Petrarch, Italian essayist and poet, b. 1304.
Dame Cecily Veronica Wedgewood (b.1910, d. 1997) She was a famous historian of the Renaissance era. Quotation: “History is an art–like all the other sciences.”
Sir Clements Robert Markham(b. 1813, d. 1916) He was an English geographer and historian. Most interesting facts: “It was almost entirely due to his exertions that funds were obtained for the National Antarctic Expedition under Captain Robert Scott, which left England in the summer of 1901,” and he wrote several books including “a Life of Richard III. (1906), in which he maintained that the king was not guilty of the murder of the two princes in the Tower.” We’re all defenders of Richard III around here ever since we read Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.
Sir Richard Owen (b. 1804, d. 1894) Richard Owen was a famous taxonomist, biologist, and scientist in Victorian England. He actually taught anatomy to Queen Victoria’s children. Interesting story:
Owen also described the anatomy of a newly discovered species of ape, which had only been discovered in 1847 — the gorilla. However, Owen’s anti-materialist and anti-Darwinian views led him to state that gorillas and other apes lack certain parts of the brain that humans have, specifically a structure known as the hippocampus minor. The uniqueness of human brains, Owen thought, showed that humans could not possibly have evolved from apes. Owen persisted in this view even when Thomas Henry Huxley conclusively showed that Owen was mistaken — apes do have a hippocampus. This tarnished Owen’s scientific standing towards the end of his life. Victorian author Charles Kingsley satirized the dispute in his childrens’ classic, The Water-Babies:
You may think that there are other more important differences between you and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is a child’s fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test. If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the apes of all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one single ape’s brain, nothing will save your great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- greater- greatest- grandmother from having been an ape too.”
The biography I read on the web seemed to conclude that Owen was a fairly good scientist, but nothing could absolve him of the sin of having disagreed with St. Darwin, and therefore Owen was “vain, arrogant, envious, and vindictive.”
Sir George Trevelyan (b. 1905, d. 1996) Wow! You’d have to see this one to believe it. I’d never heard of Sir George, but he apparently has some major influence in the”New Age Movement” in England. This short quotation should give you an idea of what he taught:
Who and What is the Christos? Clearly an exalted Being of Light must overlight all mankind. He must illumine every race, creed and nation. There can be nothing sectarian about Him. Truth and Love must play down on to every man, whether atheist or believer. The great world religions need not merge and indeed should not merge, for each of them carries a tremendous facet of the Truth. But over all a real and all-embracing world religion could begin to appear in recognition of the Lord of Light, overlighting all mankind.”
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read more of Sir George’s ramblings, but if you’re trying to talk to someone who has fried his brain on this stuff, the link is above on his name.
Martin Provenson, b. 1916, d.. 1987. Author and illustrator, with his wife Alice, of several delightful children’s picture books, including Caldecott Award winner, The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, also A Peaceable Kingdom: The Shaker Abecedarius and The Year at Maple Hill Farm.
Edited from material posted July 2004 and July 2005.