Famous Jeddart Men & Women...
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James Thomson - Writer of Rule Britannia
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James Thomson (1700 - 1748) was born at Ednam Manse, and educated in Jedburgh. The Dictionary of National Biography comments thus on his school career: "The classes, by which he benefited little, were held in the Abbey." He must have benefited to some extent, however, for he went on to University thinking to become a minister like his father, but he found no vocation and went to London, thereafter living mainly as tutor in noblemen's houses.
Little of his poetry is quoted now, and none of his plays. His most well known (at least in Britain) words are those to Rule Britannia, which are from the masque Alfred written in cooperation with Thomas Arne who wrote the music.
His most significant poem is "The Seasons", inspired by his walks around the valley of the River Jed. It was published in 1730, and is often considered the start of the Romantic Movement. Josef Haydn used the poem as the basis for the libretto for his last great oratorio The Seasons.
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James Hutton - The Father of Geology
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The Geological Angular Unconformity at Inchbonny, Jedburgh
James Hutton (1726-97) the Father of geology, discovered his Jedburgh Angular Unconformity at Inchbonny Braes, on the bank of the River Jed about 300 yards south of the town adjacent to the main road (A68) to Newcastle.
According to conventional wisdom at the time, the earth was estimated to be only between five and six thousand years old. Hutton's discovery dated the earth as many millions of years old.
Hutton wrote in his publication "The Theory of the Earth" - "I was soon satisfied with regard to this phenomenon and recognised my good fortune in stumbling upon an object so interesting to the natural history of the earth, and which I had been looking for in vain."
The unconformity consists of a meeting of lower, vertical Pelagic rocks with horizontal upper old red sandstone above. Hutton commented that "the schistose was vertical and the strata horizontal and interposed between them a compound bed of pudding stones formed of various water worn bodies."
Hutton had gone out to look for such an angular unconformity and with a friend he found his first at Inchbonny after roaming about the country. In the following year he also found one at Siccar Point near Dunbar.
A friend of Hutton's, John Clark of Eldin later made many beautiful sketches of the site. These are preserved and in the hands of Sir John Clark of Penicuik House, a direct descendent of John Clark of Eldin.
Dr James Hutton was a medical doctor and a farmer. He had two farms in Berwickshire and gave up medicine at the age of twenty-four, but maintained an interest in matters geological, rocks, river beds etc, and travelled widely in pursuit of knowledge and to prove his theories. As part of the Scottish Enlightenment he was a friend of luminaries such as Adam Smith (Hutton and Joseph Black were Adam Smith’s executors).
The late Provost James Veitch was much concerned that Jedburgh people should visit and see the angular unconformity for themselves. He built a wall from the bed of the river Jed along with a path and installed a proper gate and noticeboard.
Over the years, interest in the site waned. Now, thanks to the present owners, The Veitch Trust, together with Scottish Borders Council and The British Geological Survey, Edinburgh, the site has again been properly cleared, so that much more of it is exposed; the local fire brigade helped by hosing down the rocks and exposing even more of the site to public view. A walkway has been added for the safe viewing of the rocks.
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John Ainslie - Surveyor
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John Ainslie (1745 - 1828) was considered an outstanding surveyor of his time for both the quality and quantity of his work. He worked with Thomas Jefferys on Surveys of a number of English counties before setting up business in Edinburgh as a bookseller and land surveyor. His output of county and coastal surveys and estate plans was prolific. He is best known for his 1783 "Ainslie's Travelling Map" and his large-scale map of Scotland "Drawn and Engrav'd from a Series of Angles and Astronomical Observations" published in 1789.
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Mary Somerville - Mathematician & Scientist
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Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville (1780 - 1872) was born at Ednam Manse, and educated in Jedburgh. Mary Somerville's scientific investigations began in the summer of 1825, when she carried out experiments on magnetism. In 1826 she presented her paper entitled "The Magnetic Properties of the Violet Rays of the Solar Spectrum" to the Royal Society. The paper attracted favorable notice and, aside from the astronomical observations of Caroline Herschel, was the first paper by a woman to be read to the Royal Society and published in its Philosophical Transactions (Grinstein and Campbell 213). Although the theory presented in her paper would eventually be refuted by the investigations of others, it distinguished her as a skilled scientific writer respected among her colleagues.
In 1827 Lord Brougham, on behalf of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, began correspondence with Mary through her husband, as social convention dictated, to persuade her to write a popularised rendition of Laplace's Mecanique celeste and Newton's Principia. He hoped that she could reach a larger audience by communicating the concepts clearly through simple illustrations and experiments that most people could understand. Unsure of her qualifications, Mary undertook the project in secrecy, assured that, if she should fail, the manuscript would be destroyed and only those immediately involved would ever need to know. The Mechanism of the Heavens was a great success, probably the most famous of her mathematical writings. In recognition, a portrait bust of her was commissioned by her admirers in the Royal Society and placed in their great hall in London.
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David Brewster - Inventor of the Kaleidoscope (and much else)
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David Brewster (1781 - 1868) was born in Jedburgh on 11th December 1781. He was recognised as a child prodigy, and constructed a telescope when only ten years old. This would prove indicative of the chief bent of Brewster's work and genius. Nature endowed him with some of its choice gifts: close observation, unceasing inquiry, and a scientific proclivity. Far before his peers, he absorbed all that was available in elementary Scottish education. Because he evidenced an exceptional aptitude for learning, his family decided that he should study for the ministry of the Church of Scotland.
Thus, at the tender age of 12, he was consigned to the University of Edinburgh, where he continued his intellectual achievements. He was greatly admired at the university for his unusual academic ability, and was generously welcomed into the intimate fellowship of the distinguished professors of philosophy and mathematics. Becoming a licensed minister in 1801 at the age of 19, he did not however take up a parish, addressing his talents instead to two of his life-long interests - the study of optics and the development of scientific instruments. For twelve years he conducted a series of experiments that were revealed to the public in A Treatise Upon New Philosophical Instruments, published in 1813.
In 1808, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the same year became editor of the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, a position he distinguished with excellence for more than 20 years.
It was in 1811, while writing an article on "Burning Instruments," Brewster investigated Buffon's Needle theory (considered to be the first problem in geometric probability). Brewster did not consider Buffon's proposal practical. However, it sparked an idea that produced awesome scientific results. In the course of his investigation he constructed a lens of great diameter out of one piece of glass by cutting out the central parts in successive ridges like stair steps. Thus was born an apparatus of then-unequalled power - the polyzonal lens - a lens constructed by building it on several circular segments. This useful discovery, which created light-stabs of brilliance that could pierce far into the night, was later perfected and named after French physicist A. Fresnel, and resulted in the lighthouse as we know it today.
This breakthrough was followed by yet other honours. Brewster was admitted to the Royal Society of London, and was later awarded the Rumford gold and silver medal for his theory on the polarization of light. Ambient light, which comprises most of the light we encounter every day, is a collection of light waves vibrating in all directions. When light is reflected or it passes through certain materials, the waves tend to vibrate in a single direction. Light that vibrates in this more orderly fashion is polarized. Brewster discovered a simple way to calculate the angle at which light must strike a substance for maximum polarization. Brewster's Angle is useful in all kinds of practical applications, from adjusting radio signals to building microscopes capable of examining objects on a molecular scale. It is central to the development of fibre optics, lasers, and to the study of meteorology, cosmology, and materials.
Then, in 1816, Brewster invented the kaleidoscope. Already an established philosopher, writer, scientist, and inventor, his kaleidoscope created unprecedented clamour. Dr. Peter M. Roget (whose illustrious Thesaurus, established in 1834, continues to be the most valued writer's tool next to the dictionary) paid tribute to his friend Sir David's invention in Blackwood's Magazine in 1818: "In the memory of man, no invention, and no work, whether addressed to the imagination or to the understanding, ever produced such an effect."
One of Brewster's most illustrious moments came in 1849. He was nominated as one of a panel of eight foreign associates to the National Institute of France. So great were Brewster's achievements in comparison to all others that, after examination, the institute struck the names of all other candidates and Sir David Brewster stood in splendid isolation as the sole remaining candidate. His discoveries of the physical laws of metallic reflection and light absorption, the optical properties of crystals, and the law of the angle of polarization, along with his improvement of the stereoscope and lighthouse apparatus, surpassed most scientific achievements of that era.
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