| 2004 |
|
YEAR BOOK |
History of Science
|
'The entertainment resembled the coronation festival of George IV'
|
It was before a formal dinner in the beautiful long room of Trinity College Library, on the evening of 15 August 1835, that the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Mulgrave, knighted William Rowan Hamilton (1805�1865), Ireland's greatest mathematician. A spectator observed that the 'magnificent entertainment resembled the coronation festival of George IV' 1 � an event that had happened across the Irish sea fifteen years earlier.
Sir William Rowan Hamilton, the bicentenary of whose birth we celebrate in 2005, is generally reckoned to be (to coin a phrase) the 'King' of Irish scientists � mathematics being, mathematicians assure us, the 'Queen of the Sciences'. Some of our other really distinguished scientists � like Robert Boyle, George Gabriel Stokes, Lord Kelvin, and Kathleen Lonsdale � took advantage of the opportunities and hospitality offered by that larger island close by. But Hamilton carried out all his scientific work in Ireland. He actually considered that the greatest service he could render to his country was to apply himself to his studies. This is a kind of 'nationalism' which doesn't receive much attention in our history books, their focus being chiefly on rebellion, religion and politics. But being a good scientist is another valid way of expressing our love for our country.
It was at the height of the Irish famine twelve years later, actually on 6 February 1847, that Hamilton wrote to his friend Aubrey De Vere (1814�1902), poet and future author of English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds (1848), commenting 2 :
|
Though I have been giving, and shall continue to give, through various channels, whatever I can spare in the way of money to the relief of those wants, yet I am almost ashamed of being so much interested as I am in things celestial, while there is so much of human suffering on this earth of ours. But it is the opinion of some judicious friends, themselves eminently active in charitable works, that my peculiar path, and best hope of being useful to Ireland, are to be found in the pursuit of those abstract and seemingly unpractical contemplations to which my nature has so strong a bent. If the fame of our country shall be in any degree raised thereby, and if the industry of a particular kind thus shown shall tend to remove the prejudice which supposes Irishmen to be incapable of perseverance, some step, however slight, may be thereby made towards the establishment of an intellectual confidence which cannot be, in the long run, unproductive of temporal and material benefits also to this unhappy but deeply interesting island and its inhabitants.
|
The coronation-like event was the final act in the first visit of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) to Dublin, and was hosted by the Provost of Trinity College, the Rev. Bartholomew Lloyd, and the Senior Fellows of the College. Lloyd was President of the BAAS for the 1835�6 Session, and Hamilton was Secretary of Section A � Mathematics and Physics. Other comments by some of the three hundred guests included: 'most elegant dinner ever seen', 'most sumptuous', and 'recherch� [exquisite] in the food, wines, ices and fruits'. The actual knighting ceremony was considered 'one of the most striking parts of the proceedings, and was done in a very princelike manner'.
The 'accomplished American author, Mr. Ticknor' [George Ticknor of Boston], a 'trustworthy witness' observed the event 3 :
|
We assembled in the imposing hall of Trinity Library, two hundred and eighty feet long, at six o'clock�.When the company was principally assembled, I observed a little stir near the place where I stood, which nobody could explain, and which, in fact, was not comprehended by more than two or three persons present. In a moment, however, I perceived myself standing near the Lord Lieutenant and his suite, in front of whom a space had been cleared, and by whom was Professor Hamilton, looking very much embarrassed. The Lord Lieutenant then called him by name, and he stepped into the vacant space.
"I am," said his Excellency, "about to exercise a prerogative of royalty, and it gives me great pleasure to do it, on this splendid public occasion, which has brought together so many distinguished men from all parts of the empire, and from all parts even of the world where Science is held in honour. But, in exercising it, Professor Hamilton, I do not confer a distinction. I but set the royal, and, therefore, the national mark on a distinction already acquired by your genius and labours."�. Then, receiving the State sword from one of his attendants, he said, "Kneel down, Professor Hamilton;" and laying the blade gracefully and gently first on one shoulder, and then on the other, he said, "Rise up, Sir William Rowan Hamilton"�. I was afterwards told that this was the first instance in which a person had been knighted by a Lord Lieutenant either for scientific or literary merit. |
At the time, Trinity College Dublin and Trinity College Cambridge had close ties, not least in the distinction of their mathematical studies. The Rev. William Whewell, a future Master of Trinity Cambridge, and later Vice-Chancellor of the University, in his speech, reminded visitors that 130 years earlier: 'a great man in another Trinity College had knelt down before his sovereign and risen up Sir Isaac Newton'.
The 'coronation', of course, wasn't the only festivity of the BAAS visit. The London weekly journal, Athenaeum, recorded 4 :
In Dublin, notwithstanding the unusual quantity and quality of the scientific communications, business has been positively perplexed by the joyousness and festivities of the occasion�.every practicable accommodation has been afforded for the lodging, feeding, feasting and amusing of the stranger�.D�jeuners, dinners, rural excursions, public entertainments by the learned bodies, and private parties by individuals of distinction, have exhausted all their combinations, to scatter the flowers of sociality over the path of scientific labour.
The BAAS returns to Dublin for its sixth visit to the city in September 2005 (previous visits were 1835, 1857, 1878, 1908 and 1957). In my opinion (for what it is worth), I am glad that we don't have a State honours system in our Republic, and I hope we never have. So we can't replicate Hamilton's 'coronation'. But I anticipate that our welcome visitors will still have a memorable time.
References
1.�Jack Morrell & Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science � Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford: University Press, 1982), p. 184.
2.�Robert Perceval Graves, Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Volume II, (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1885), p. 558.
3. Graves, p. 158.
4. Quoted in Morrell & Thackray, p. 147.