James Stuart | |
---|---|
Member of Parliament for Sunderland | |
In office 8 February 1906 – 15 January 1910 Serving with Thomas Summerbell | |
Preceded by | Sir Theodore Doxford |
Succeeded by | Samuel Storey |
Member of Parliament for Hoxton | |
In office 18 December 1885 – 26 September 1900 | |
Preceded by | Constituency created |
Succeeded by | Claude Hay |
Member of Parliament for Hackney | |
In office 20 November 1884 – 24 November 1885 Serving with John Holms | |
Preceded by | Henry Fawcett |
Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | Markinch, Fife, Scotland | 2 January 1843
Died | 12 October 1913 Norwich, Norfolk, England | (aged 70)
Political party | Liberal |
Spouse |
Laura Elizabeth Colman
(m. 1890) |
Parents |
|
Alma mater | Madras College University of St Andrews Trinity College, Cambridge |
Occupation | Scientist; Educator |
James Stuart PC (2 January 1843 – 12 October 1913) was a British educator and politician. He was born in Markinch, Fife, and attended Madras College and the University of St Andrews before going to Trinity College, Cambridge.[1] He later became a Fellow of the College and Professor of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics at Cambridge University from 1875; he was also Lord Rector of St Andrews from 1898 to 1901. Stuart was interested in popularising scientific topics and published several books on the subject.
Stuart was an unsuccessful Liberal candidate for the Cambridge University parliamentary seat in an 1882 by-election; in the 1884 by-election he was elected for Hackney. From the 1885 election he sat for the Hoxton division of Shoreditch. He became known for his contribution to London politics and in February 1890 was chosen as an Alderman of the London County Council; the added work caused him to resign his chair at Cambridge. The Progressive Party on the LCC chose him as its Leader shortly after his election but he stood down after the 1892 council election.
In the 1900 general election, Stuart lost his seat in Parliament. He returned briefly for Sunderland from 1906 until again being defeated in January 1910. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1909. Suffering poor health, he published his memoirs (Reminiscences) in 1912.
He married Laura, the eldest daughter of Jeremiah Colman (MP) and Caroline Colman. His sister in law Ethel Colman was the first female Lord Mayor of Norwich.[2] He died in Carrow Abbey, Norwich on 12 October 1913.[3] His wife and sisters in law's memorial to him was the 1915 erection of a block of 22 flats, to re-house some of those affected by the Norwich flood of 1912. Stuart Court is still used for low-income housing, managed by Norwich Housing Society.[4]
YouTube Encyclopedic
-
1/3Views:1 864 82437242 372
-
The most groundbreaking scientist you've never heard of - Addison Anderson
-
Princeton Scientist Bonnie Bassler Speaks at Stuart
-
A Brief History of the Study of Consciousness, Stuart Hameroff
Transcription
Nicolas Steno is rarely heard of outside Intro to Geology, but anyone hoping to understand life on Earth should see how Steno expanded and connected those very concepts: Earth, life, and understanding. Born Niels Stensen in 1638 Denmark, son of a goldsmith, he was a sickly kid whose school chums died of plague. He survived to cut up corpses as an anatomist, studying organs shared across species. He found a duct in animal skulls that sends saliva to the mouth. He refuted Descartes' idea that only humans had a pineal gland, proving it wasn't the seat of the soul, arguably, the debut of neuroscience. Most remarkable for the time was his method. Steno never let ancient texts, Aristotelian metaphysics, or Cartesian deductions overrule empirical, experimental evidence. His vision, uncluttered by speculation or rationalization, went deep. Steno had seen how gallstones form in wet organs by accretion. They obeyed molding principles he knew from the goldsmith trade, rules useful across disciplines for understanding solids by their structural relationships. Later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany had him dissect a shark. Its teeth resembled tongue stones, odd rocks seen inside other rocks in Malta and the mountains near Florence. Pliny the Elder, old Roman naturalist, said these fell from the sky. In the Dark Ages, folks said they were snake tongues, petrified by Saint Paul. Steno saw that tongue stones were shark teeth and vice versa, with the same signs of structural growth. Figuring similar things are made in similar ways, he argued the ancient teeth came from ancient sharks in waters that formed rock around the teeth and became mountains. Rock layers were once layers of watery sediment, which would lay out horizontally, one atop another, oldest up to newest. If layers were deformed, tilted, cut by a fault or a canyon, that change came after the layer formed. Sounds simple today; back then, revolutionary. He'd invented stratigraphy and laid geology's ground work. By finding one origin for shark teeth from two eras by stating natural laws ruling the present also ruled the past, Steno planted seeds for uniformitarianism, the idea that the past was shaped by processes observable today. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English uniformitarian geologists, James Hutton and Charles Lyell, studied current, very slow rates of erosion and sedimentation and realized the Earth had to be way older than the biblical guestimate, 6000 years. Out of their work came the rock cycle, which combined with plate tectonics in the mid-twentieth century to give us the great molten-crusting, quaking, all-encircling theory of the Earth, from a gallstone to a 4.5 billion-year-old planet. Now think bigger, take it to biology. Say you see shark teeth in one layer and a fossil of an organism you've never seen under that. The deeper fossil's older, yes? You now have evidence of the origin and extinction of species over time. Get uniformitarian. Maybe a process still active today caused changes not just in rocks but in life. It might also explain similarities and differences between species found by anatomists like Steno. It's a lot to ponder, but Charles Darwin had the time on a long trip to the Galapagos, reading a copy of his friend Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology," which Steno sort of founded. Sometimes giants stand on the shoulders of curious little people. Nicolas Steno helped evolve evolution, broke ground for geology, and showed how unbiased, empirical observation can cut across intellectual borders to deepen our perspective. His finest accomplishment, though, may be his maxim, casting the search for truth beyond our senses and our current understanding as the pursuit of the beauty of the as yet unknown. Beautiful is what we see, more beautiful is what we know, most beautiful, by far, is what we don't.
Vanity Fair
On 5 October 1899, his caricature appeared in Vanity Fair, accompanied by the following biographical note-
- "Statesmen No.715
- Dr James Stuart, M.P.
- He became a Fifeshire Scotchman six-and-fifty years ago; and having been doubly educated (at St. Andrews University and at Trinity, Cambridge) he fashioned himself into a Professor of Mechanics and Applied Mechanics. Then he tried to become Member for Cambridge University; but Cambridge University refusing the honour, he went to Hackney, which place he represented for precisely one year. Since then he has sat for the Hoxton Division of Shoreditch, while he lives in Grosvenor Road.
- He neither shoots nor fishes, and he seldom takes a holiday; but he yachts, he cycles, he plays golf, and he sketches. He has also dabbled in journalism, being Chairman of the Board of The Star and Morning Leader Newspaper and Publishing Company, Limited. He is also the husband of the eldest daughter of Jeremiah James Colman: wherefore The Pall Mall Gazette once accused him of introducing mustard into The Star. He has done much to develop the pernicious system of University Extension; and his friends say that the most wonderful thing about him is how little he has been understood by the public. He is many-sided and too enthusiastic. He champions Women's Suffrage because, being a student of Exact Science, he cannot understand Woman. He has, indeed, championed more than one unpopular movement; though he is said to have more intimate knowledge of London political and social questions than anyone else. But he is a wicked Radical, whom the Water Companies hate, although he has friends among the Tories. He is a most tireless person of extraordinary physique, who can go all day without food; and though he can dine, he generally eats.
- Although he is a Professor he is neither a prude nor a pedant; and if it were not for his pernicious Politics he would be a good fellow."
References
- ^ "Stuart, James (STRT862J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "Ethel Colman". Norfolk Women in History. 4 March 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ^ "Stuart". Evening Standard. 15 October 1913. p. 1. Retrieved 5 April 2020 – via NewspaperArchive.
- ^ "Stuart Court". Norwich Housing Society. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
External links
- Works by James Stuart at Project Gutenberg
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by James Stuart
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "James Stuart", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews