The life of Sir J. J. Thomson, O. M. : sometime master of Trinity College Cambridge / by Lord Rayleigh.

  • Rayleigh, John William Strutt, Baron, 1842-1919
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of Sir J. J. Thomson, O. M. : sometime master of Trinity College Cambridge / by Lord Rayleigh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the effort of prayer. That being so/ he said, ‘one naturally turns to it.’ He usually retired to bed very late, 1 a.m. or 1.30, or even later. He always paused at the bookcase near the door wherein his small Bible stood, and spent two or three minutes in reading it. Until near the end of his life, his habits of private devotion were only known to Lady Thomson. It remains to say a few words about the closing years. It seemed to some of those who knew him best that in his old age Thomson’s mental activity was most conspicuous as a man of affairs and as a mathematician. As a physicist his intellectual vigour, and per¬ haps also his interest, seemed to have sensibly declined. When assessing others he seemed to lay more stress than of old on intel¬ lectual thoroughness and grasp, and less than of old on original achievement. His facility as a mathematician never deserted him. Sometimes in his old age he saw the papers set in the mathematical tripos, and amused himself with trying whether his skill was still equal to dealing with them; and he did not often fail. I remember seeing him leaving St Paul’s clad in a scarlet Doc¬ tor’s gown on the occasion of King George V’s Silver Jubilee in I93 5, an<^ he visited London after that, though crossing the streets was rather an anxiety. In May 1938 he went up to receive the Kelvin Medal. I was commissioned by the professional Engineering Institutions to make the presentation, and I endeavoured to ex¬ plain the bearings of his work on Engineering, but he protested in his reply that, notwithstanding what I had said, as an engineer he was a complete fraud! Miss Gertrude Mellor writes : The last time I was at Cambridge [probably in the summer of 1938] I saw him running by the side of the river during the Races Week to be in at the Bumps at the finale of the races. He continued to attend the annual Cavendish Laboratory din¬ ners except the last one, only a few months before the end. In September 1938 the British Association met at Cambridge, and the Thomsons entertained a party at the Lodge. J.J. ap¬ peared, probably for the last time, in the lecture room of the