Early in my scientific career it was my good fortune to be brought into close personal relationship with Lord Kelvin. Many visits to Glasgow and to Largs have brought me to look up to him as my master, and I cannot find words to express how much I owe to his friendship and to his inspiration.
During these years there is evidence that he continued to enjoy the friendship of Lord Rayleigh and of Mr. Balfour. We find in his diary records
of visits to Terling and to Whittingehame, or of luncheons at Mr. Balfour’s house in Carlton Gardens, for which George’s scientific committee work in London gave frequent opportunity. In the same way there are many records of visits to Francis Galton, with whom he was united alike by kinship and affection.
Few people indeed can have taken more pains to cultivate friendship than did George. This trait was the product of his affectionate and eminently sociable nature, and of his characteristic energy and activity. In earlier life he travelled a good deal in search of health, [166] and in after years he attended numerous congresses as a representative of scientific bodies. He thus had unusual opportunities of making the acquaintance of men of other nationalities, and some of his warmest friendships were with foreigners. In passing through Paris he rarely failed to visit M. and Mme d’Estournelles and “the d’Abbadies.” It was in Algiers in 1878 and 1879 that he cemented his friendship with the late J. F. MacLennan, author of Primitive Marriage; and in 1880 he was at Davos with the same friends. In 1881 he went to Madeira, where he received much kindness from the Blandy family—doubtless through the recommendation of Lady Kelvin.
Cambridge.
We have seen that George was elected a Fellow of Trinity in October 1868, and that five years
later (October 1873) he began his second lease of a Cambridge existence. There is at first little to record: he held at this time no official position, and when his Fellowship expired he continued to live in College, busy with his research work, and laying down the earlier tiers of the monumental series of papers which he gave to the world. This soon led to his being proposed (in November 1877) for the Royal Society, and elected in June 1879. The principal event in this stage of his Cambridge life was his election in 1883 as Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy. [167] His predecessor in the Chair was Professor Challis, who had held office since 1836, and is now chiefly remembered in connection with Adams and the planet Neptune. The professorship is not necessarily connected with the Observatory, and practical astronomy formed no part of George’s duties. His lectures being on advanced mathematics usually attracted but few students; in the Long Vacation, however, when he habitually gave one of his courses, there was often a fairly large class.
George’s relations with his class have been sympathetically treated by Professor E. W. Brown, [168] than whom no one can speak with more authority, since he was one of my brother’s favourite pupils.
In the late ’70’s George began to be appointed to various University Boards and Syndicates. Thus from 1878–82 he was on the Museums and Lecture Rooms Syndicate. In 1879 he was placed on the Observatory Syndicate, of which he became an official member in 1883 on his election to the Plumian Professorship. In the same way he was on the Special Board for Mathematics. He was a member of the Financial Board from 1900–1 to 1903–4, and on the Council of the Senate in 1905–6 and 1908–9. But he never became a professional syndic—one of those virtuous persons who spend their lives in University affairs. In his obituary of George (Nature, December 12, 1912), Sir Joseph Larmor writes:
In the affairs of the University, of which he was an ornament, Sir George Darwin made a substantial mark, though it cannot be said that he possessed the patience in discussion that is sometimes a necessary condition to taking a share in its administration. But his wide acquaintance and friendships among the statesmen and men of affairs of the time, dating often from undergraduate days, gave him openings for usefulness on a wider plane. Thus, at a time when residents were bewailing even more than usual the inadequacy of the resources of the University for the great expansion which the scientific progress of the age demanded, it was largely on his initiative that, by a departure from all precedent, an unofficial body was constituted in 1899 under the name of the Cambridge University Association, to promote the further endowment of the University by interesting its graduates throughout the Empire in its progress and its more pressing needs. This important body, which was organised under the strong lead of the late Duke of Devonshire, then Chancellor, comprises as active members most of the public men who owe allegiance to Cambridge, and has already by its interest and help powerfully stimulated the expansion of the University into new fields of national work, though it has not yet achieved financial support on anything like the scale to which American seats of learning are accustomed.