Scientists of Wales

This book provides an accessible and authoritative biography of the Welsh man of science, William Robert Grove. Grove was an important and highly influential figure in Victorian science. His career as both man of science and leading barrister and judge spanned the Victorian age, and he also played a vital role in the movement to reform the Royal Society. This biography will set Grove's career and contributions in context, paying particular attention to the important role of Welsh industrial culture in forming his scientific outlook. The place of science in culture changed radically during the course of the nineteenth century, and Grove himself played a key role in some of those transformations. Looking at his life in science can, however, do more than illuminate an individual scientific career—it can offer a way of gaining new insights into the changing face of Victorian science.

Lhwyd, the illegitimate son of a father ruined by the Civil War, had to make his own way in the world. A competent botanist before going up to Oxford as a student, he spent much time there at the Botanical Garden before being appointed to the newly established Ashmolean Museum, where he became its second Keeper. This biography traces the development of his research interests from botany to palaeontology—and then to antiquarian studies, which led to him studying the Celtic languages as a source of linguistic evidence in historical studies. Thus, he became the founder of Celtic Studies. Lhwyd's diverse research interests were underpinned by an evidence-led methodology—the collection (by personal observation where possible) of material, which would then be classified as a preliminary to drawing conclusions—and, as such, his is a valuable contribution to the history of science.

To meet William Morgan is to encounter the eighteenth-century world of finance, science, and politics. Born in Bridgend in 1750, his heritage was Welsh, but his influence extended far beyond national borders, and the legacy of his work continues to shape life in the twenty-first century. Aged only twenty-five and with no formal training, Morgan became actuary at the Equitable, which was then a fledgling life assurance company. Known today as 'the father of the actuarial profession', his pioneering work earned him the Copley Medal, the Royal Society's most prestigious award. His interests covered a wider scientific field, and his papers on electrical experiments show that he unwittingly constructed the first X-ray tube. Politically radical, Morgan's outspoken views put him at risk of imprisonment during Pitt's Reign of Terror. This biography, using unpublished family letters, explores Morgan's turbulent private life and covers his outstanding public achievements. 'William spent 56 years at the Equitable Life Assurance Company, where he learnt how to understand and manage financial risk. In 1789, for his work on the mathematics of life assurance, he was awarded the Copley Medal, the Royal Society's most prestigious decoration. Subsequent generations have hailed him as 'the father of the actuarial profession'—recognition of his having established many of the rules and standards on which the science is based.'

This book presents the life and work of Professor Evan James Williams, described as one of Wales's most eminent scientists. Williams played a prominent part in the early twentieth-century revolution in physics with the emergence of quantum science and was an able experimentalist and accomplished theoretician who made notable contributions in atomic physics and the discovery of a new elementary particle. From humble beginnings in rural Cardiganshire, his stellar career is charted in this book as he climbed the academic ladder at a number of universities, culminating in his appointment as Professor of Physics at Aberystwyth, and election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society. During the Second World War, Williams was instrumental in applying Operational Research to thwart the threat of German submarines in the Atlantic, his career was cut short, however, by his early death in 1945.

This enthralling biography tells, for the first time, the complete story of one of Tudor England's most enigmatic figures. A Welshman born in Tenby, south Wales, c.1512, Robert Recorde was educated at both Oxford and Cambridge. This book, the first detailed biography of this Tudor scholar, reviews the many facets of his astonishingly wide-ranging career and ultimately tragic life. It presents a richly detailed and fully rounded picture of Recorde the man, the university academic and theologian, the physician, the mathematician and astronomer, the antiquarian, and the writer of hugely successful textbooks. Crown appointments brought Recorde into conflict with the scheming Earl of Pembroke, and eventually set him at odds with Queen Mary I. As an intellectual out of his depth in political intrigue, beset by religious turmoil, Recorde eventually succumbed to the dangers that closed inexorably around him.

The main focus of this book is on the contribution of Welsh scientists, engineers and facilities in Wales to the British nuclear programme—especially the military programme—from the Second World War through to the present day. After the war, a number of Welsh scientists at Harwell played an important role in the development of civil nuclear power, and subsequently also at Aldermaston where Welsh scientists and engineers were a key part of William Penney's team producing the first UK nuclear device tested at Monte Bello in 1952. This book highlights the scientific and engineering contribution made by Welsh scientists and engineers, and, where possible, it considers their backgrounds, education, personalities, and interests. Many, for example, were sons of miners from the Welsh valleys, whose lives were changed by their teachers and education at Wales's university institutions—which responds in part to the question, 'Why so many Welshmen?'

In 1880, Griffith Evans, an army veterinary surgeon in India, made the seminal discovery that blood parasites—then universally considered benign—were pathogenic. Spurned by peers and colleagues, his conclusions from experiments with diseased horses were acknowledged by Koch and Pasteur, but it took many years before his achievement received general recognition. The son of a farmer near Tywyn, Meirionnydd, Evans was commissioned as a veterinary officer in the Royal Artillery. He was first posted to Canada where, in his spare time, he qualified in medicine. An irrepressible adventurer, he visited North America during the Civil War, meeting Abraham Lincoln and touring the Union front line. Evans's talent for engagement with people and cultures characterised his life in Canada and in India. During a long and productive retirement in north Wales, he immersed himself in local and national affairs. At his centenary in 1935, Evans received the accolades of his profession, community and family, dying peacefully in his hundredth year. Since that time, his name has faded into obscurity.

In the long eighteenth century, between 1650 and 1820, Wales and the rest of Europe moved from a world of alchemy to one of steam engines and electricity. The scientists of Wales contributed to that changing world of new ideas, but their contribution often overlooked in many histories of the period. This book is a corrective that details the work of scientists from Wales in the four home nations of the isles, covering the intellectual changes of the period and their impact on religion; how scientists were educated in Wales; and, in a lengthy final section, some of the practical science undertaken and the social benefits that resulted.