clever Irish scientist: Mary Ward 1827-69.

Georgian London wrote about Margaret Bryan (c1770-c1816) who was working in 1797-1816 in the fields of astronomy and mathematics. Margaret ran a school for girls in her home, Bryan House, in Blackheath. She believed mathematics and astronomy were important subjects for both genders, and the girls who attended her seminary were schooled in what she termed Natural Philosophy.

Caroline's Miscellany wrote about Mary Fairfax Somerville (1780-1872). This Scottish  mathematician invented often used variables for algebra. In 1826 Mary presented a paper on solar magnetism to the Royal Society. Then she published her book: On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, Physical Geography and Molecular and Microscopic Science.

The articles suggested that the Margaret Bryan & Mary Somerville stories go a long way to prove that at least social & intellectual equality was out there, for those women who had the talent and the ambition, during the Regency era.

That got me thinking. If it was possible for even one woman to study science, it should be possible for find others. Mary King (1827-69) was born in Ballylin Ireland. She and her sisters were educated at home by a governess, as were most upper middle class girls at the time. But in her era, when most women received little encouragement in the hard sciences, Mary King was unusual. Her education was richer because she came from a family where an interest in science was warmly encouraged.

Mary Ward

Mary became a keen astronomer, like her cousin William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. He was building the Leviathan of Parsonstown in his Birr Castle, a huge reflecting telescope with a 6’ mirror. Mary often visited him at home & sketched each stage of the process. Thus Mary, more than others, observed and chronicled the building of the giant telescope in the castle grounds. These sketches, along with photos taken by Parson’s wife Mary Rosse, were used when the telescope was restored recently. The telescope tube and supporting structure were completed in 1845.

Mary also drew insects, and the astronomer James South observed her doing so one day. She was using a magnifying glass to see the tiny details, and her drawing so impressed him that he immediately persuaded her father to buy her a microscope. For Mary, this was the beginning of a lifelong passion. She began to read everything she could find about microscopy, and became an expert herself.

Mary Ward’s Sketches with the microscope,
first published in Birr Castle in 1857offalyhistoryblog

Universities & scientific societies wouldn't accept women, but Mary remained close to science in any way she could. She frequently wrote to scientists, asking them about papers they had published. And through her famous cousin, William Parsons, Mary met many of the most eminent men of science of the day. Her access to the heart of the learned profession increased in 1848 when Parsons was made President of the Royal Society. Visits to his London home meant she was surrounded by scientists. She couldn’t join the Royal Astronomical Society, but she could be on their mailing list. Irish astronomer Sir William Rowan Hamilton (d1865), helped her as much as he could, especially giving her up-to-date copies of academic journal articles.

In 1854, Mary King married Henry Ward, an Irish peer, Conservative politician and soldier. They had 8 children, 5 of whom survived to a decent age. Henry’s ancestral home, Castle Ward, was a delightful place to live. Built in the 1760s, Castle Ward has dual architecture. While the entrance side of the building is done in a classical Palladian style, the opposite side is early Neo-Gothic. This duality in style continues throughout the interior rooms of the house.

Castle Ward, Gothic facade

Wiki

When Mary wrote her first book, Sketches With The Microscope 1857, she believed that no one would print it because of her gender. She published 250 copies of it privately, and distributed posters to advertise it. The run sold out in weeks, and this was enough to make a London publisher take the risk and make her a proper offer. The book was reprinted many times between 1858 and 1880, and became a bestseller. She wrote two further books, one of which was a beginner’s guide to astronomy called Telescope Teachings 1859, and several articles.

A talented artist, Mary illustrated all her own work. Stephanie Pain in New Scientist described how Mary made her own slides from slivers of ivory, prepared her own specimens and drew her observations in near photographic detail. When Scottish physicist David Brewster wanted microscope specimens, he asked her to make them. He admired her drawings too, and used them to illustrate his papers and books.

In Aug 1869, while travelling in a very modern-looking steam carriage invented by her clever Parson cousin, Mary was thrown from the carriage when it hit a bump. She was crushed by one of the wheels, dying instantly, and became a victim of the world's first automobile accident. Today, her microscope, accessories, slides and books can be found on display in a room dedicated to her in Castle Ward. The early death of this remarkable young scientist was tragic.

Leviathan of Parsonstown at Birr Castle, 

Atlas Obscura

For people who would like to pursue the topic further, I recommend Susan McKenna-Lawlor who wrote Whatever Shines Should Be Observed. It follows the lives of five exceptional, but little known Irish women in the C19th who achieved high recognition in scientific subjects, including Mary Ward. Furthermore the BBC produced a documentary in 1986 called The Wonderful World of Mary Ward in which her first scientific article was re-enacted.

John Curtin: Australian PM's modest homes

John Curtin (1885–1945) was born in rural Victoria to hard working parents and left school at 13. He became involved in the labour move­ment in Mel­bourne, joined the Labour Party at a young age and then the Vict­or­ian Socialist Party. He became State Secretary of the Timber Wor­kers' Union in 1911, then Federal President in 1914. Curtin was a lead­er of the No Campaign in the 1916 referendum on overseas conscript­ion, and was briefly gaoled for not attending a compulsory military medical examination.     

Curtin lived in a modest Brunswick residence from 1912-15, as Fed­eral President of the Victorian Timber Workers Union. He later bec­ame a leader in the Australian Workers Union. He married in 1917 then moved to Perth to become the editor of the un­ion movement newspaper West­ralian Work­er, and later was State President of the Aus­t­ralian Journ­al­ists' Ass­oc­iation. In 1923, he and wife Elsie built a house in Cottesloe, Perth. [This Cottesloe home was restored by the National Trust much later].

                                           

John Curtin and his wife Elsie built this modest house in 1923.

Cottesloe in Perth

National Trust

After 3 unsuccessful attempts, Curtin was el­ected to Fremantle in the W.A House of Representatives at the 1928 federal election. He remained loy­al to the Labour gov­ernment during the party split of 1931 but lost his seat in Labour's land­slide defeat at the 1931 election. Only in 1934 did Curtin win the seat again and rose up in the Aus­t­ralian Lab­our Par­ty, becoming party leader from 1935.

In 1936 Curtin was elected party lead­er in place of James Scul­lin. The party gained seats at the 1937. In Sept 1939 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced Australia's entry into WW2 in Europe. The 1940 elections re­sulted in a hung parliament. The ALP eventually formed a minority gov­ernment in Oct 1941, just after the Japanese at­tack on Pearl Harbour oc­curred, so Australia now had to fight Japan as well! Worse still bom­bing raids on northern Australia started! John Curtin, Australia's 14th Prime Minis­t­er, led the nat­ion's war eff­ort and made significant de­cisions about how the war was conduc­t­ed. He placed Australian Pacific forces under the com­mand of the Amer­ican General Douglas MacArthur, with  whom he formed a close relat­ion­ship.   

John Curtin (R) became the prime minister in 1941.

Ben Chifley (L) was elected to the Cabinet as Treasurer

 

    

The Curtins with Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King,

Book of Remembrance in Memorial Chamber, 

Parliament House Ottawa, 1944. Wiki

The ALP won almost two-thirds of the seats in the House of Represent­at­ives at the 1943 election, a party record. In total Curtin was prime minist­er for 4 years, leading Australia through the last years of WW2 un­til his death in 1945. He was long­est serving leader of the Aust­ral­ian Labour Party-ALP from 1935-45, his leadership and interper­s­onal skills being accl­aimed by his polit­ical contemp­or­aries. Curtin died in office in July 1945, after months of war-related ill health. Fortunate­ly many of his post-war reconstruction plans were implemented by his succ­es­sor Ben Chifley.

 
In 2011 the heritage-listed home came up for sale; the vendors bought from a family who'd owned it since 1921. The unrenovated house had heritage demolition restrict­ions, so many of its original period features remained.  

Original facade, built in 1906

Brunswick Melbourne

The Brunswick home where Curtin once lived was bought at auction in 2011 by a family paying $710,000. Since then, the ex PM’s home had a renovation, while keeping many of its original Victorian features eg the original façade, stained glass at the front door, ceil­ing roses, wrought iron lacework and 3.3m ceilings. It now had quite gen­erous rooms wh­ich were more fitting as a form­er Prime Min­ister’s home than his actually home had been. Later the house had a plaque added onto the front, mark­ing its historic signif­ic­ance.  

Blue plaque

   

Now Curtin’s former Brunswick home, Melbourne property with a prime min­ist­erial pedig­ree, will be auctioned again at the end of Mar 2023. The less modest four-bedroom house at Fallon St Brunswick still feat­ur­es a plaque on the footpath outside marking its historical sig­nific­an­ce, and has a price guide of $2.1-2.3 million. I would buy the house in a heart beat, but not just because the historical architecture and déc­or should be heritage-protected forever. Rather I need like to know how many prime ministerial houses can rec­eive a blue plaque; Curtin lived in 1]Creswick and 2]Brunswick in Vic­toria, 3]Cottesloe in W.A and 4]Canberra, and possibly other cities I don’t know about.

renovated Brunswick kitchen

Woodards

renovated alfresco deck
realestate.com.au

special Melbourne architecture: 1848 ->

John Smith's home, Queen St

built late 1840s

Served as Treasury and Gold Office from 1859

Melbourne was founded in 1835 as a commercial venture. Tasmanian settlers, frustrated at diminishing opportunities in their own col­ony, sent an expedition to Victoria to test its viability for farm­ing. Project leader John Batman created a modest colony on the Yarra River and negotiated a land purchase from local ind­igenous men. The first city buildings were wooden, presumably to be rebuilt permanently.

John Smith arrived from Sydney in 1840 and began teaching local In­digenous children at a Melbourne government mission. Then Smith op­ened a grocery and later owned hotels. With this money, he built himself the first really lovely home in Melbourne in 1848, and added a third storey later. Smith was soon elected to the City Council, then elected Lord Mayor, then to the State Legislature for years! The Government used Smith’s renovated premises for different purp­os­es in the C20th eg State Treasury Offices.

Bourke Street looking west, 1858
Lovell Chen

Meanwhile, a row of shops was built in town. A large shop and a residence above went up in Crossley St in 1848-9 by an English migrant butcher, William Crossley. The premises were histor­ic­ally used as a meat-preserving works, with the land behind used as a slaughter yard. It was here that our story began, with the wide shop and residence in Crossley St.

Suddenly life in Melbourne changed forever in 1851; gold was disc­overed in rural Clunes, triggering the Gold Rush. As money and people poured in, the city stretched in every direction, requir­ing rebuilding in a much grander fashion.

The second part of the Crossley Building, the adjoining shop and its residence above, was designed by architect Joseph Burns. The comp­l­et­­­ed building extended from Crossley St (ex-Romeo Lane) and Liv­er­pool St (ex-Juliet Lane). The butchers expanded into the newer shops, over the top of the original cellar. The walls were of blue­stone and the ceilings were brick barrel vaults. The inter­iors sh­ow­ed relics of openings, vents, shelving, enclosures and fix­tures. At ground level, an 1847 cast iron column was visible in a later brick wall, separating the two retail sides.

Later shopkeepers included the famous butcher family Sir William Ang­liss. Since then, shops were us­ed for shoes, drapery, café, gro­cer, fruit­­erer, photographic studio, wine mer­ch­ant, tailor and dry goods.  Eugene von Guerard, a won­d­erful landscape artist in the late colonial era, occupied #56 in 1857-8, just when he was estab­lishing his career. The building had also housed the notorious Bourke St Rats gang.

Job Warehouse, as it was called, was still in a simple Victorian Georgian style. The external render was ruled, there was a simple parapet above, and the corner shop had a splayed cor­n­er. Each of the two storey shops had a residence behind and above them. Externally the building kept much of its original form, except for alterations to the shop windows and the parapet. But the inter­iors retained few original features; even the internal stairs which once led upst­airs were all rem­oved and new stairs were added.

The Job Warehouse was of architectural and historical significance to the State of Victoria, satisfying these 3 criteria for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register:

A] The building’s cultural history was among the ol­d­est surviving buildings in Melbourne, forming an important link to pre-Gold Rush Melbourne. The various businesses occupying the shops reflected the residential nature of central Mel­bourne then, and the everyday goods and services local resid­ents needed. It dem­on­strated the old pract­ice of people living close to their businesses.

B] It has rare historical aspects surviving from a pre-Gold Rush commercial building, and of an early shop-row, once common in the city but now almost completely disappeared.

C] It has the architectural characteristics of the austere Georgian style buildings typical of pre-Gold Rush Melbourne. This style was the basis for most architecture in Australia from the time of Eur­o­pean settlement until at least the mid C19th but rarer in Vic­toria because there was no convict settlement here. In any case, gold wealth in Victoria led to the popularity of more ornate styles.

Job Warehouse, Bourke Street

Lovell Chen

These shops were occupied from 1956 by Jacob Zeimer, a post-WW2 European migrant. He later owned the whole building, becoming well-known in Melbourne for fabrics for haberdashers, dressmakers and theatres. Since then the terrace housed many tenants and underwent extensive alter­at­ions. For 56 years Jobs Warehouse remained a magnet for dress­makers, its windows showing a lively business crammed to the ceiling with enormous rolls of cloth.

The people who owned and occupied the row told the story of the evolving city. The terrace at the top of Bourke St, on a site flank­ed by laneways, clearly held special significance for older Mel­b­urn­ians. Own-ed by one family for decades and still the home of the Paperback Bookshop today, the terrace was a rare survivor in the city streetscape. The site’s history and development resembled many early commercial and residential buildings once commonplace in Melb­ourne’s Central Business District-CBD, but not now.

The restoration of this, one of Melbourne’s CBD’s oldest buildings, is urgently needed. Neglected since the shops closed in 2012, the Her­it­age Listed prop­erty in Bourke St will form part of a new hosp­it­ality venture, bec­om­ing a 673-patron bar and restaurant Juliet’s Terrace. This will honour the laneway once home to Mel­b­ourne’s red-light district 160 years ago. The Lord Mayor said the group’s $50 million project would gen­er­ate 500 jobs during const­ruc­t­ion, and 350 hospitality jobs after­. But due to the building’s age, the time needed to restore it will be longer than normal.

George's Collins St, c1890

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By way of comparison, compare the Georgian architecture with a building designed by architects John Grainger and Charles D'Ebro some decades later (1880) in the grand classical revival style. Brothers William and Alfred George were retailers in the UK. They emigrated to Melbourne in 1877, and soon found work at Robinson’s drapers in Collins St, in the most fashionable retailing area in the city. In 1880, the opportunity came to take over the business as George's Emporium, perhaps the most beautiful commercial building and business in Australia.

Dr R Virchow: pathology, science, politics ....................... by guest blogger

Prussian Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) was the only child of a farmer and always had a strong interest in natural science. In 1839, he received a scholarship from the Prussian Military Academy to study medicine at Berlin’s Friedrich Wilhelm Institute University. He grad­uated in 1843 and was preparing for a career as an army physician.

Rudolf Virchow with skeletons

Science Photo Library

At the Charité Hospital he studied pathological histology and in 1845 published a paper des­cribing one of the earliest reported cases of leukaemia. He became hospital anat­omist, and in 1847 he and Dr Benno Rein­hardt started a new journal Virchow’s Archives which still goes on as a leading pathology journal. He asked students to use microscopes and had a major impact on medical education in Germany. He taught several men who became famous scientists, including William Welch & William Osler, 2 physicians who founded Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr Virchow was appointed by the Prussian government to in­ves­tigate a typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia; his strong report blamed the outbreak on social conditions that were tolerated by the government. The government was annoyed, but it had to deal with the revolution in Berlin! After the 1848-9 Revolution, Virch­ow wrote and published a weekly paper, Medical Reform, but the government didn’t like his progressive views.

Having already established a reputation as a crusading social reformer, he’s since been identified as much with social medicine as pathology. His regular writings on topics of pathology included many essays and lectures on social medicine and public health. His writings and teachings recommended ways of improving people’s health by improving their economic and social conditions.

The doctor was soon appointed to the newly established Chair of Path­ological Anatomy at Würzburg University, Germany’s first. During his successful years there, Virchow published many papers on pathological anatomy, and began publishing his 6-volume Handbook of Special Pathology and Therapeutics (1854). He also began to formulate his theories on cell­ular pathology with studies of the abnormal skulls of those affected by neonatal hypo­thyroidism.

Dr Virchow giving a Pathology lecture

Science Photo Library

Virchow disliked the majority view that phlebitis of a vein caus­ed most diseases; he de­monstrated that mass­es in the blood vessels resulted from thromb­osis and that portions of a thrombus could detach to form an embolus. An embolus set free in the circulation could be trapped.

Virchow’s greatest success was his observation that a whole organism does not get sick, only groups of cells. In 1855 at 34, he published his now famous aphorism every cell stems from another cell. Virchow thus launched the field of cellular pathology. He stated that all diseases involve changes in normal cells i.e all pathology ultimately is cellular pathology. This insight led to major progress in medicine. It meant that disease entities could be defined much more sharply. Diseases could be characterised not merely by a group of clinical symptoms but by typical anatomic changes.

In 1856 he was given the Chair of Pathological Anatomy established at Berlin Uni; and a new pathological institute was built which he used until retirement. His main statement of his cellular pathology theory was given in a lecture series in 1858 and published as his book Cellular Path­ol­ogy as Based upon Physiological and Pathological Histology. Virchow lectured on the inflammatory process, introducing the modern con­cep­t­ion of starchy degeneration. The pathology of tumours was important, as was his work on the role of animal parasites in causing disease in humans.

Interestingly Virchow became actively engaged in politics. In 1859 he was elected to the Berlin City Council, foc­using on pub­lic health issues eg meat inspection and school hygiene. He super­vised the design of two large new Berlin hospit­als, opened a Nursing School and designed the new city sewer system. Then in 1861 he was elected to the Prussian Diet/Assembly under Otto von Bis­marck. In the wars of 1866 and 1870, Vir­ch­ow was involved in building military hos­pitals and equipping hospital trains. In 1874 the doctor introduced a standardised technique for perform­ing aut­opsies, to examine the whole body in detail.

Dr Virchow supervised autopsies closely

ThoughtCo.

It was interesting that this talented doctor campaigned vigorously for soc­ial reforms and contrib­uted to the development of anthropology and archaeology. These were Virchow’s­ main interests in 1865 when he discovered hill forts in North­ern Germany. In 1869 he co-founded the German Anthropological Ass­ociation and in 1870 he founded the Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology & Prehistory and continued to edit its journal. And in 1873 Virchow was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He excavated wall mounds in Wollstein with Dr Robert Koch in 1875 and edited Koch’s papers. [For his discovery of tuberculosis bacterium, Koch won a Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1905].

Pathologic anatomy had major practical consequences. If the physician was able to find out what anatomic changes had occurred in a patient, he could make a much more accurate diagnosis of the disease than he could previously. This also empowered physicians to give more precise treatment and prognosis. In his speeches Virchow advocated that medicine in Germany should a] study microscopic pathological anatomy, b] do research performed by physicians and c] make systematic clinical observations

Virchow’s many discoveries included finding cells in bone and connective tissue and describing substances eg myelin. He was the first to recognise leukemia and the first to explain the mechanism of pulmonary thromboembolism. He showed that blood clots in the pulmonary artery can originate from venous thrombi. While Virchow in Germany was creating the new science of cellular pathology, Louis Pasteur in France was developing the new science of bacteriology. Virchow and  Pasteur’s germ theories were somewhat different.

He served in the German Reichstag (1880–93) while also directing the Pathological Institute in Berlin. Even though Virchow was opposed to Bismarck’s excessive budget, which angered Bismarck sufficiently to challenge Virchow to a duel, Virchow helped to shape Bismarck’s health care reforms. Not bad for a pathologist, public health activist, social reformer, politician and anthropologist!

by Dr Joseph

neoclassical sculpture was created to honour Dr Virchow

by Fritz Klimsch from 1906, 

On Karlplatz in Berlin-Mitte, 

Wiki