Lord Kelvin: An account of his scientific life and work

by Andrew Gray

CHAPTER XVII

PRACTICAL ACTIVITIES—HONOURS AND DISTINCTIONS—LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH

It remains to say something of Lord Kelvin's public and practical activities. All over the world he came ultimately to be recognised as the greatest living scientific authority in almost all branches of physics. Every existing learned society sought to make him a Fellow, honorary degrees were showered on him from all quarters. A list of some of the most important of these distinctions is given in the Royal Society Year-Book for 1907; it is doubtful if a complete list could be compiled. He was awarded the Keith Medal and the Victoria Jubilee Medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and received in succession the Copley and Royal Medals of the Royal Society of London, of which he was elected a Fellow in 1851, and was President from 1890 to 1895. For several periods of years he was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to which he communicated his papers on heat, dissipation of energy, vortex motion, and many other memoirs.

He was President of the British Association at the Edinburgh meeting in 1871, when he delivered a presidential address, noteworthy in many respects, but chiefly remarkable in the popular mind on account of his suggestion that life was conveyed to the earth by a seed, a germ enclosed in a crevice of a meteorite. This was understood at the time by many people as an attempt to explain the origin of life itself, instead of what it was intended to be, an explanation of the beginning of the existence of living things on a planet which was originally, on the completion of its formation by the condensation of nebular matter, red hot even at its surface. On several occasions he was president of Section A, and he was constant in attendance at the Association meetings, and an eager listener and participator in the discussions and debates. His scientific curiosity was never at rest, and he dearly liked to meet and converse with scientific workers.

Lady Thomson, who had been long an invalid, died in 1870, and in 1874 Sir William Thomson was married to Miss Frances Anna Blandy (daughter of Mr. Charles R. Blandy of Madeira) who survives him as Lady Kelvin. To her tender solicitude he owed much of his constant and long-continued activity in all kinds of work. She accompanied him on all public occasions, and he relied greatly on her helpfulness and ever watchful care.

In 1892 Sir William Thomson, while President of the Royal Society, was raised to the Peerage, with the title of Baron Kelvin of Netherhall, Largs; and more lately he was created a member of the Order of Merit and a G.C.V.O. His foreign distinctions were very numerous. He was a Knight of the Order Pour le Mèrite of Prussia, a Foreign Associate of the Institute of France, and a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour. But no public honour or mark of royal favour could raise him in the estimation of all who know anything of science or of the labours of the scientific men to whom we owe the necessities and luxuries of our present civilisation.

In 1896 the City and University of Glasgow celebrated the jubilee of his Professorship of Natural Philosophy. The rejoicings on that occasion will never be forgotten by those whose privilege it was to take part in them. Delegates came from every country in the world, and kings and princes, universities and learned societies, colleges and scholastic institutions of every kind, vied with each other in doing honour to the veteran who had fought for truth and light for so many years, and won so many victories. A memorial volume of the proceedings was published, including a review of Lord Kelvin's work by the late Professor FitzGerald, and a full report appeared in Nature and other journals at the time, so that it is unnecessary to give particulars here. And indeed it is impossible by any verbal description to convey an idea of the enthusiasm with which the scientific world acclaimed its leader, and of the dignity and state of the ceremonies.

In 1899, at the age of seventy-five, Lord Kelvin resigned the Chair of Natural Philosophy, and retired, not to rest, but to investigate more vigorously than ever the properties of matter. One remarkable fruit of his leisure we have in his great book, the Baltimore Lectures, in which theories of light are discussed with a power which excites the reverence of all engaged in the new researches and which recent discoveries have called into existence. And it is not too much to say that the means of discussing and extending these discoveries are in great measure due to Lord Kelvin.

During the year 1907 Lord Kelvin performed many University duties and seemed to be in unusually good health. He presided as Chancellor at the installation of Mr. Asquith as Lord Rector on January 11, and in the same capacity attended a few days later the funeral of Principal Story, the Vice-Chancellor, who died on January 13. On April 23 he presided at the long and arduous ceremonies of honorary graduation, and the public opening of the new Natural Philosophy Institute and the new Medical Buildings, by the Prince of Wales. As Chancellor he conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws on the Prince and Princess, and took the chair at the luncheon which followed the proceedings, when he proposed in a short and graceful speech the health of the Princess.

He was able to take part also in various political and social meetings, and to give attention to the work in progress at the factories of his firm in Cambridge Street. Lady Kelvin and he left Netherhall, Largs, for Aix les Bains, at the end of July, but visited the British Association at Leicester in passing. There he heard the presidential address of his old friend, Sir David Gill, to whom he moved a vote of thanks in his usual vivacious manner.

Lord Kelvin had been accustomed for a good many years to spend a month or six weeks in summer or early autumn at the famous French watering-place, from which he seemed always to receive much benefit. For a long time he had suffered from an intermittent and painful form of facial neuralgia, which, except during its attacks, which came and passed suddenly, did not incapacitate him from work. With the exception of a rather serious illness in 1906, this was the only ailment from which he had suffered for many years, and his general health was otherwise uniformly good.

Lord and Lady Kelvin returned to Netherhall on September 14, with the intention of going in a day or two to Belfast, to open the new scientific buildings of Queen's College. But, unfortunately, on the day of their arrival Lady Kelvin became very seriously ill, and the visit to Ireland had to be abandoned. His address was, however, read by his nephew, James Thomson, son of his elder brother, and was a tribute to the city of his birth, and the memory of his father.

The illness of Lady Kelvin caused much anxiety for many weeks, and this, and perhaps some incautious exposure, led to the impairment of Lord Kelvin's health. A chill caught on November 23 caused him to be confined to bed; and though he managed for a week or two still to do some work on a paper with which he had been occupied for a considerable time, he became worse, and gradually sank, until his death at a quarter-past ten o'clock on the evening of December 18.

The keen sorrow which was universally felt for Lord Kelvin's death was manifested by all classes of the community. In Glasgow every one mourned as for the greatest of the land, and the testimony to the affection in which he was held, and the reverence for his character and scientific achievements, was extraordinary. And this feeling was universal; from all parts of the world poured in telegrams of respectful sympathy with Lady Kelvin and with the University of Glasgow in their bereavement.

The view was immediately and strongly expressed, both privately and by the press, that the most illustrious natural philosopher since Newton should rest beside the great founder of physical science in Westminster Abbey, and a requisition was immediately prepared and forwarded by the Royal Society of London to the Dean of Westminster. The wish of the whole scientific world was at once acceded to, and on December 23, at noon, the interment took place, with a state and yet a simplicity which will never be forgotten by those who were present.

Nearly all the scientific notabilities of the country were present, and the coffin, preceded by the choristers and the clergy, while the hymn, "Brief life is here our portion," was sung, was followed round the cloistered aisles from St. Faith's chapel to the choir, by the relatives, representatives of His Majesty the King and the Prince of Wales, by the Royal Society, by delegates from the Institute of France, representatives of the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow, and other universities, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (of which Lord Kelvin was president when he died), and of most of the learned societies of the kingdom. Then, after a short service, the body was followed to the grave in the cloisters by the same company of mourners, and to the solemn words of the Burial Service was laid close by where rests all that was mortal of Isaac Newton. There he sleeps well who toiled during a long life for the cause of natural knowledge, and served nobly, as a hero of peace, his country and the world.

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