Heroes of Science: Physicists

One great evil of a standing army is the idleness which it develops in its members, unfitting them for the business of life when their military service is ended. Thompson commenced by attacking this evil. In 1788 he was made major-general of cavalry and Privy Councillor of State, and was put at the head of the War Department, with instructions to carry out any schemes which he had developed for the reform of the army and the removal of mendicity. Four years after his arrival in Munich he began to put some of his plans into operation. The pay of the soldiers was only threepence per day, and their quarters extremely uncomfortable, while their drill and discipline were unnecessarily irksome. Thompson set to work to make "soldiers citizens and citizens soldiers." The soldier's pay, uniform, and quarters were improved; the discipline rendered less irksome; and schools in which the three R's were taught were connected with all the regiments, – and here not only the soldiers, but their children as well as other children, were taught gratuitously. Not only were the soldiers employed in public works, and thus accustomed to habits of industry, while they were enlivened in their work by the strains of their own military bands, but they were supplied with raw material of various kinds, and allowed, when not on duty, to manufacture various articles and sell them for their own benefit – an arrangement which in this country to-day would probably raise a storm of opposition from the various trades. The garrisons were made permanent, so that soldiers might all be near their homes and remain there, and in time of peace only a small portion of the force was required to be in garrison at any time, so that the great part of his life was spent by each soldier at home. Each soldier had a small garden appropriated to his use, and its produce was his sole property. Garden seeds, and especially seed potatoes, were provided for the men, for at that time the potato was almost unknown in Bavaria. Under these circumstances a reform was quickly effected; idle men began to take interest in their gardens, and all looked on Sir Benjamin as a benefactor.

Having thus secured the co-operation of the army, Thompson determined to attack the mendicants. The number of beggars may be estimated from the fact that in Munich, with a population of sixty thousand, no less than two thousand six hundred beggars were seized in a week. In the towns, they possessed a complete organization, and positions of advantage were assigned in regular order, or inherited according to definite customs. In the country, farm labourers begged of travellers, and children were brought up to beggary from their infancy. Of course, the evils did not cease with simple begging. Children were stolen and ill treated, for the purpose of assisting in enlisting sympathy, and the people had come to regard these evils as inevitable. Thompson organized a regular system of military patrol through every village of the country, four regiments of cavalry being set apart for this work. Then on January 1, 1790, when the beggars were out in full force to keep their annual holiday, Thompson, with the other field officers and the magistrates of the city, gave the signal, and all the beggars in Munich were seized upon by the three regiments of infantry then in garrison. The beggars were taken to the town hall, and their names and addresses entered on lists prepared for the purpose. They were ordered to present themselves next day at the "military workhouse," and a committee was appointed to inquire into the condition of each, the city being divided into sixteen districts for that purpose. Relieved of an evil which they had regarded as inevitable, the townspeople readily subscribed for the purpose of affording systematic relief, while tradesmen sent articles of food and other requisites to "the relief committee." In the military workhouse the former mendicants made all the uniforms for the troops, besides a great deal of clothes for sale in Bavaria and other countries. Thompson himself fitted up and superintended the kitchen, where food was daily cooked for between a thousand and fifteen hundred persons; and, under Sir Benjamin's management, a dinner for a thousand was cooked at a cost for fuel of fourpence halfpenny – a result which has scarcely been surpassed in modern times, even at Gateshead.

That Thompson's work was appreciated by those in whose interest it was undertaken is shown by the fact that when, on one occasion, he was dangerously ill, the poor of Munich went in public procession to the cathedral to pray for him, though he was a foreigner and a Protestant. Perhaps it may appear that his philanthropic work has little to do with physical science; but with Thompson everything was a scientific experiment, conducted in a truly scientific manner. For example, the lighting of the military workhouse afforded matter for a long series of experiments, described in his papers on photometry, coloured shadows, etc. The investigations on the best methods of employing fuel for culinary purposes led to some of his most elaborate essays; and his essay on food was welcomed alike in London and Bavaria at a time of great scarcity, and when famine seemed impending.

The Emperor Joseph was succeeded by Leopold II., but during the interregnum the Elector of Bavaria was Vicar of the Empire, and he employed the power thus temporarily placed in his hands in raising Sir Benjamin to the dignity of Count of the Holy Roman Empire, with the order of the White Eagle, and the title which the new count selected was the old name of the village in New England where he had spent the two or three years of his wedded life.

In 1795 Count Rumford returned to England, in order to publish his essays, and to make known in this country something of the work in which he had been engaged. Soon after his arrival he was robbed of most of his manuscripts, the trunk containing them being stolen from his carriage in St. Paul's Churchyard. On the invitation of Lord Pelham, he visited Dublin, and carried out some of his improvements in the hospitals and other institutions of that city. On his return to London he fitted up the kitchen of the Foundling Hospital.

Lady Thompson lived to hear of her husband's high position in Bavaria, but died on January 29, 1792. When Rumford came to London in 1795, he wrote to his daughter, who was then twenty-one years of age, to meet him there, and on January 29, 1796, she started in the Charlestown, from Boston. She remained with her father for more than three years, and her autobiography gives much information respecting the count's doings during this time.

While in London, Count Rumford attained a high reputation as a curer of smoky chimneys. One firm of builders found full employment in carrying out work in accordance with his instructions; and in his hotel at Pall Mall he conducted experiments on fireplaces. He concluded that the sides of a fireplace ought to make an angle of 135° with the back, so as to throw the heat straight to the front; and that the width of the back should be one-third of that of the front opening, and be carried up perpendicularly till it joins the breast. The "Rumford roaster" gained a reputation not less than that earned by his open fireplace.

It was during this stay in London that Rumford presented to the Royal Society of London, and to the American Academy of Sciences £1000 Three per Cent. Stock, for the purpose of endowing a medal to be called the Rumford Medal, and to be given each alternate year for the best work done during the preceding two years in the subjects of heat and light. He directed that two medals, one in gold and the other in silver, should be struck from the same die, the value of the two together to amount to £60. Whenever no award was made, the interest was to be added to the principal, and the excess of the income for two years over £60 was to be presented in cash to the recipient of the medal. At present the amount thus presented is sufficient to pay the composition fee for life membership of the Royal Society. The first award of the medal was made in 1802, to Rumford himself. The other recipients have been John Leslie, William Murdock, Étienne-Louis Malus, William Charles Wells, Humphry Davy, David Brewster, Augustin Jean Fresnel, Macedonio Melloni, James David Forbes, Jean Baptiste Biot, Henry Fox Talbot, Michael Faraday, M. Regnault, F. J. D. Arago, George Gabriel Stokes, Neil Arnott, M. Pasteur, M. Jamin, James Clerk Maxwell, Kirchoff, John Tyndall, A. H. L. Fizeau, Balfour Stewart, A. O. des Cloiseaux, A. J. Ångström, J. Norman Lockyer, P. J. C. Janssen, W. Huggins, Captain Abney.

In the summer of 1796 Rumford and his daughter left England to return to Munich. On account of the war, they were obliged to go by sea to Hamburg; whence they drove to Munich, where the count was anxiously expected, political troubles having compelled the elector to leave the city. After the battle of Friedburg, the Austrians retired to Munich, and, finding the gates of the city closed, they fortified themselves on an eminence overlooking the city, and, through some misunderstanding with the local authorities, the Austrian general threatened to attack the city if any Frenchman should be allowed to enter. Rumford took supreme command of the Bavarian forces, and so gained the respect of the rival generals that neither the French nor the Austrians made any attempt to enter the city. The large number of soldiers now in Munich gave Rumford a good opportunity to exercise his skill in cooking on a large scale, and this he did, adding to the comfort of the soldiers and reducing the cost of the commissariat. On the return of the elector, Miss Sarah was made a countess, and one-half of her father's pension was secured to her, thus providing her with an income of about £200 per annum for life. Many of the details of the home life and social intercourse during this period of residence at Munich are preserved in the autobiography of the countess, as well as accounts of excursions, including a trip by river to Salzburg for the purpose of inspecting the salt-mines. After two years' stay in Munich, the count was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary from Bavaria to the Court of Great Britain. After an unpleasant and perilous journey, he reached London, viâ Hamburg, in September, 1798, but was terribly disappointed on learning that a British subject could not be accepted as an envoy from a Foreign Power. As he did not then wish to return to Bavaria, he purchased a house in Brompton Row. But he had been too much accustomed to great enterprises to be content with a quiet life, and was bound to have some important scheme on hand. Pressing invitations were sent him to return to America, but he preferred residence in London, and devoted himself to the foundation of the Royal Institution, though the countess returned to the States in August, 1799. A letter from Colonel Baldwin to her father shortly after her return contains the following passage: —

In the cask of fruit which your daughter and Mr. Rolfe have sent you, there is half a dozen apples of the growth of my farm, wrapped up in papers, with the name of Baldwin's apples written upon them… It is (I believe) a spontaneous production of this country; that is, it was not originally engrafted fruit.

The history of the remaining period of Rumford's residence in London is the early history of the Royal Institution.

For many years Rumford had had at his disposal for his philanthropic projects all the resources of the electorate of Bavaria, and he had done everything on a royal scale. His original plan for the Royal Institution appears to embody to a very great extent the work of the Science and Art Department, the City and Guilds Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education, the National School of Cookery, the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and, in addition to all this, to have comprehended a sort of perpetual International Health Exhibition, where every device for domestic purposes, and especially for the improvement of the condition of the poor, could be inspected. How all this was to be carried out with the resources which the count expected to be able to devote to the purpose, does not appear. Foremost among the objects of the institution was placed the management of fire; for its promoter was convinced that more than half the fuel consumed in the country might be saved by proper arrangements.

The philanthropic objects with which the institution was started are apparent from the fact that it was the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor which appointed a committee to confer with Rumford, to report on the scheme, and to raise the funds necessary for starting the project; and one of Rumford's hopes in connection with it was "to make benevolence fashionable." It was arranged that donors of fifty guineas each should be perpetual proprietors of the institution; and that subscribers should be admitted at a subscription of two guineas per annum, or ten guineas for life. The price of a proprietor's share was raised to sixty guineas from May 1, 1800, and afterwards increased by ten guineas per annum up to one hundred guineas. In a very short time there were fifty-eight fifty-guinea subscribers, and to them Rumford addressed a pamphlet, setting forth his scheme in detail. The following are specified as some of the contents of the future institution: – "Cottage fireplaces and kitchen utensils for cottagers; a farm-house kitchen with its furnishings; a complete kitchen, with its utensils, for the house of a gentleman of fortune; a laundry, including boilers, washing, ironing, and drying rooms, for a gentleman's house, or for a public hospital; the most improved German, Swedish, and Russian stoves for heating rooms and passages." As far as possible all these things were to be seen at work. There were also to be ornamental open stoves with fires in them; working models of steam-engines, of brewers' boilers, of distillers' coppers and condensers, of large boilers for hospital kitchens, and of ships' coppers with the requisite utensils; models of ventilating apparatus, spinning-wheels and looms "adapted to the circumstances of the poor;" models of agricultural machinery and bridges, and "of all such other machines and useful instruments as the managers of the institution shall deem worthy of public notice." All articles were to be provided with proper descriptions, with the name and address of the maker, and the price.

A lecture-room and laboratory were to be fitted up with all necessary philosophical apparatus, and the most eminent expounders of science were to be engaged for the purpose of "teaching the application of science to the useful purposes of life."

The lectures were to include warming and ventilation, the preservation of food, agricultural chemistry, the chemistry of digestion, of tanning, of bleaching and dyeing, "and, in general, of all the mechanical arts as they apply to the various branches of manufacture." The institution was to be governed by nine managers, of whom three were to be elected each year by the proprietors; and there was also to be a committee of visitors, the members of which should not be the managers. The king became patron of the institution, and the first set of officers was nominated by him. The Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham was President; the Earls of Morton and of Egremont and Sir Joseph Banks, Vice-Presidents; the Earls of Bessborough, of Egremont, and of Morton, and Count Rumford, were among the Managers; the Duke of Bridgewater, Viscount Palmerston, and Earl Spencer the Visitors; and Dr. Thomas Garnett was appointed first Professor of Physics and Chemistry. The royal charter of the institution was sealed on January 13, 1800. The superintendence of the journals of the institution was entrusted to Rumford's care. For some time the count resided in the house in Albemarle Street, which had been purchased by the institution, and while there he superintended the workmen and servants.

Dr. Thomas Garnett, the first professor at the institution, was highly respected both as a man and a philosopher, and seems to have been everywhere well spoken of. But Rumford and he could not work together, and his connection with the institution was consequently a short one. Rumford was then authorized to engage Dr. Young as Professor of Natural Philosophy, editor of the journals, and general superintendent of the house, at a salary of £300 per annum. Shortly before this the count's attention had been directed to the experiments on heat, made by Humphry Davy, and on February 16, 1801, it was "resolved that Mr. Humphry Davy be engaged in the service of the Royal Institution, in the capacity of Assistant-Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Laboratory, and Assistant-Editor of the Journals of the Institution; and that he be allowed to occupy a room in the house, and be furnished with coals and candles, and that he be paid a salary of one hundred guineas per annum." In his personal appearance, Davy is said to have been at first somewhat uncouth, and the count was by no means charmed with him at their first interview. It was not till he had heard him lecture in private that Rumford would allow Davy to lecture in the theatre of the institution; but he afterwards showed his complete confidence in the young chemist by ordering that all the resources of the institution should be at his service. Davy dined with Rumford at the count's house in Auteuil, when he visited Paris with Lady Davy and Faraday, in 1813. He commenced his duties at the institution on March 11, 1801. It was on June 15, in the same year, that the managers having objected to the syllabus of his lectures, Dr. Garnett's resignation was accepted; and on July 6 Dr. Young was appointed in his stead. Dr. Young resigned after holding the appointment only two years, as he found the duties incompatible with his work as a physician.

Rumford's life in London now became daily more unpleasant to himself. Accustomed, as he had been in Bavaria, to carry out all his projects "like an emperor," it was difficult for him to work as one member of a body of managers. One by one he quarrelled with his colleagues, and at length left England, in May, 1802, never to return.

When distinguished men of science are placed at the head of an institution like that which Rumford founded, there is always a tendency for the technical teaching of the establishment to become gradually merged into scientific research; and in this case, after Rumford's departure, the genius of Davy gradually converted the Royal Institution into the establishment for scientific research which it has been for more than three quarters of a century. Probably the man who has come nearest to realizing all that Count Rumford had planned for his institution is the late Sir Henry Cole; but he succeeded only through the resources of the Treasury.

On leaving England in May, 1802, Rumford went to Paris, where he stayed till July or August, when he revisited Bavaria and remained there till the following year, when he returned to Paris. He was again at Munich in 1805; but under the new elector, though an old friend of the count, relationships do not seem to have been all that they were with his uncle, and at length the elector himself was compelled to leave Munich, and soon after the Bavarian sovereign became a vassal of Napoleon. On October 24, 1805, Rumford married Madame Lavoisier, a lady of brilliant talents and ample fortune. That his position might be nearly equal to hers, the Elector of Bavaria raised his pension to £1200 per annum. A house, Rue d'Anjou, No. 39, was purchased for six thousand guineas, and Rumford expended much thought and energy in making it, with its garden of two acres, all that he could desire. But the union was not so happy as he anticipated. The count loved quiet; Madame de Rumford was fond of company: to the former the pleasure of the table had no charms; the latter took delight in sumptuous dinner-parties. As time went on, domestic affairs became more and more unpleasant, and at length a friendly separation was agreed upon, after they had lived together for about three years and a half. The count then retired to a small estate which he hired at Auteuil, about four miles from Paris. The Elector of Bavaria was crowned king on January 1, 1806, and in 1810 Rumford was again at Munich, for the purpose of forming, at the king's request, an Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Auteuil the count was joined by his daughter in December, 1811, her journey having been much delayed through the capture of the vessel in which she had taken her passage, off Bordeaux. An engraving of the house at Auteuil, and the room in which Rumford carried on his experiments, was published in the Illustrated London News of January 22, 1870.

While resident at Auteuil, Rumford frequently read papers before the Institute of France, of which he was a member. He complained very much of the jealousy exhibited by the other members with reference to any discoveries made by a foreigner. He died in his house at Auteuil, on August 21, 1814, in the sixty-second year of his age. In 1804 he had made over, by deed of gift to his mother, the sum of ten thousand dollars, that she might leave it by will to her younger children. As before mentioned, Harvard College was his residuary legatee, and the property so bequeathed founded the Rumford Professorship in that institution.

Cuvier, as Secretary of the Institute, pronounced the customary eulogy over its late member. The following passages throw some light on the reputation in which the count was held: —

He has constructed two singularly ingenious instruments of his own contriving. One is a new calorimeter for measuring the amount of heat produced by the combustion of any body. It is a receptacle containing a given quantity of water, through which passes, by a serpentine tube, the product of the combustion; and the heat that is generated is transmitted through the water, which, being raised by a fixed number of degrees, serves as the basis of the calculations. The manner in which the exterior heat is prevented from affecting the experiment is very simple and very ingenious. He begins the operation at a certain number of degrees below the outside heat, and terminates it at the same number of degrees above it. The external air takes back during the second half of the experiment exactly what it gave up during the first. The other instrument serves for noting the most trifling differences in the temperature of bodies, or in the rapidity of its changes. It consists of two glass bulbs filled with air, united by a tube, in the middle of which is a pellet of coloured spirits of wine; the slightest increase of heat in one of the bulbs drives the pellet towards the other. This instrument, which he called a thermoscope, was of especial service in making known to him the varied and powerful influence of different surfaces in the transmission of heat, and also for indicating a variety of methods for retarding or hastening at will the processes of heating and freezing…

He thought it was not wise or good to entrust to men, in the mass, the care of their own well-being. The right, which seems so natural to them, of judging whether they are wisely governed, appeared to him to be a fictitious fancy born of false notions of enlightenment. His views of slavery were nearly the same as those of a plantation-owner. He regarded the government of China as coming nearest to perfection, because, in giving over the people to the absolute control of their only intelligent men, and in lifting each of those who belonged to this hierarchy on the scale according to the degree of his intelligence, it made, so to speak, so many millions of arms the passive organs of the will of a few sound heads – a notion which I state without pretending in the slightest degree to approve it, and which, as we know, would be poorly calculated to find prevalence among European nations.

As for the rest, whatever were the sentiments of M. Rumford for men, they in no way lessened his reverence for God. He never omitted any opportunity in his works of expressing his religious admiration of Providence, and of proposing for that admiration by others, the innumerable and varied provisions which are made for the preservation of all creatures; indeed, even his political views came from his firm persuasion that princes ought to imitate Providence in this respect by taking charge of us without being amenable to us.

In front of the new Government offices and the National Museum in the Maximilian Strasse, in Munich, stand, on granite pedestals, four bronze figures, ten feet in height. These represent General Deroy, Fraunhofer, Schelling, and Count Rumford. The statue of Rumford was erected in 1867, at the king's private expense. In the English garden which Rumford planned and laid out is the monument erected during his absence in England in 1796, and bearing allegorical figures of Peace and Plenty, and a medallion of the count.