellow-ship, one award from 17applicants

• CRF European Visiting ResearchFellowships, 10 in Arts,Humanities & Social Sciences

• Cormack awards: one Under-graduate Prize, onePostgraduate Prize and fiveVacation ResearchScholarships,plus three small research grants

• John Moyes Lessells Scholar-ship, seven travel grants

Due to reductions in ScottishGovernment Grant, the patternthat had existed since 2008 ofawarding six, five-year, ScottishGovernment Personal ResearchFellowships per year remainedcurtailed.

Following a moratorium on newappointments in 2011 to safe-guard the support of existingResearch Fellows, new appoint-ments were resumed in 2012, buton a reduced shared fundingmodel agreed with the Universi-ties, and at the reduced level ofthree new Research Fellowships.

Also funded by Scottish Govern-ment grant, the Arts & Humanitiesprogramme remained at thereduced level of 2011–12, andsupported the award of:

• seven Research Workshops,from 20 applications

• 22 Small Research Grants, from29 applications

In addition, two Major ResearchGrants continued to be support-ed. One of these supportedresearch on Turkey Red and otherdecorative textiles and resulted inan extensive online exhibitionColouring the Nation, hosted bythe National Museum of Scotland.

The International Bilateral andOpen exchange schemes, fundedby Scottish Government grant,support researcher exchanges thatlead to collaborative projects andresult in further research fundingfrom other sources.

The programme seeks to increaseScotland’s research and develop-ment connections internationally;and increase the number ofworld-class science and cultureresearchers working in Scotland. Ithelps create conditions fortalented people to visit and workin Scotland; and supports Scot-land’s reputation as a distinctiveglobal identity and a centre ofresearch excellence.

During the year, 16 Bilateral and26 Open Exchange Scheme grantswere awarded, which amountedto 110 person-weeks of research-er support (for visits betweenScotland and over 23 countriesworldwide). One recipient com-mented that ‘This bilateral schemeis an incredibly useful resource.For relatively small sums of money,it can really help to shape theresearch performed in ScottishInstitutions and elsewhere.’

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A particularly strong part of theprogramme, which cementsrelationships and collaborations,are the joint research projects runover two years between Scottishresearchers and the NationalNatural Science Foundation ofChina (NSFC), supporting longer-term collaborations and leveringfurther funding.

Six new joint projects with theNSFC were awarded for two yearsfrom Spring 2013 in the area ofEnergy Technology and Manage-ment and 14 existing jointprojects in Image Processing andInformation Science, and Biologi-cal Sciences were supported intheir first and second years.

Caledonian Research Fund (CRF)

On 11 March 2009, the Founda-tion received a transfer of assetsfrom the Caledonian ResearchFoundation. The undertakinggiven by the Trustees to honourthe financial commitmentsexisting at the time of transfer ofthe CRF was fulfilled in 2012.Thereafter the Trustees becamefree to apply the assets at theirdiscretion. In the year to March2013, the existing schemes ofresearch support continued andone postdoctoral ResearchFellowship and two postgraduatestudentships were awardedduring the year.

All of the activities of the CRF areadministered on behalf of theFoundation by the RSE, except the

administration of the postgradu-ate scholarship scheme, whichremains with the Carnegie Trustfor the Universities of Scotland.

BP Research Fellowship Trust

The Trust awards a five-yearResearch Fellowship in alternateyears. The Fellowship was award-ed in 2012 to Dr Stuart Robertsonof the University of Strathclyde.There were three ongoing BPResearch Fellows in post duringthe year.

Strengthening connectionsamongst academia, businessthe public and the voluntarysectors

Enterprise Fellowships

The Enterprise Fellowship schemesrun by the RSE are designed toencourage commercialisation oftechnology-based business ideasfrom academic institutions intospin-out companies. This activityhelps create sustainable compa-nies with high-value jobs andcontributes to the economy in thelong term.

The RSE administers three Enter-prise Fellowship Schemes, fundedseparately by Scottish Enterprise(SE), the Science and TechnologyFacilities Council (STFC) and theBiotechnology and BiologicalSciences Research Council(BBSRC).

Since its inception in 1997, morethan 80 high technology busi-nesses have been formed from the

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Enterprise Fellowships schemeand at least 60 are still trading.They have raised more than £70min follow-on investment, of which90% is from the private sector. Inthis reporting period alone, morethan £16M of investment wasraised, 14 employees wererecruited (across six companies);eight new products werelaunched and eight new compa-nies were incorporated. Anindependent review of theseawards is currently being carriedout and will report in the summerof 2013.

The RSE/SE Enterprise FellowshipsPhase III programme aimed toappoint sixty Fellowships over fiveyears. Funding was made availableby Scottish Enterprise to appointforty-one eligible fellows. Theninth round took place in Spring2012 and one Fellow was ap-pointed who took up post inOctober 2012. The tenth roundtook place in Autumn 2012 andfour fellows were appointed whotook up post in Spring 2013.

Discussions are ongoing withScottish Enterprise about aproposal to continue this success-ful programme.

Both of the Research Councilschemes operate on a UK-widebasis and encourage the commer-cialisation of research previouslyfunded by BBSRC and STFC.

Following a rigorous selectionprocess, two BBSRC EnterpriseFellows and three STFC Enterprise

Fellows were appointed in theyear.

RSE Business Innovation Forum

The high-level Business Innova-tion Forum considers research anddevelopment activity in Scotland’sbusiness sectors. The outputsflowing from this activity havealready been and will continue tobe presented to Scottish Ministersand be more widely disseminatedand discussed at events withothers.

The principal recommendations ofthe RSE’s Advice Paper TheFinancing of Business Innovationin Scotland, published in October2012, included a proposal for aworking group to consider andadvise on sources of growthcapital for emerging Scottishcompanies. The group, set upwith SFE and ICAS, has now metseveral times and will publish itsrecommendations in Autumn2013.

IEEE/RSE/WolfsonJames ClerkMaxwell Award

The IEEE/RSE/Wolfson, James ClerkMaxwell Award for 2012, sup-ported by WolfsonMicroelectronics PLC, wasawarded to Professor GerhardSessler of Darmstadt University ofTechnology in Germany for hispioneering contributions toelectroacoustic transducers, thedevelopment of silicon micro-phone technology, and seminalwork on electroactive materials.

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Building partnerships

In May 2012, the RSE formed aLearned Societies’ Group onScottish Science Education. Itspurpose is to discuss and contrib-ute to the major reforms in thedelivery of science education inScottish schools.

The Group is facilitated by the RSEand chaired by Professor SallyBrown. Members are drawn fromthe Royal Society of Chemistry, theInstitute of Physics, the Society ofBiology, the British ComputerSociety, the Association of ScienceEducation, the Scottish SchoolsEducation Research Centre andthe Engineering Policy Group inScotland.In collaboration with theDavid Hume Institute, a jointproject is on-going consideringthe role and contribution ofuniversities in Scotland.

Round table discussion sessionswere held on topics including:

The role of universities in theeconomy;

Who are universities for? and

The school/college/universityinterface and collaboration.

The series will continue through-out 2013–14 and, following itscompletion, a set of policy paperswill be published.

Enhancing the RSE YoungAcademy of Scotland’s capacityto contribute to the future ofScotland

Since incorporation, the Trusteesof the SCIO have supported anopen and publicly accessibleapplication process to increase themembership of the RSE YoungAcademy of Scotland by a further50 members. This takes the totalmembership to 118 (51 femalesand 67 males) and widens itscapacity. The SCIO has alsocoordinated the activities of theYoung Academy:

Five Working Groups of YoungAcademy members have been setup, aiming to make informedcontributions on matters affectingthe wellbeing of Scotland and itspeople.

The groups are:

• Scottish Constitutional Reform

• Inequalities in the Workplace

• Open access to research data

• Curriculum for Excellence

• Media Relations – and specifi-cally the portrayal of research,across all disciplines, by themedia

These groups are producingwritten reports and submissions,all of which are publicly availableon the Young Academy webpag-es, and engaging directly withpublic, governmental and parlia-mentary organisations andindividuals in a range of ways.

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These included:

• A joint meeting with theScottish Youth Parliament andYoung Scot, to explore futurecollaboration on issues affect-ing young people

• Representing Scotland at a“Voices of the Future” eventfor young Scientists held at theHouse of Commons,Westminster

• Collaboration with YoungAcademies in Germany, theNetherlands, Russia andSweden on a photographiccompetition inviting scholarsacross Europe to submit imagescapturing the essence of whatmakes research fascinating.

Enhancing the public’s contribu-tion to and understanding ofscience, economic and culturalissues

Events

The multidisciplinary programmeof events aimed at a wide varietyof audiences comprised Sevenlectures:

• Alan Turing: Legacy of a CodeBreaker

• Is doing cancer research goodfor the NHS?

• BBC Reith Lecture: The Rule ofLaw and its Enemies

• Fragments of a Lost Past orEvidence of a ConnectedHistory: The Role and Concepts

of Islamic Art in the MuseumContext

• RSE/BP, Hutton Prize Lecture inEnergy Innovation

• Sexual and Reproductive HealthIssues for Women in Combat

• The Scientific Life of DavidLivingstone

Three annual lectures:

• RSE Christmas Lecture byOlympic gold medalist Kather-ine Grainger – Getting to Gold

• MacCormick European Lecture2012 given by Allan LittleReflections on recent events inthe Arab World

• SUPA/Robert Cormack Astrono-my Meeting Exploring theDiversity of Exoplanets

Six Joint Lectures and discussionforums in partnership with thefollowing organisations:

• SCRR Peter Wilson Lecture: TheEvidential Basis for Food andEnvironmental Policy

• RSE/RAEng: Growing HealthcareTechnology Businesses –Bringing Engineering Inventionsto Market with Limited Resourc-es

• Royal Commonwealth SocietyAn Evening with Tim Flannery

• Gifford Trust – An Evening withDiarmaid MacCulloch

• International Futures ForumMichael Shea Memorial Lecture:Love’s Labours Lost: How Society

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is Straitjacketing its Profession-als and how we might releasethem

• Standard Life Investments –Integrated Reporting: Benefit orCost

Five Conferences:

• Celebrating 100 years since thebirth of Alan Turing

• Europe and the Arab World

• C T R Wilson, a Great ScottishPhysicist: His Life, Work andLegacy

• Women’s Reproductive Healthacross the Lifecourse: Implica-tions for Public Policy

• In partnership with the BritishAcademy – Scotland and theUnited Kingdom

RSE@Lochaber programme

In the period from the launch inSeptember 2012, the programmedelivered:

• Nine Public Talks

• One Secondary School Discus-sion Forum

• Nine Secondary School Talks

• One Public Webcast

• Ten Primary School Workshops/Talks

The aim of this initiative is toenhance and improve the under-standing and appreciation thatpeople, particularly school-agedchildren, have for their localcommunity. The focus is onthemes both historical and

contemporary that are relevant tothe Lochaber region and includescience and environment; historyand identity, literature and thearts; and community develop-ment.

Events took place in venues intowns and villages across theregion, including Fort William,Mallaig, Kinlochleven, Ballachul-ish, Kilchoan and the Isle of Eigg.

Schools

The schools programme continuesto use RSE Fellows and otherexperts to share their knowledgeand understanding of science andculture with pupils, with aparticular focus on enthusingthose already engaged, andreaching those pupils who are notin close proximity to ScottishUniversities and Science Centres,and who therefore have morelimited opportunity to participateand meet with experts.

The programme comprised:

• 33 Science Master Classes forS1 and S2 science subjects,hosted at five Universities,attended by 817 students.

• 15 Schools Talks where thecontent was agreed withteachers in line with theircurriculum, attended by 656students.

• Schools Christmas lecture givenby Katherine Grainger

• Two Schools Discussion forumsEnhancements in Sports took

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place as a part of theRSE@Lochaber programme andas a follow-on event fromRSE@Arbroath.

International events

RSE – NSFC Workshop

The RSE and the National NaturalScience Foundation of China(NSFC) have a formal agreement,established to support researchcollaborations between Scotlandand China. Under the terms ofthis agreement, the RSE and NSFCorganised a workshop in Novem-ber 2012 in Edinburgh in the areaof Energy and Renewables.

A delegation of nine leadingresearchers in the area of Energyand Renewables attended fromChina to meet with their Scottishcounterparts, present their workand explore future opportunitiesfor collaboration between theparticipants from Scotland andChina.

Franco-Scottish collaboration

In association with the Institutd’Etudes Politiques at the Univer-sity of Rennes and with thesupport of the French ConsulGeneral in Edinburgh and theRegional Council of Brittany, apolicy seminar was held inOctober 2012.

This provided an opportunity foracademics, practitioners andstakeholders to exchange ideasand experiences in policy innova-tion in Scotland and in France,

with a specific focus on youthunemployment and trainingpolicies.

Informing and influencing publicpolicy decisions

RSE’s Policy Advice Unit uses themulti-disciplinary knowledge andexpertise of RSE Fellows, andother experts chosen by theSociety, to provide evidence-basedadvice to inform public policydecisions made by the Scottish,UK and European Parliaments andGovernments. It provides theseinstitutions with a source ofindependent and impartial adviceon a range of matters.

Key outputs of the RSE’s PolicyAdvice Unit were an inquiry reporton Women in Science,TechnologyEngineering and Mathematics:Tapping all our Talents, the launchof which was followed by anextensive programme of dissemi-nation events; and the launch of amajor inquiry into Digital Partici-pation, which will report in 2013.

The unit also produced

11 Consultation Responses,

one Briefing Paper,

seven Projects/Reports, and

19 dissemination eventsfollowing on from our TappingAll our Talents report, includingpresentations to: the House ofCommons Select Committee;the Cross-Party Group onScience and Technology in theScottish Parliament; the Depart-

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ment of Business Innovationand Skills.

Oral evidence was provided toseveral Scottish ParliamentaryCommittees, including on theDraft Budget.

Frequent reference was made inParliamentary debates to the RSE’swritten submissions on diversetopics.

Enlightening the ConstitutionalDebate

On 18 September 2014, theScottish people will be asked tovote in a Referendum on whetheror not Scotland should be anindependent country. The issue ofScottish independence is thebiggest constitutional issue facingthe UK at the moment, with far-reaching implications for all UKcitizens.

In 2012, the RSE and the BritishAcademy held a conference,Scotland and the United King-dom, to provide a platform forfrank and informed discussion. Aprogramme of public events wasthen established to enable further,more detailed discussion onspecific topics relevant to theindependence debate.

The first of these, coveringScotland and Europe, was held inMarch 2013. The other events arebeing held over 2013 –14.Written reports of all the eventsare publicly available and, forevents held in Scotland, video

recordings are available on theweb.

RSE Education Committee

The RSE Education Committeemembers contribute to thedevelopment of policy in relationto education at all levels. InJanuary 2013, members met withthe Cabinet Secretary and hisofficials to learn about theGovernment’s plans for evaluationof Curriculum for Excellence andhow the RSE could providesupport and constructive chal-lenge to the process.

The History working subgroupheld an event The teaching ofHistory: a model for collaborationin February 2013 to lay thefoundation for creation of aHistory Learning Community. Itbrought together those involvedin the research, teaching andlearning of History at all levels.

The joint project (with the BritishComputer Society), to produceexemplification materials tosupport the teaching of Comput-ing Science in schools, continuedsuccessfully. Three extensiveresources comprising tutor andlearner materials were launched atthe RSE in December 2012. Thesehave received very positiveresponses from schools andteachers across Scotland andinternationally.

The project leader, Jeremy Scott,presented the project at the AppInventor Summit organised and

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hosted by the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT)Center for Mobile Learning. Theproject has been extended untilAugust 2014 to develop furthermaterials to support the newnational qualifications in Comput-ing Science.

The Education Committee alsocontributes to the debate sur-rounding the future of Higher andFurther Education in Scotland.

This included input to RSE advicepapers on Higher Educationgovernance and Post-16 Educa-tion.

Recognising Excellence

The Fellowship Programme

The RSE’s Fellowship includes menand women from all parts ofScotland, the UK and overseas,and encompasses the full range ofdisciplines, including science,engineering, social sciences, arts,humanities, law, education,business and industry.

In March 2013, the RSE an-nounced the election of five newCorresponding Fellows, threeHonorary Fellows and 39 Fellows.This followed the scrutiny in 2012of 161 candidates through a four-stage committee process,culminating in the postal ballot inDecember to the entire Fellow-ship. The addition of new Fellowsin 2013 brought the numbers inthe Fellowship up to 1565: 64Honorary Fellows; 64 Correspond-ing Fellows; 1437 Fellows.

The discipline balance of theFellowship can be broadly repre-sented by four cognate sectors.

In the Fellowship (excludingHonorary & Corresponding) thecurrent balance of these sectors is:

• 36% Life Sciences

• 36% Physical Engineering andInformatic Sciences

• 14% Humanities and CreativeArts

• 14% Social Sciences, Education,Public Service and Business

The RSE holds an Induction Dayeach year for the new Fellows. Thisprovides an opportunity for newFellows to meet with members ofCouncil, the Executive Board andRSE staff, and to be formallyadmitted to the Society.

There were also events primarilyfor Fellows, including the Fellows’Summer Reception, the RoyalMedals Award Ceremony, and theAnnual Statutory Meeting.

Prizes

The Royal Medals of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh are its mostprestigious award, recognisingoutstanding research excellenceand scholarship.

The 2012 Medals were awarded,with the approval of Her MajestyThe Queen, to

Dr David Milne for his outstand-ing contribution to business andcommerce in Scotland through hisfounding, growth and leadershipof Wolfson Microelectronics, and

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Professor Sir Edwin Southern forhis outstanding contribution tomolecular biology, from whichtechnologies have been devel-oped with a global impact. TheMedals were presented by HRHThe Duke of Edinburgh at aceremony at the Royal Society ofEdinburgh.

The RSE and Edinburgh Beltanelaunched the RSE Beltane Prizesfor Public Engagement in 2011,with the aim of recognising andrewarding the advancement ofhigh-quality public engagementwith research.

The Senior Prize for 2012 wasawarded to the leading Scottishhistorian Professor Tom DevineOBE FRSE;

Dr Nicola Stanley-Wall of theUniversity of Dundee was thewinner of the Innovator’s Prize.

Following a review of RSE Prizes,Council has instigated a newPrizes structure which incorpo-rates Senior and Early- CareerMedals.

In Spring 2013 they were awardedas follows:

RSE/Sir Walter Scott Prize: toProfessor David Hewitt FRSE, forhis outstanding contribution toScottish Literature through hiswork on The Edinburgh Edition ofthe Waverley Novels.

RSE/Sir James Black Prize: jointly toProfessor Christopher Haslett OBEFRSE FMedSci for his outstanding

contribution to inflammationresearch; and to Professor AndrewWhiten FRSE FBA, for his out-standing contributions to thestudy of primates and animalbehaviour.

RSE/Lord Kelvin Prize: to ProfessorPeter Davies FRSE, for his out-standing contribution to thediscipline of Fluid Mechanics.

RSE/Patrick Neill Medal: to Dr MarcDweck, British Heart FoundationClinical Lecturer, University ofEdinburgh, for his outstandingresearch in clinical cardiology andhis innovative ways of engagingwith the public to increase itsunderstanding of this area ofscience.

RSE/Makdougall Brisbane Medal:to Dr Aidan Robson, Lecturer inthe School of Physics and Astron-omy, University of Glasgow, for hisbreadth and depth of knowledgemaking him an excellent spokes-person and champion for particlephysics and for his ongoingprogramme of schools’ outreachactivities.

RSE/Thomas Reid Medal: to DrGordon Pentland, (a member ofthe RSE Young Academy ofScotland), Senior Lecturer inHistory at the University ofEdinburgh, for his high qualityresearch and his longstandingcommitment to knowledgeexchange.

RSE/Henry Duncan Medal: to MrNeil McLennan (a member of the

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RSE Young Academy of Scotland),Quality Improvement Officer(Education, Culture and Sport) atAberdeen City Council andPresident of the Scottish Associa-tion of Teachers of History, for hisoutstanding contribution to civicsociety, creativity and socialenterprise, education and thesocial sciences.

Additionally, in September 2012Council agreed to recognise theoutstanding work of ProfessorPeter Higgs FRS FRSE by creatingan exhibition about his work to bedisplayed in the Upper Gallery, bypresenting him with a one-offcommemorative medal at theAnnual Statutory Meeting, andcommissioning a portrait to behung in the Kelvin Room.

Reaching out

International relations

Since 2003, Scottish Governmentfunding has supported theestablishment of formal Memo-randa of Understanding (MoUs)between the RSE and 16 overseassister Academies, and alsosupported the development andmaintenance of relationships andactivities with other overseasAcademies. The relationships actas a catalyst for other internation-al engagement activities such asconferences and seminars. Eventstake place both in Scotland andoverseas, and are attended byinternational as well as Scottishparticipants.

The RSE also serves as Scotland’srepresentative on ALLEA (AllEuropean Academies), a bodywhich comprises 53 academiesfrom across Europe. This relation-ship provides excellentopportunities for developing linkswith other Academies on behalfof Scotland.

Communications

Four issues of ReSourcE, the RSEnewsletter, were published anddistributed to the Fellowship andaround 3,000 others, includingbusiness leaders, journalists,research institutes, schools, MPs,MSPs and interested individuals.Fellows also received a monthly e-bulletin, which enabled them tokeep up to date with and, ifappropriate, disseminate informa-tion on the RSE and its work. Inaddition, public e-bulletins weresent out during the year toadvertise various events andschools activities.

In December, Issue 13 of ourScience Scotland magazine waspublished, entitled The Businessof Biomedicine; this was thesecond part of two editionsdedicated to highlighting Scottishcompanies that have grown fromthe commercialisation of research.

Journals

The RSE, through the Foundation,publishes two journals Earth andEnvironmental Science Transac-tions of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh and Proceedings A:

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Mathematics. They are distributedworldwide, to the Americas,Europe, Australasia, the MiddleEast, Africa and Asia, and the peerreview process draws on a trulyinternational bank of referees andeditors.

Six issues of Proceedings A werepublished during the 2012/13year.

Two issues of Transactions werepublished.

The digital versions of the RSE’sarchive journals – Transactions(1785–1979), Transactions: EarthSciences (1980–2000), Proceed-ings (1832–1940), Proceedings A(1941–1999) and Proceedings B(1941–1996) continue to bemarketed for sale to the public byCambridge University Press.

The RSE’s highly regarded journalarchive is thus more easily accessi-ble to a world-wide audience, andgenerates useful additionalincome.

Friends of the Society

In 2009 the RSE launched acorporate engagement initiativeentitled Friends of the Society withthe aim of strengthening relationswith the Scottish business sector.Over the last four years a numberof prominent organisations havetaken part in the project whichprovides the Friends with anopportunity to find out moreabout the RSE and the importantwork we carry out. During theperiod the number of Friends

grew once again from thirteen tosixteen.

FINANCIAL REVIEW ANDPOLICIES

Investment powers and policy

The management of the invest-ment funds of the RSE, theFoundation and the BP Trust iscarried out by Speirs & Jeffrey &Co on a discretionary basis. Theobjectives set by the Council areto ensure a sufficient level ofincome to meet the target setannually by the Council, and toinvest for real capital growth overthe long term.

The Council has delegated thedetailed monitoring of perform-ance to an Investment Committee,which includes at least oneordinary member of Council andtwo experienced investmentprofessionals and which makescomparisons against a compositebenchmark reflecting the mix ofassets held and the WM CharitiesIncome Constrained Index.

The performance of the portfoliosin the year was as follows:

Income Actual Total BenchmarkTarget income return

£’000 £’000 % %

335 340 19.9 13.8 (RSE)

126 124 19.8 13.8 (BP)

350 355 19.4 13.8 (FDN)

The Investment Committee meetstwice annually with the invest-ment managers to discuss their

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compliance with the constraintsset by the Committee and riskenvironment. In the year underreview, no compliance issues arosewhich required to be reported tothe Committee.

Operating policies – grantmaking

The RSE makes grants to individu-als in higher educationinstitutions in support of researchactivities in the categories ofpostdoctoral Research Fellow-ships, Support ResearchFellowships, Post-graduateStudentships, UndergraduateVacation Scholarships, EnterpriseFellowships and internationalexchange grants.

Each of these categories isspecifically funded from varioussources, including the RSE’srestricted funds. The basis ofeligibility and selection variesaccording to the detailed schemeregulations, which are publishedon the RSE’s website(www.royalsoced.org.uk).

Grants are also made in supportof research activities of Fellows ofthe RSE, including support fortravel connected with research orscholarship, small-scale specialistmeetings, to assist researchvisitors to Scotland to undertakecollaborative research work with aFellow, to assist a visiting lecturerto come to Scotland, to assistresearch collaboration betweentwo institutions in Scotland or

between universities and industry,and to assist in the publication ofbooks written by Fellows. Thesegrants are funded by the RSE’sdesignated Grants Fund.

The Grants Committee is respon-siblefor making awards inaccordance with the detailed rulesset out by the Council for thedisbursement of the Grants Fund.

Reserves policy and funds

The RSE holds a number ofrestricted funds resulting frombequests for particular purposes,details of which are set out innote 2 to the financial statements.

The Council has created designat-ed funds, from its unrestrictedfunds, the purposes of which arealso set out in note 2 to thefinancial statements. The GeneralFund represents the balance ofunrestricted funds arising frompast operations. The Council hasexamined the requirement to holdunrestricted funds, and concludedthat, whilst the present level ofreserves gives adequate workingcapital for core costs, it is desira-ble to have a General Fund reservein the range of six months’expenditure on central costs, orapproximately £754,000. Thecurrent fund balance is £700,000.

The Council has also reviewed thepurposes and amounts of each ofthe designated funds, whichcomprise allocations for specificpurposes of sums that had beendonated in prior periods, together

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with the Development Fund andthe Capital Asset Reserve. Duringthe year, the Development Fundwas renamed the New Enlighten-ment Fund and Council hasdetermined that henceforth it willbe used as an expendable endow-ment to strengthen the RSE’sfinancial independence. Majordonations and legacies receivedwill be added to the New Enlight-enment Fund.

Result for the year

The surplus for the year was£325,106 including a furtherpayment of a legacy from DrGethin Lewis of £75,000 andother non-recurring items. Theunderlying outcome for the yearwas a surplus of £31,000,compared to a deficit of £21,000in the previous year.Investmentgains comprised £0.04 m realisedin the year and £2.75m unrealisedat the year end. The net move-ment on funds for the year afterthe FRS17 actuarial adjustmentwas £3.086m.

Income and Expenditure

Total incoming resources

Total incoming resources were£5.03 m (2012 – £6.75m), adecrease of 25% due to theexceptional income from majorlegacies received in 2012. Othervoluntary income, which includesFellows subscriptions and contin-uing contributions from the‘Friends of the Society’ – corporatepartners of the RSE, listed in note

26d, remained similar to previousyears. Investment income wasalso stable at £0.85m, reflectingthe addition of income fromlegacy proceeds, but incomingresources from charitable activitiesdecreased by 6% to £3.56m.Themajor reason for the fall inincoming resources for charitableactivities was the further 4%reduction in Scottish Governmentgrant-in-aid, following the 16%reduction in 2012 (from £2.927min 2011 to £2.455m in 2012, to£2.350m in 2013).

Fluctuations in the pattern andnumbers of Enterprise Fellowshipappointments also contributed tothe decrease in income.

Resources expended

On a like-for-like basis totalexpenditure decreased by 5%(£0.28m), as a result of decreasedexpenditure on charitable activi-ties. Cost of generating funds(note 6) includes the cost of theFellowship office, the costs ofbuilding management in respectof income from letting of surplusspace, as well as fundraising costs,both direct and management timein securing funding.

The costs of refurbishment of the3rd floor of 53 Hanover Street inpreparation for re-letting areincluded in the direct expenditureunder this category.Reductions ingrants payable in support ofresearch and innovation gave riseto the major part of the decrease

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in expenditure on charitableactivities, falling from £3.36m to£3.07m. This mirrors the drop inincome and reflects fewer researchand Enterprise Fellows in post.The reduction in the CRF grantspayable due to previous earlyresignations of two ResearchFellows resulted in surplus incomein that Fund.

Total expenditure on influencingpublic policy decreased by 9%, asthe launch of the new majorinquiry took place towards theend of the financial year. Govern-ance costs, which have remainedat a similar level to previous years,represent less than 3% of totalrecurring income.

Transfers between funds shown inthe Statement of FinancialActivities comprise the recurringtransfer from the Capital AssetReserve of a total of £101,818 tomatch the depreciation of build-ings and the capital repayment ofthe loan to the Foundation; andtransfers on consolidation fromthe Foundation restricted fundbalance to the General Fund,equivalent to the net inter-entityincome received in the RSE.

Balance sheet

Consolidated net assets haveincreased from £24.11m to£27.19m, mainly due to the£2.75m unrealised surplus oninvestments. Realised surpluseson investments were £41,700. Netcurrent assets increased from

£1.49m to £1.82m, with adecrease in debtors resulting inincreased cash balances. Debtorshave decreased by £0.58m, mainlyreflecting the timing of receipt ofScottish Government grantclaims.For the third year runningthe net pension position calculat-ed by the actuary was a surplus,although at a reduced level.Because it is unlikely that such anasset could be realised in theforeseeable future, the amountrecognised in the financialstatements is restricted so that nonet pension asset is recognised.This required an adjustment foractuarial losses of £31,000.

Total funds increased by £3.08m.In addition to the revenue surplusof £325,106 were there wererealised and unrealised invest-ment gains of £2.783m, and anegative movement of £.03m onthe actuarial pension fund liability.

Future plans

The unique character of the RSE,in terms of the knowledge andskills of its Fellows, is well suitedto address the economic andsocial challenges of modernScotland today. In particular, theSociety contributes to the devel-opment of world-classresearchers, who, in a highlytechnological age, have a key roleto play in Scotland’s future.Through its diverse Fellowshipand its work with other organisa-tions, it fosters effectivecross-disciplinary collaborations. It

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is able to contribute independentand well considered insights intopublic policy debate and enhancesthe public’s understanding ofresearch and other topical issues.

The RSE’s contribution to publicbenefit is well recognised by theScottish Government, thoughbudget pressures have meant thatthe Society’s grant has beenreduced during a period ofeconomic difficulty. In this context,the Council fully recognises theneed to demonstrate to Govern-ment the value of the RSE toScotland. The Council also

recognises the benefits of achiev-ing greater diversification offunding from non-governmentsources and considerable effortsare being made to do so. The NewEnlightenment Fund, for example,is designed to provide funding toenable the RSE’s priorities, asidentified in this report, to bedeveloped and more fullyachieved in the interests ofScotland’s future.Signed on behalfof the Council

Gerald Wilson CBTreasurer

2 September 2013

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Independent Auditors’ Reportto the Council of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh

We have audited the financialstatements of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh for the year ended 31March 2013 which comprise thegroup statement of financialactivities, the charity statement offinancial activities, the groupbalance sheet, the charity balancesheet, the group cashflowstatement and the related notes.The financial reporting frameworkthat has been applied in theirpreparation is applicable law andUnited Kingdom AccountingStandards (United KingdomGenerally Accepted AccountingPractice).

This report is made solely to thecharity’s trustees, as a body, inaccordance with section 44(1)(c) ofthe Charities and Trustee Invest-ment (Scotland) Act 2005 andregulation 10 of the CharitiesAccounts (Scotland) Regulations2006 (as amended). Our auditwork has been undertaken so thatwe might state to the charity’strustees, as a body, those matterswe are required to state to themin an auditors’ report and for noother purpose. To the fullestextent permitted by law, we donot accept or assume responsibili-ty to anyone other than the charityand the charity’s trustees as abody, for our audit work, for thisreport, or for the opinions wehave formed.

AUDITORS’ REPORT AND ACCOUNTSRespective responsibilities ofTrustees and auditor

As explained more fully in theTrustees’ Responsibilities State-ment, the trustees are responsiblefor the preparation of financialstatements which give a true andfair view.

We have been appointed asauditors under section 44(1)(c) ofCharities and Trustee Investment(Scotland) Act 2005 and report inaccordance with regulations madeunder that Act. Our responsibilityis to audit and express an opinionon the financial statements inaccordance with applicable lawand International Standards onAuditing (UK and Ireland). Thosestandards require us to complywith the Auditing PracticesBoard’s (APB’s) Ethical Standardsfor Auditors.

Scope of the audit of thefinancial statements

An audit involves obtainingevidence about the amounts anddisclosures in the financialstatements sufficient to givereasonable assurance that thefinancial statements are free frommaterial misstatement, whethercaused by fraud

or error. This includes an assess-ment of: whether the accountingpolicies are appropriate to thecharity’s circumstances and havebeen consistently applied andadequately disclosed; the reasona-bleness of significant accounting

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estimates made by the trustees;and the overall presentation ofthe financial statements. Inaddition, we read all the financialand non-financial information inthe Trustees’ Report to identifymaterial inconsistencies with theaudited financial statements. If webecome aware of any apparentmaterial misstatements or incon-sistencies we consider theimplications for our report.

Opinion on financial statements

In our opinion the financialstatements:

• give a true and fair view of thestate of the group and thecharity’s affairs as at 31 March2013 and of the group andcharity’s incoming resources andapplication of resources, for theyear then ended;

• have been properly prepared inaccordance with United King-dom Generally AcceptedAccounting Practice; and

• have been prepared in accord-ance with the requirements ofthe Charities and TrusteeInvestment (Scotland) Act 2005and regulation 8 of the Chari-ties Accounts (Scotland)Regulations 2006 (as amended).

Matters on which we are requiredto report by exception

We have nothing to report inrespect of the following matterswhere the Charity Accounts(Scotland) Regulations 2006 (asamended) requires us to report toyou if, in our opinion:

• the information given in theTrustees’ Annual Report isinconsistent in any materialrespect with the financialstatements; or

• proper accounting records havenot been kept; or

• the financial statements are notin agreement with the account-ing records and returns; or

• we have not received all theinformation and explanationswe require for our audit.

Henderson LoggieChartered Accountants andStatutory Auditors

(Eligible to act as an auditor interms of section 1212 of theCompanies Act 2006)

Edinburgh2 September 2013

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ACCOUNTS

Group statement of financial activities(incorporating the income & expenditure account)for year ended 31 March 2013

Note General Designated Restricted Restricted 2013 Total 2012 Total

Fund Funds Income Funds

£ £ £ £ £ £

– 75,000 – – 75,000 1,630,386

4 253,779 5,919 – 26,410 286,108 269,213

4 – – – 254,690 254,690 253,273

Income

Legacies

Voluntary income

Activities for generating income

Investment income 4 41,351 241,503 – 562,991 845,845 792,349

295,130 322,422 – 844,091 1,461,643 2,945,221Incoming resources from generated funds

Incoming resources

from charitable activities 5 152,148 – 3,065,838 348,873 3,566,859 3,806,029

Total incoming resources 447,278 322,422 3,065,838 1,192,964 5,028,502 6,751,250

Expenditure

Cost of generating funds 6 (152,138) (3,838) – (122,385) (278,361) (255,130)

Charitable activities 6 (414,877) (106,340) (3,065,838) (688,067) (4,275,122) (4,569,345)

Governance 6 (103,475) – – (46,438) (149,913) (155,370)

Total resources expended (670,490) (110,178) (3,065,838) (856,890) (4,703,396) (4,979,845)

(223,212) 212,244 – 336,074 325,106 1,771,405Net (outgoing)/incoming resources

before transfers

Transfers between funds 257,863 (101,818) – (156,045) – –

14 1,171 13,328 – 27,235 41,734 23,820

Other recognised gains/(losses)

Gains/(losses) on investment assets

Realised gains

Unrealised gains 14 71,801 817,058 – 1,862,224 2,751,083 208,280

Actuarial (losses)/gain on

Lothian Pension Fund (31,000) – – – (31,000) (75,000)

Net movement in funds 76,623 940,812 – 2,069,488 3,086,923 1,928,505

Balance brought forward

at 1 April 2012 623,886 9,405,721 – 14,080,572 24,110,179 22,181,674

Balance carried forward at

31 March 2013 21 700,509 10,346,533 – 16,150,060 27,197,102 24,110,179

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Group balance sheetat 31 March 2013

Note 2013 2013 2012 2012

£ £ £ £

Fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets 13 3,557,761 3,652,554

Fixed asset investments

Investments at market value 14 21,882,808 19,099,992

25,440,569 22,752,546

Current assets

15 323,998 910,595

584,715 295,351

97,309 96,825

1,151,805 1,262,255

Debtors

Cash at bank and in hand

Deposits – Designated funds

Deposits – Restricted funds

Deposits – General funds 979,802 295,112

3,137,629 2,860,138

Current liabilities

Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 16 (1,315,462) (1,371,625)

Net current assets 1,822,167 1,488,513

27,262,736 24,241,059Total assets less current liabilities

Provision for liabilities and charges 17 (65,634) (130,880)

27,197,102 24,110,179Net assets excluding pension fund

Lothian Pension Fund definedbenefit scheme asset/(liability) 22 – –

Net assets after pension fund asset/(liability) 27,197,102 24,110,179

Funds

General Fund 700,509 623,886

Add: Pension reserve – –

18 700,509 623,886

Designated Funds 19 10,346,533 9,405,721

Restricted Funds 20 16,150,060 14,080,572

Total funds 27,197,102 24,110,179

The accounts were approved by the Council on 2 September 2013 and signed on its behalf by:

Gerald Wilson, CBTreasurer

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RSE balance sheetat 31 March 2013

Note 2013 2013 2012 2012

£ £ £ £

Fixed assets

Tangible fixed assets 13 2,000,576 2,058,368

14(a) 9,115,145 7,941,063Fixed asset investmentsInvestments at market value

Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation 14(b) 1,610,288 1,657,096

12,726,009 11,656,527

15 298,540 859,704

454,593 295,351

97,309 96,825

1,151,805 1,123,166

Current assets

Debtors

Cash at bank and in hand

Money Market deposits – Designated funds

Money Market deposits – Restricted funds

Money Market deposits – General funds 979,802 295,112

2,982,049 2,670,158

Current liabilities

Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 16 (2,385,227) (2,213,133)

Net current assets 596,822 457,025

13,322,831 12,113,552Total assets less current liabilities

Provision for liabilities and charges 17 (65,634) (130,880)

13,257,197 11,982,672Net assets excluding pension fund

Lothian Pension Fund defined benefit scheme asset/(liability) 22 – –

Net assets after pension fund asset/(liability) 13,257,197 11,982,672

Funds

General Fund 700,509 623,886

Add: Pension reserve – –

18 700,509 623,886

Designated Funds 19 10,346,533 9,405,721

Restricted Funds 20 2,210,155 1,953,065

Total funds 13,257,197 11,982,672

The accounts were approved by the Council on 2 September 2013 and signed on its behalf by:

Gerald Wilson, CBTreasurer

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Note General Designated Restricted Restricted 2013 Total 2012 Total

Fund Funds income funds

£ £ £ £ £ £

Income

Voluntary income 253,779 80,919 – 13,807 348,505 1,887,585

Investment income 122,072 241,503 – 79,188 442,763 403,398

375,851 322,422 – 92,995 791,268 2,290,983Incoming resources from generated funds

Incoming resources

from charitable activities 258,076 – 3,317,714 – 3,575,790 3,831,171

Total incoming resources 633,927 322,422 3,317,714 92,995 4,367,058 6,122,154

Expenditure

Cost of generating funds (152,138) (3,838) – – (155,976) (188,422)

Charitable activities (445,481) (106,340) (3,317,714) (106,630) (3,976,165) (4,239,596)

Governance (103,475) – – – (103,475) (108,919)

Total resources expended (701,094) (110,178) (3,317,714) (106,630) (4,235,616) (4,536,937)

Net incoming/(outgoing) resources

before transfers (67,167) 212,244 – (13,635) 131,442 1,585,217

Transfers between funds 101,818 (101,818) – – – –

14 1,171 13,328 – 4,345 18,844 5,727

Other recognised gains/(losses)

Gains /(losses) on investment assets

Realised gains

Unrealised gains 14 71,801 817,058 – 266,380 1,155,239 90,543

Actuarial (losses) gains on

Lothian Pension Fund 22 (31,000) – – – (31,000) (75,000)

Net movement in funds 76,623 940,812 – 257,090 1,274,525 1,606,487

Balance brought

forward at 1 April 2012 623,886 9,405,721 – 1,953,065 11,982,672 10,376,185

Balance carried forward at

31 March 2013 700,509 10,346,533 – 2,210,155 13,257,197 11,982,672

RSE statement of financial activities(incorporating the income & expenditure account)for year ended 31 March 2013

465


Group cash flow statementfor the year ended 31 March 2013

2013 2013 2012 2012£ £ £ £

Cash flow statement

Net cash inflow/(outflow) from operating activities 29,762 1,028,573

21,265 14,383

Returns on investments and servicing of finance:

Interest received

Dividends received 824,580 786,968

845,845 801,351

(27,177) –

1,636,143 4,000,480

Capital expenditure and financial investment:

Purchase of tangible fixed assets

Proceeds from sale of investments

Purchases of investments (1,626,143) (5,780,480)

(17,177) (1,780,000)

858,430 49,924Net cash flow before financing:

Appeal receipts 5,658 6,507

Increase/(Decrease) in cash in the year 864,088 56,431

864,088 56,431

Reconciliation of net cash flow to movement in net funds

Increase/(Decrease) in cash in the year

Net funds at beginning of year 1,949,543 1,893,112

Net funds at end of year (note 27) 2,813,631 1,949,543

Reconciliation of net movement in funds to net cash outflow from operating activities

325,106 1,771,405

127,000 117,000

53,000 –

(175,000) (153,000)

(36,000) (39,000)

(5,658) (6,507)

(824,579) (777,966)

(21,265) (14,383)

121,970 119,517

586,597 297,565

(56,163) (199,088)

Net incoming resources before transfers

Retirement benefit scheme current service cost

Retirement benefit scheme past service cost

Retirement benefit scheme contributions

Retirement benefit scheme finance cost

Appeal receipts

Dividends receivable

Interest receivable

Depreciation

Decrease/(Increase) in debtors

(Decrease)/Increase in creditors

Movement on provision for liabilities (65,246) (86,970)

Net cash outflow from operating activities 29,762 1,028,573

466


1 Accounting basis

The accounts have been drawn up to

comply with the provisions of the Charities &

Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and

the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations

2006 as amended, and follow the

recommendations of the Statement of

Recommended Practice for Charities (SORP)

approved by the Accounting Standards Board

in February 2005 and applicable accounting

standards. The accounts have been prepared

under the historical cost accounting rules as

modified to include the revaluation of

investments. The accounts comprise five

primary financial statements: the Group and

RSE statement of financial activities

incorporating the income and expenditure

account, the Group and RSE balance sheet

and the Group cash flow statement.

On the basis of the RSE’s reserves and

cash position and the secured and expected

incoming resources for the next twelve

months, the Council considers that it is

appropriate to prepare the financial

statements on a going concern basis.

The consolidated financial statements include

the financial statements of the RSE and

of entities which are under its control: RSE

Scotland Foundation, RSE Scotland SCIO and

BP Research Fellowship Trust. As the objectives

of each of these entities are narrower than

those of the RSE, they have been treated as

restricted funds.

2 Funds

The RSE’s funds are classified in accordance

with the definitions in SORP into Restricted

Funds, where there are restrictions placed by

a donor as to the use of income or capital,

Designated Funds where the Council has set

aside sums from its unrestricted funds for

a particular purpose and the General

(unrestricted) Fund. The classifications made

are as follows:

General Fund

A discretionary Fund available to the Council

to meet the ordinary activities of the Society.

Designated Funds

Capital Asset Reserve Fund – representing

the book cost of the buildings at

22-24 George Street and 26 George Street

together with the building project loan to the

RSE Scotland Foundation.

New Enlightenment Fund – to provide

development finance to implement the RSE

Strategic Framework.

Programme Fund – a fund created to act as

a source of funding for meetings activities.

C H Kemball Fund – income from this fund is

used to provide hospitality for distinguished

visitors from other learned societies and

Academies.

Dr James Heggie Fund – income from this

fund supports the RSE’s activities with

young people.

Grants Fund – a fund created by contributions

and legacies from Fellows and used to provide

grants to support research activities

to Fellows.

Restricted Income Fund – income funds

received for expenditure on current projects.

Restricted Funds

Robert Cormack Bequest – to promote

astronomical knowledge and research

in Scotland.

Lessells Trust – to fund scholarships abroad for

engineers.

Auber Bequest – to fund research in Scotland

and England by naturalised British citizens over

60 years of age.

Prizes Fund – to fund various prizes.

Dryerre Fund – to fund postgraduate

scholarships in medical or veterinary

physiology.

Fleck Bequest Fund – to promote interest,

knowledge and appreciation of science and its

applications throughout Scotland.

Piazzi Smyth Legacy Fund – to fund high

altitude astronomical research.

Sillitto Fund – to promote interest in physics

among young people.

CASS Fund – to fund academic/ industrial

liaison.

Retailing Seminar Fund – to fund a

programme of seminars on retailing.

Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation Fund

– to fund a series of conferences on the broad

theme of ‘Drugs Futures’.

RSE Scotland Foundation – a trust to advance

the education of the public in Scotland in

science, engineering and technology,

incorporating assets transferred from the

Caledonian Research Fund (CRF).

RSE Scotland SCIO – incorporated in June

2012 with charitable purposes of the

advancement of education; the arts,

heritage, culture or science; and of citizenship

or community development. The SCIO

co-ordinates the development of the RSE

Young Academy of Scotland.

BP Research Fellowship Trust – a trust

to fund postdoctoral research fellowships

in Scotland.

3 Accounting policies

Incoming resources

Voluntary income

Subscriptions are accounted for on the basis

of the subscription year to October 2013

and include income tax recoverable on the

subscriptions paid under Gift Aid.

Revenue grants are credited to income in the

period in which the RSE becomes entitled to

the resources.

Donations of a recurring nature from other

charitable foundations and one-off gifts and

legacies included in other income are taken

to revenue in the period to which they relate.

Investment income

Interest and dividends are accounted for in

the year in which they are received.

Incoming resources for charitable activities

Incoming resources for activities are

accounted for on an accruals basis.

notes to the financial statements

467



Publication income receivable in foreign

currencies is converted into sterling at rates

of exchange ruling at the date of receipt.

Incoming resources for research fellowships

are accounted for in the period in which the

RSE becomes entitled to the resources.

Income received for specific projects, and

received in advance of the commencement

of the project, is deferred. If the project were

not to proceed as planned, the RSE would

not be entitled to retain the funds. For

performance-related grants, where

entitlement to the incoming resource only

arises with the performance of the specific

outputs agreed under the contracts, income is

deferred.

Resources expended

Expenditure and support costs

All resources expended are included on

an accruals basis, having regard to any

constructive obligations created by

multi-year grant commitments.

Where directly attributable, resources

expended are allocated to the relevant

functional category. Overhead and support

costs are allocated to functional category

on the basis of direct staff costs in each

area of activity.

Cost of generating funds

The cost of generating funds includes

expenditure incurred in supporting the

Fellowship and incurred on fundraising

and development initiatives.

Charitable activities

Grants payable are recognised as a liability

when the RSE is under an actual or

constructive obligation to make a transfer to

a third party. Where grants are time related

to future periods and are to be financed by

specific grants receivable in those future

periods, they are treated as liabilities of those

periods and not as liabilities at balance sheet

date. Such grants are disclosed as future

commitments.

Governance costs

Governance costs are those incurred in

connection with the management of RSE

assets, organisational administration and

compliance with constitutional and statutory

requirements.

Tangible fixed assets, depreciation

and repairs

The RSE’s principal assets are its buildings in

George Street, Edinburgh. Under FRS15 the

Society depreciates the buildings assuming

a 50-year life. It is the policy of the Council to

maintain the buildings to a high standard. Any

permanent diminutions in value are reflected in

the statement of financial activities. Costs of

repairs and maintenance are charged against

revenue.

Expenditure incurred by the RSE Scotland

Foundation in the improvements to

26 George Street is being depreciated from the

date of completion of the refurbishment over

the period of the lease to the RSE Scotland

Foundation to 30 June 2047.

Minor equipment is charged against revenue

in the year of purchase. Computer and

audio-visual is depreciated on a straight line

basis over 3–20 years.

Investments

Investments are stated at their market value

at the balance sheet date. Gains and losses on

disposal and revaluation of investments

are charged or credited in the statement of

financial activities and allocated to funds in

accordance with their proportionate share

of the investment portfolio.

Pensions

The RSE participates in defined benefit

pension schemes which are externally funded.

The cost of providing pensions is allocated

over employees’ working lives with the RSE

and is included in staff costs.

Pension fund assets arising from valuations

under FRS 17 are recognised only to the

extent that the asset is recoverable in the

foreseeable future.

Foreign exchange

Assets and liabilities denominated in foreign

currencies are translated at the rate of

exchange ruling at the balance sheet date,

while transactions arising during the year are

translated at the spot rate prevailing when the

transaction arises. Exchange gains or losses

arising in the year are recognised in the

statement of financial activities.

468



4 Incoming resources

Current year 2013 Voluntary income Activities for Investment Promotion of Other charitable Total 2013generating income research and activities

innovation£ £ £ £ £ £

Fellows 234,985 – – – – 234,985

Individuals 1,288 – – – 21,227 22,515

Legacies 75,000 – – – – 75,000

Companies 30,100 – – – 38,298 68,398

Charitable trusts 19,632 – – 8,732 97,020 125,384

Scottish Government – – – 1,806,348 543,652 2,350,000

Public sector bodies – – – 677,596 25,113 702,709

Bank interest – – 21,265 – – 21,265

Dividends – – 340,776 – – 340,776

361,005 – 362,041 2,492,676 725,310 3,941,032RSE


– dividends and interest – – 128,539 – – 128,539

RSE Scotland Foundation

– grants & donations 103 – – – – 103

– rental income – 254,690 – – – 254,690

– charitable activities – – – – 348,873 348,873


361,108 254,690 845,845 2,492,676 1,074,183 5,028,502

Voluntary income Activities for Investment Promotion of Other charitable Total 2012Prior year 2012 generating income research and activities

innovation

£ £ £ £ £ £

Fellows 215,923 – – – – 215,923

Individuals 5,928 – – – 18,076 24,004

Legacies 1,630,386 – – – – 1,630,386

Companies 24,300 – – – 34,228 58,528

Charitable trusts 11,048 – – 13,593 23,469 48,110

Scottish Government – – – 1,783,493 671,507 2,455,000

Public sector bodies – – – 899,955 37,128 937,083

Bank interest – – 14,383 – – 14,383

Dividends – – 306,420 – – 306,420

1,887,585 – 320,803 2,697,041 784,408 5,689,837RSE




– grants & donations 12,014 – – – – 12,014

– rental income – 253,273 – – – 253,273

– charitable activities – – – – 324,580 324,580


1,899,599 253,273 792,349 2,697,041 1,108,988 6,751,250

469



4 Incoming resources (continued)

4a Voluntary income

2013 2012£ £

10,920 11,200

176,708 172,300

23,449 6,507

Contributions from RSE Fellows

Admission fees

Annual subscriptions

Fellows’ donations

Income tax recoverable under Gift Aid 23,908 25,916

234,985 215,923

13,807 11,048

75,000 1,630,386

– 5,100

30,100 24,300

Lessells Trust additional receipt

Legacies

RSE Young Academy

Friends of the Society – corporate partners

Other income 7,216 828

361,108 1,887,585

In addition to the donations set out above, the RSE receives donations made specifically in support of activities which are included in activities income(see note 26(b)).

5 Incoming resources from charitable activities2013 2012

£ £

1,667,122 1,648,861

139,226 134,632

32,042 80,030

326,792 547,114

229,902 199,554

88,859 73,257

7,233 12,093

Scottish Government Grant – research fellowships

Scottish Government Grant – arts & humanities awards

Marie Curie COFUND

Scottish Enterprise

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships

STFC Enterprise Fellowships

Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland

Scottish Crucible 1,500 1,500

2,492,676 2,697,041

305,128 354,408

238,524 317,099

30,207 15,049

69,185 30,135

54,343 43,843

22,350 21,106

5,000 –

– 2,500

Scottish Government Grant – engagement and innovation

Scottish Government Grant – International activities

Wider outreach activities

Events

Policy and advice income

IEEE / RSE / Wolfson, James Clerk Maxwell Award

Educational activities

RSE Beltane Prize for Public Engagement

Sale of sundry publications 573 268

725,310 784,408

219,870 195,975RSE Scotland Foundation – Journal publicationsRSE Scotland Foundation – Conference facilities letting 129,003 128,605

348,873 324,580

3,806,0293,566,859

Further information relating to grants, donations and receipts and their application is set out in note 26.

470


2013 2012

Direct costs Support costs Total 2013 Direct costs Support costs Total 2012(Note 11) (Note 11)

£ £ £ £ £ £

Costs of generating funds

Fundraising 24,024 54,233 78,257 3,127 94,240 97,367

Fellows’ subscriptions – 77,719 77,719 – 91,055 91,055

24,024 131,952 155,976 3,127 185,295 188,422

Building management 34,826 85,639 120,465 – 65,768 65,768

Investment fees 1,920 – 1,920 940 – 940

Total costs of generating funds 60,770 217,591 278,361 4,067 251,063 255,130

2,188,600 200,034 2,388,634 2,310,356 212,933 2,523,289

611,528 92,196 703,724 729,037 114,359 843,396

7,495 58,426 65,921 48,935 21,747 70,682

117,553 386,569 504,122 91,663 426,911 518,574

46,530 239,934 286,464 55,209 260,094 315,303

23,257 6,354 29,611 25,183 2,545 27,728

Charitable activities

Enhancing World-Class Research

Strengthening connections among academia, business, public and voluntary sector

RSE Young Academy of Scotland

Enhancing public contribution to science, economic and cultural issues

Informing and influencing policy decisions

Recognising excellence

Reaching out 125,198 171,448 296,646 133,032 137,338 270,370

Total cost of charitable activities 3,120,161 1,154,961 4,275,122 3,393,414 1,175,928 4,569,342

5,675 97,800 103,475 5,908 103,012 108,920

5,202 35,969 41,171 5,058 40,132 45,190

1,421 2,561 3,982 – – –

Governance (note 11)

RSE


RSE Scotland SCIO

BP Research Fellowship Trust 1,285 – 1,285 1,260 – 1,260

Total governance costs 13,583 136,330 149,913 12,226 143,144 155,370

Resources expended 3,194,514 1,508,882 4,703,396 3,409,708 1,570,137 4,979,845

Central support costs as set out in note 11 have been allocated to activities in proportion to the employment cost in each area of activity.


6 Resources expended

471



7 Grants payable

2013 2012

£ £

2,244,450 2,315,558Promotion of research (note 8)

International grants (note 8) 144,184 207,731

2,388,634 2,523,289

29,611 27,728Prizes and grants (note 8)

Promotion of Innovation (Note 9) 654,077 810,085

3,072,322 3,361,102

8 Enhancing World-Class Research

2013 2012

£ £

1,545,761 1,526,453

22,341 74,949

122,897 120,745

38,861 30,303

70,248 111,458

7,859 6,457

25,539 19,017

– 3,000

20,971 20,755

Promotion of Research

Scottish Government Fellowships

Marie Curie COFUND actions

Arts & Humanities Workshop Grants

CRF European Fellowships

CRF Personal Fellowships

Robert Cormack Bequest

John Moyes Lessells Scholarship

Auber Bequest Awards

Henry Dryerre Scholarship

Other direct costs 2,682 4,202

1,857,159 1,917,339

112,373 123,335

RSE


RSE Scotland Foundation – CRF Studentships 92,036 79,093

2,061,568 2,119,767

Support costs (note 6) 182,882 195,791

2,244,450 2,315,558

127,031 190,589International exchange grants

Support costs (note 6) 17,153 17,143

144,184 207,731

2,523,289 2,388,634

An analysis of institutions and individual awards made under this expenditure heading is included in the Society’s Annual Review 2013,

obtainable from the address on the back cover.

472



9 Strengthening connections between business and academia

2013 2012

£ £

294,395 460,313

77,145 65,183

Scottish Enterprise Fellowships

STFC Enterprise Fellowships

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships 203,656 175,215

575,196 700,711

Support costs (Note 6) 78,881 109,374

654,077 810,085

13,990 12,205

2,633 –

Business Innovation Forum

Policy partnerships

IEEE/ James Clerk Maxwell Prize 19,709 16,121

36,332 28,326

Support costs (Note 6) 13,315 4,985

703,724 843,396

10 Governance

2013 2012

£ £

136,551 143,144

13,362 12,226

Management and secretariat

Audit fee

Other professional advice from auditors – –

149,913 155,370

473


2013 2012

£ £

1,084,737 1,119,082

12,148 16,098

(6,609) 76,320

Staff costs (including secondments) (note 12)

Staff training, agency and recruitment costs

Other staff costs

Non-cash pension cost adjustments (FRS 17) (31,000) (75,000)

1,059,276 1,136,500

173,088 181,699

38,611 40,079

46,946 49,165

26,006 19,143

26,520 9,453

2,971 1,644

13,494 12,937

Other costs

Establishment expenses

Computer and equipment costs

Communication, stationery and printing costs

Travel and subsistence, hospitality

Publicity

Miscellaneous

Professional fees and subscriptions

Depreciation 121,970 119,517

449,606 433,637

Total central costs 1,508,882 1,570,137

Support costs have been allocated to activities in proportion to the employment cost in each area of activity as set out in note 6.

12 Employees

2013 Total Secondments RSE Support Funded Funded Funded by RSEPayroll Project costs costs by Foundation by SCIO 2013

£ £ £ £ £ £ £

Wages and salaries 859,081 3,354 (9,109) 853,326 116,421 24,577 712,328

Social security costs 60,230 228 (188) 60,270 8,156 1,661 50,453

Other pension costs 171,904 731 (1,494) 171,241 20,250 4,146 146,745

1,091,215 4,313 (10,791) 1,084,737 144,827 30,384 909,526

Employees

2012 Total Secondments RSE Support Funded Funded by RSEPayroll Project costs costs by Foundation 2012

£ £ £ £ £ £

Wages and salaries 855,286 74,739 (42,423) 887,602 118,114 769,488

Social security costs 60,630 – (349) 60,281 7,851 52,430

Other pension costs 171,199 – – 171,199 24,783 146,416

1,087,115 74,739 (42,772) 1,119,052 150,748 968,334

The average number of employees of the RSE including those employed under joint contracts with the RSE Scotland Foundation was 29 (2012:29). Onemember of staff earned over £70,000 per year and is a member of a defined benefit pension scheme.


11 Support costs

474



13 Tangible fixed assets

22 – 24 George Street 26 George Street Improvements Computer TotalGroup Purchase cost Purchase cost Purchase cost & equipment

£ £ £ £ £

Cost

At 1 April 2012 1,103,038 1,647,468 2,136,070 356,762 5,243,338

Additions – – – 27,177 27,177

Disposals – – – (8,842) (8,842)

At 31 March 2013 1,103,038 1,647,468 2,136,070 375,097 5,261,673

Depreciation

At 1 April 2012 286,791 428,341 571,639 304,013 1,590,784

On disposals – – – (8,842) (8,842)

Charge for the year 22,061 32,949 44,467 22,493 121,970

At 31 March 2013 308,852 461,290 616,106 317,664 1,703,912

Net book value

At 31 March 2013 794,186 1,186,178 1,519,964 57,433 3,557,761

At 31 March 2012 816,247 1,219,127 1,564,431 52,749 3,652,554

RSE

Net book value

At 31 March 2013 794,186 1,186,178 – 20,212 2,000,576

At 31 March 2012 816,247 1,219,127 – 22,994 2,058,368

14 Fixed asset investmentsValue at Investments Proceeds on sale Gain / (Loss)

1 April 2012 made at cost of investments

£ £ £ £

Revaluation Market value at31 March 2013

£ £

(a) Fixed asset investments

RSE

Managed Funds 1,686,427 243,806 – – 367,340 2,297,573

Fixed interest 1,885,561 – (293,370) (867) 101,177 1,692,501

UK equities 4,339,226 486,340 (414,223) 19,711 686,721 5,117,775

Cash deposits 29,849 (730,146) 707,593 – – 7,296

7,941,063 – – 18,844 1,155,238 9,115,145


Managed Funds 638,698 89,382 (8,428) (147) 136,491 855,996

Fixed interest 648,425 – (80,579) (66) 33,311 601,091

UK equities 1,621,217 172,716 (162,178) 6,145 253,074 1,890,974

Cash deposits 34,168 (262,098) 241,185 – – 13,255

2,942,508 – (10,000) 5,932 422,876 3,361,316

1,725,162 272,036 – – 375,411 2,372,609

1,950,895 – (255,081) (2,404) 100,593 1,794,003

4,452,621 498,893 (432,285) 19,362 696,964 5,235,555

RSESF Caledonian Research Fund

Managed Funds

Fixed interest

UK equities

Cash deposits 87,743 (770,929) 687,366 – – 4,180

8,216,421 – – 16,958 1,172,968 9,406,347

19,099,992 – (10,000) 41,734 2,751,083 21,882,808

The gain on sale of investments measured against their historical cost was £278,457 (2012: £524,473) The historical cost of investments was

£17,393,910 (2012: £17,125,455). (RSE £7,500,227, 2012: £7,415,150). Investments comprising more than 5% of the market value of the portfolio

were: Aberdeen Asia Income Fund.

475



14 Fixed asset investments (continued)

(b) Loan by RSE to RSE Scotland Foundation 2013 2012

£ £

Due within one year 46,808 46,808

Due after one year 1,563,480 1,610,288

1,657,0961,610,288

The loan bears interest at 4% per annum, capped at the amount of rent received by the Foundation and is repayable over the period

to 30 June 2047, the expiration of the lease of 26 George Street.

15 Debtors2013 2012

£ £

272,158 849,852

1,243 9,852

General debtors

Prepayments and accrued income

Income tax recoverable 25,139 –

298,540 859,704

19,344 35,779

225 12,488

RSE


RSE Scotland SCIO

BP Research Fellowship Trust 5,889 2,624

Group 323,998 910,595

2013 2012

16 Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year

Group £ £

609,876 594,274

60,775 169,830

47,296 55,478

459,173 372,141

59,436 68,856

General creditors

Accruals

VAT payable

Deferred income

Event income deferred

Advance receipts – Publications 78,906 111,046

1,315,462 1,371,625

476



16 Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year (continued)

Deferred income and advance receipts analysis

At 1 April 2012 Received in year Recognised in year Exchange difference At 31 March 2013

£ £ £ £ £

Marie Curie COFUND 343,234 229 (21,963) 3,892 325,392

Friends of the Society 10,500 32,100 (30,100) – 12,500

Digital Participation Inquiry – 70,000 (2,749) – 67,251

Computing Project 18,407 28,758 (35,517) – 11,648

RSE @ Lochaber – 69,735 (27,353) – 42,382

372,141 200,822 (117,682) 3,892 459,173

Journal receipts 111,046 187,730 (219,870) – 78,906

Event income 68,856 50,403 (59,823) – 59,436

RSE 2013 2012

£ £

561,992 667,817

1,302,451 1,104,319

2,175 –

459,173 372,141

General creditors

RSE Scotland Foundation current account

RSE Scotland SCIO current account

Deferred income

Event income deferred 59,436 68,856

2,385,227 2,213,133

17 Provision for liabilities and charges£

130,880

Commitments for research fellowships

At 1 April 2012 – Group & RSE

New commitments:

Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Research Fellowships

Grants paid in the year (65,246)

At 31 March 2013 65,634

The provision represents amounts payable under a constructive obligation in respect of research fellowships and studentships due as follows:

2013–14 £21,350; 2014–15 £8,500.

18 General Fund£

At 1 April 2012 623,886

Net movement in funds for the year from statement of financial activities 76,623

At 31 March 2013 700,509

477



19 Designated Funds

At 1 April 2012 Investment Gains/(Losses)income

£ £

Other income Expenditure

£ £ £

Transfers At 31 March 2013

£ £

Capital Asset Reserve 3,692,472 – – – – (101,818) 3,590,654

New Enlightenment Fund 4,654,299 196,060 80,919 (89,529) 673,820 – 5,515,569

Programme Fund 133,119 5,713 – (112) 19,682 – 158,402

CH Kemball Fund 29,611 1,271 – (1,233) 4,378 – 34,027

Grants Fund 654,355 28,080 – (9,037) 96,746 – 770,144

Dr James Heggie Fund 241,865 10,379 – (10,267) 35,760 – 277,737

9,405,721 241,503 80,919 (110,178) 830,386 (101,818) 10,346,533

The transfers represent the release from the Capital Asset Reserve of a total of £101,818 to match the depreciation of buildings and the amount of capital repayment of the loan to the Foundation.

20 Restricted Funds

At 1 April 2012 Investment Gains/(Losses)income

£ £

Other income Expenditure

£ £ £

Transfers At 31 March 2013

£ £

Robert Cormack Bequest 111,089 4,767 – (8,102) 16,424 – 124,178

Lessells Trust 470,127 20,175 13,807 (33,884) 69,508 – 539,733

Auber Bequest 480,957 20,639 – (8,537) 71,109 – 564,168

Prizes Fund 71,821 3,082 – (4,499) 10,619 – 81,023

Dryerre Fund 508,912 21,839 – (30,005) 75,242 – 575,988

Fleck 110,361 4,736 – (2,959) 16,317 – 128,455

Piazzi Smyth 14,268 613 – (253) 2,110 – 16,738

Sillitto 34,237 1,469 – (2,871) 5,062 – 37,897

Others 29,311 1,258 – (520) 4,334 – 34,383

610 – (15,000) – – 107,592Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation 121,982

Restricted Income Fund – – 3,065,838 (3,065,838) – – –

1,953,065 79,188 3,079,645 (3,172,468) 270,725 – 2,210,155

9,191,902 355,264 603,666 (611,878) 1,189,926 (156,045) 10,572,835

– – 12,500 (12,500) – – –

RSE


RSE Scotland SCIO

BP Research Fellowship Trust 2,935,605 128,539 – (125,882) 428,808 – 3,367,070

Total 14,080,572 562,991 3,695,811 (3,922,728) 1,889,459 (156,045) 16,150,060

478



20 Restricted funds (continued)

“Prizes Fund” comprises The Keith Fund, The Neill Fund, The Makdougall-Brisbane Fund, The Gunning-Victoria Fund, The James Scott Prize Fund, theBruce-Preller Lecture Fund, The Dr DA Berry Fund, The Henry Duncan Prize Lecture Fund and The BP Prize Lecture in the Humanities Fund.

“Others” comprise the Retailing Seminars Fund and The CASS Fund. The Restricted Income Fund represents restricted income received and expended in the year.

Under the terms of the Lessells Trust the University of Glasgow is entitled to 10% of additional amounts received by the RSE from the Trust.

The funds of the RSE Scotland Foundation are treated as restricted in respect of the consolidated accounts and comprise the endowment for theupkeep of the James Clerk Maxwell statue of £37,262, the CRF fund of £9,654,270 and the balance of the Foundation general fund of £881,303.

21 Analysis of assets between funds

General Designated Funds Restricted Funds 2013 2012

Group £ £ £ £ £

20,212 1,980,364 1,557,185 3,557,761 3,652,554

354,012 6,658,572 14,870,225 21,882,809 19,099,992

– 1,610,288 (1,610,288) – –

298,540 – 25,458 323,998 910,595

(1,302,451) – 1,302,451 – –

(2,175) – 2,175 – –

979,802 97,309 1,151,805 2,228,916 1,654,192

454,593 – 130,122 584,715 295,351

(36,390) – (1,279,073) (1,315,463) (1,371,625)

(65,634) – – (65,634) (130,880)

Fund balances at 31 March 2013 are represented by:

Tangible fixed assets

Investments

Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation

Current assets



Deposits

Cash

Current liabilities

Provisions for liabilities and charges

Pension fund liability – – – – –

700,509 10,346,533 16,150,060 27,197,102 24,110,179

General Designated Funds Restricted Funds 2013 2012

RSE £ £ £ £ £

20,212 1,980,364 – 2,000,576 2,058,368

354,012 6,658,572 2,102,561 9,115,145 7,941,063

– 1,610,288 – 1,610,288 1,657,096

298,540 – – 298,540 859,704

(1,302,451) – – (1,302,451) (1,104,319)

(2,175) – – (2,175) –

979,802 97,309 1,151,805 2,228,916 1,515,103

454,593 – – 454,593 295,351

(36,390) – (1,044,211) (1,080,601) (1,108,814)

(65,634) – – (65,634) (130,880)

Fund balances at 31 March 2013 are represented by:

Tangible fixed assets

Investments

Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation

Current assets



Deposits

Cash

Current liabilities

Provisions for liabilities and charges

Pension fund liability – – – – –

700,509 10,346,533 2,210,155 13,257,197 11,982,672

479



22 Pension costs

(a) Universities Superannuation Scheme

The RSE participates in the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a defined benefit pension scheme which is externally funded and contracted out

of the State Second Pension (S2P) Scheme. The assets of the scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund. The fund is valued every

three years by a professionally qualified independent actuary using the projected unit method, the rates of contribution payable being determined

by the trustee on the advice of the actuaries. In the intervening years the actuaries review the progress of the scheme.

Because of the mutual nature of the scheme, the scheme's assets are not hypothecated to individual institutions and a scheme-wide contribution

rate is set. The RSE is therefore exposed to actuarial risks associated with other institutions' employees and is unable to identify

its share of the underlying assets and liabilities of the scheme on a consistent and reasonable basis and therefore, as required by FRS 17

"Retirement benefits", accounts for the scheme as if it were a defined contribution scheme. As a result, the amount charged to the income and

expenditure account represents the contributions payable to the scheme in respect of the accounting period.

At 31 March 2013, USS had over 145,000 active members and the RSE had two active members participating in the scheme.

The latest actuarial valuation of the scheme was at 31 March 2011. The most significant assumptions, those relating to the rate of return on

investments and the increase in salary and pensions are as follows:

Past service Future service

liabilities liabilities

Investment return 6.1 6.1

Salary increase 4.4 4.4

Pension increase 3.4 3.4

At the valuation date the market value of the scheme’s assets was £32,433.5 million and the value of the scheme’s technical provisions was

£35,343.7 million on the scheme’s historical funding basis. The value of the assets represented 92% of the benefits that had accrued to

members, after allowing for expected future increases in earnings. As part of this valuation, the trustees have determined, after consultation with

the employers, a recovery plan to pay off the shortfall by 31 March 2021. Since the previous valuation as at 31 March 2008, there have been a

number of changes to the benefits provided by the scheme, although these became effective from October 2011. These include: change to

career revalued benefits for new entrants, normal pension age increase to 65, increase in member contributions and cost sharing, in the ratio

65:35 employers to members, of the excess contribution over 23.5%.The contribution rate payable by the RSE in the year was 16.0% of

pensionable salaries. The actuary has confirmed that it is appropriate to take the pension charge to be equal to the actual contribution paid

during the year. The total pension cost payable to USS in the year was £17,623.

(b) Lothian Pension Fund

The RSE also participates in the Lothian Pension Fund, a defined benefit pension scheme established under Local Government Pension Fund

Regulations. This scheme has determined that it is possible to ascertain the shares of assets and liabilities relating to individual admitted bodies.

The assets of the scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund.

The fund is valued every three years by a professionally qualified independent actuary using the projected unit method, the rates of contribution

payable being determined by the trustee on the advice of the actuaries. In the intervening years the actuaries review the progress of the scheme.

At the latest valuation date the market value of the scheme’s assets was £2,903 million and the value of past service liabilities was £3,427 million.

The value of the assets represented 85% of the benefits that had accrued to members, after allowing for expected future increases in earnings.

The contribution rate payable by the RSE was: 22.7%. The actuary has confirmed that it is appropriate to take the pension charge to be equal to

the actual contribution paid during the year.

480



22 Pension costs (continued)

Pension fund asset / (liability)The RSE pension fund asset at 31 March and the movements of its component parts comprise:

2013 2012£’000 £’000

(2,908) (2,209)Present value of funded liabilities (defined benefit obligation)

Fair value of employer assets 3,042 2,441

Net asset at 31 March 134 232

In accordance with the accounting policy, this asset is not recognised in the balance sheet as it is not expected to be recoverable in the foreseeablefuture.

2013 2012Movement in present value of defined benefit obligation £’000 £’000

At 1 April 2,209 2,087

Current service cost 127 117

Past service costs 53 –

Interest cost 111 119

Contribution by members 44 45

Actuarial losses/(gains) 378 (137)

Benefits paid (14) (22)

At 31 March 2,908 2,209

2013 2012Movement in fair value of employer assets £’000 £’000

2,441 2,174

147 158

44 45

175 153

249 (67)

At 1 April

Expected return on assets

Contributions by members

Contributions by the employer

Actuarial gains/(losses)

Benefits paid (14) (22)

At 31 March 3,042 2,441

2013 2012The net expense recognised in the statement of financial activities after FRS17 adjustments was £’000 £’000

127 117

111 119

(147) (158)

Current service cost

Interest cost

Expected return on employer assets

Past service cost/(gain) 53 –

144 78

The total amount recognised in the statement of financial activities in respect of actuarial gains and losses is a loss of £31,000 (2012: loss of

£75,000). This loss has been calculated to eliminate the net asset to reflect the expectations in respect of its recovery at 31 March 2013.

481



22 Pension costs (continued)

The fair value of the employer assets at 31 March and the return on them in the year was:

Value Return Value Return

2013 2013 2012 2012

£’000 % £’000 %

Equities 2,403 5.7 1,929 6.2

Bonds 243 3.5 195 4.0

Property 274 3.9 268 4.4

Cash 122 3.0 49 3.5

3,042 2,441

Actual return on plan assets 396 48

The expected rates of return on plan assets are determined by reference to relevant indices. The overall expected rate of return is calculated by weighting

the individual rates in accordance with the anticipated balance in the Plan’s investment portfolio.

Principal actuarial assumptions (expressed as weighted averages) at the year end were as follows:2013 2012% %

Inflation/pension increase rate 2.8 2.5

Salary increase rate 5.1 4.8

Expected return on assets 5.3 5.8

Discount rate 4.5 4.8

The salary increase assumption at 31 March 2013 is 1% per annum for the first two years thereafter.

The assumptions relating to longevity underlying the pension liabilities at the balance sheet date as based on standard actuarial mortality tables and include anallowance for future improvements in longevity. The assumptions are equivalent to expecting a 65 year old to live for a number of years as follows:

Males 2013 Females Males 2012 Females

Current pensioners 20.4 years 22.8 years 20.8 years 24.1 years

Future pensioners 22.6 years 25.4 years 22.3 years 25.7 years

2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 The history of the plan for the current and priorperiods is as follows: £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000

(2,908) (2,209) (2,087) (2,299) (1,128) (1,145) (1,298) (1,250)Present value of defined benefit obligation

Fair value of employer assets 3,042 2,441 2,174 1,884 1,267 1,437 1,347 1,130

Surplus/(deficit) 134 232 87 (415) 139 292 49 (120)

Experience gains and losses on assets and liabilities have been as follows: 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006

£’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000 £’000

1 180 – – 28 – (1) (30)Experience gains/(losses) on liabilities

Experience gains/(losses) on assets 249 (67) (37) 374 (396) (140) 8 171

The projected amount to be charged in respect of the Lothian Pension Fund defined benefit scheme in the next financial year is £130,000.

(c) Pension chargeThe total pension charge for the year, before the FRS17 pension credit, was £171,904 (2012: £171,199 before FRS 17 pensions credit).

482



23 Transactions with Related parties

(a) Council members

No member of Council received any payments other than reimbursements of expenditure on travel and subsistence costs actually and necessarily

incurred in carrying out their duties as Councillors and Officers. The aggregate of such reimbursements to those Council members who charged

expenses amounted to £3,583 (2012: £1,185).

b) Other related parties

The RSE Director of Finance is also a part-time employee of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, which administers postgraduate

scholarships on behalf of the Foundation. In 2012–13 the Foundation made payments in support of the studentship scheme amounting to

£92,036 (2012: £79,093).

24 Connected charitable trusts

(a) RSE Scotland Foundation

The RSE Scotland Foundation is a charitable trust, recognised in Scotland as Scottish charity number SC024636. It was created in March 1996 with the

object of advancing the education of the public in Scotland in science and engineering and in so doing to conserve the scientific and cultural heritage of

Scotland. The President, General Secretary, Treasurer, Curator and a Vice-President of the RSE are ex officiis Trustees of the Foundation, which draws on

the resources of the RSE in carrying out its objects. The Foundation also has five nominated Trustees. The Foundation became publisher of the RSE’s

journals under a Publications Rights License effective from 1 January 1997.

On 1 July 1997 the RSE granted to the Foundation a 50-year lease over 26 George Street carrying an obligation to refurbish the building

within a three-year period. The Council of the RSE agreed to make a loan of up to £2.3 million available to the Foundation in support

of the refurbishment. The agreed terms of the loan are as described in note 15.

(b) BP Research Fellowships Trust

The BP Research Fellowships Trust is a charitable trust recognised in Scotland as Scottish Charity Number SC008420. It funds a scheme of post doctoral

research fellowships administered by the RSE.

(c) RSE Scotland SCIO

RSE Scotland SCIO – incorporated in June 2012as Scottish Charity Number SC043194, with charitable purposes of the advancement of education; the

arts, heritage, culture or science; and of citizenship or community development. The SCIO co-ordinates the development of the RSE Young Academy of

Scotland.

25 Financial commitments – operating leasesThe financial commitment at 31 March 2013, in respect of operating leases expiring within one year for printing and copying equipment, was £6,631.

26 Supplementary information: grants, donations and receipts

(a) Scottish Government Grants Income

2013 2012

£ £

1,667,122 1,648,861

139,226 134,632

305,128 317,099

Promotion of research – research fellowships

Arts and Humanities Award

Engagement and Innovation

International activities 238,524 354,408

2,350,000 2,455,000

The funding for 2012–13 was grant-in-aid under S23 Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985 in support of the four programmes of activity: Research

Fellowships, Arts & Humanities Awards; International grants & relations and Engagement and Innovation, administered through the Scottish Funding

Council.

At 31 March 2013 the financial commitment in respect of Personal and Support Fellowships awarded subject to Scottish Government funding

in the years, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17 and 2017–18 amounted to £1,025,570, £797,684, £340,167, £200,917 and £87,104

respectively. These amounts are treated as obligation of future years to be financed by specific funding expected to be made available from the Scottish

Government.

483



26 Supplementary information: grants, donations and receipts (continued)

The amount paid to Universities in respect of the Research Fellowships represented 80% of the full economic cost of employing the Research Fellows.

The support of the Universities in funding the balance of the cost is essential to the success of the scheme.

(b) Recurring donations in support of activities

The Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland supports postdoctoral fellowships, postgraduate studentships and lectures and conferences

to fund and disseminate research aimed at improving the quality of life for an ageing population.

Scottish Enterprise Lloyds TSB Foundationfor Scotland

£ £

Income

Promotion of research & innovation 326,792 –

294,395 58,013

Costs

Promotion of research & innovation

RSE administration and staff costs recovery 32,397 7,233

326,792 65,246

(c) Other donations in support of activities

The RSE gratefully acknowledges all those who make donations in support of activities. The companies, trusts and other bodies

which made donations of £1,000 or more in support of activities in the year ended 31 March 2013 were as follows:

Oracle Corporation UK Limited

Pulsant

Royal Academy of Engineering

Royal Commonwealth Society

Scottish Agricultural College

Scottish Cancer Foundation

Scottish Schools Education Research Centre

Society of Biology

Standard Life Investments

University of Edinburgh

University of Glasgow

University of St Andrews

University of the West of Scotland

Wolfson Microelectronics Plc

Binks Trust

BT plc

CISEP Project

City of Edinburgh Council

Council of Professors & Heads of Computing

The Darwin Trust of Edinburgh

Edinburgh Napier University

Education Scotland

European Parliament information Office

European Commission

Gedeon Richter (UK) Limited

Glasgow City Council

Glasgow Caledonian University

International Futures Forum

Institute of Physics

Microsoft Research Limited

484



26 Supplementary information: grants, donations and receipts (continued)

(d) Friends of the Society

The Friends of the Society – corporate partners of the RSE, during the year ended 31 March 2013 were as follows:

Arup Group

BP plc

FES Ltd

Institution of Civil Engineers

Lloyds Banking Group

MacRoberts LLP

Newsquest Scotland (Herald & Times)

Optos plc

Oracle Corporation UK Limited

Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI)

Scottish Power

Shell UK

Standard Life plc

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc

Toshiba Medical Visualization Systems Europe, Ltd

Wood Group plc

27 Analysis of net funds

At 31 March 2013 Cash flows At 1 April 2012

£ £ £

Cash at bank 584,715 289,364 295,351

Deposits – general 979,802 684,690 295,112

Deposits – designated funds 97,309 484 96,825

Deposits – restricted funds 1,151,805 (110,450) 1,262,255

2,813,631 864,088 1,949,543

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