A MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN OF AN EMINENT VICTORIAN

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25227, 4 July 1947, Page 6

A MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN OF AN EMINENT VICTORIAN

HUXLEY IN AUSTRALIA.

100 YEARS AGO

Broadcasting in the 8.8.C.'s Pacific Service. Mr A. J. MARSHALL, an Australian zoologist, recalled the years when Huxley's career could easily have been turned from its course to that of a professor in Sydney Univeisity or a siirgeon in a Sydney practice.

In 1847—just 100 years ago—a rather good-looking but quite obscure young man named Thomas Henry Huxley visited Australia in Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s survey ship Rattlesnake. The yoUng man—he was assistant surgeon—was very disappointed when his lumbering sailing ship dropped anchor in Sydney Cove, just where the buzzing beehive of Circular Quay stands to-day. He was disappointed because there was no mail awaiting H.M.S. Rattlesnake. “I damned everything and everybody, sat down to dinner in a temper that Satan need not have envied, vowing I would never write home again, wrote the young man in his diary. This mood, however, did not last very long. While the Rattlesnake lay refitting after her strenuous voyage from England, Huxley made many new friends in Sydney, and soon forgot his early disappointment. Also, almost at first sight, young Mr Huxley—he was only 22—fell violently in love. The lady concerned was Miss Henrietta Heathorn, a talented girl who lived at “New Town’’—spelt in those days with “N” and “T.” Australia’s Loss Was Britain’s Gain It is interesting to reflect that, had the founders of Sydney University, about 95 years ago, decided to include a Chair of Natural History among the early professorships, Huxley, back again in London, almost penniless and homesick for Sydney and Henrietta, would have certainly been a candidate for the job. And when Sydney University finally could not afford to have a chair of biology, Huxley several times almost threw up his scientific pursuits to emigrate to Australia to set up as a Sydney surgeon. Had he done so, Australia would no doubt have got a good doctor—but England would have lost one of the greatest of her great Victorians. As it was, T. H. Huxley stuck it out in London. From earliest boyhood, T. H. Huxley’s life was one of unremitting financial struggle, interspersed with a fame such as comes to few men in their lifetime. In Huxley’s unfortunately, fame did not bring fortune. He was made a Fellow and Medallist Of the Royal Society—Britain’s greatest scientific distinction—at 26; but in a letter written about the same time, he said bitterly: “A man of science may earn distinction, but not bread.” When he was still a schoolboy, he decided that he wanted to be a mechanical engineer. At the age of 12 we find him awakening before daybreak, lighting his candle, pinning a blanket round his shoulders and reading Hutton’s text-book of geology. At 15, he was teaching himself German, and at the same age reading a text-book of logic. Meanwhile, he was making friends with men much older than himself. One of these was his brother-in-law. a surgeon. So he decided to become a surgeon, too.

Medical Apprentice At the hospital, he towered over the rank and file* of students. He had luck, too, for he came under the influence of the famous scientist, Dr. Wharton Jones, who encouraged him to use the microscope, and who told him how to publish his first scientific discovery. This was a hitherto unobserved layer of cells in the sheath of the root of human hair. To this day it is known as Huxley’s layer. So he became a “medical apprentice,” in a poor practice in the East End of London. At night, and in the early mornings, he studied in preparation for a formal medical course—if he could ever afford one. Then, at the age of 17 he won a free scholarship to the Charing Cross Hospital. At the age of 20, Huxley sat for his first Bachelor of Medicine examinations of London University, and collected a hatful of prizes. He was still too young to sit for the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons, and he looked round for a temporary job in order to make some money. He joined the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon. Here, again, Huxley scored a lucky break—he came under the influence of the famous old Arctic explorer. Sir John Richardson, who, liking the look of the youngster, got him appointed to the Rattlesnake in her voyage round the world. Aflame with adventure, young Tom borrowed enough money to get his naval kit together, and sailed from Spithead for Australia on December 3, 1846. The Rattlesnake was an old 28-gun man-o’-war, about as big as a small harbour ferry, unventilated, and crowded with 180 officers and men. There was little medical work to do—and in any case Huxley was only the assistant surgeon. So he turned to marine biology—the study of ocean life. He lashed his primitive microscope to a table in a corner of the chart-room, and rigged up fine-mesh nets which he dropped in the wake of the Rattlesnake as she pitched and tossed her way across the Atlantic. But with all his disadvantages (and, incidentally, he worked in a cabin sft Ilin long by 4ft lOin high). Huxley managed to study in detail the structure of the small, strange sea-beasts that he dredged out of. the depths, and by the time the Rattlesnake reached Sydney late in 1847, Huxley had enough information to write a paper which was later to revolutionise man’s understanding of the structure of animals as a whole, including Man himself!

The Work of a Voyage But Huxley did not know how important his findings were. He had had a rather slipshod medical education, not a scientific one, and he had

no professor to consult nor any lib. rary of learned works to refer to. All he had was a few nets, a microscope, and his own mentality. When the Rattlesnake hove to in Sydney Cove, he set to work, wrote up his results, and had them sent to the Royal So* ciety at home. He hoped that some* how or other they might be good enough for publication. I mentioned earlier how Huxley met Henrietta; he proposed after about two meetings, • and was accepted straight away, a day or so before the Rattlesnake sailed off to chart unexplored northern waters. The Rattlesnake sailed through one of the molt fascinating zoological regions on earth —the Great Barrier Reef—but Huxley mooned about the ship, did hardly any work, and did not add a line to hit diary. He was a thoroughly “bad* case. As the months went by the Rattle*, snake charted hundreds of square miles of dangerous reefs along the north Australian and New Guinea coastlines. The A.I.F. and militia troops who toiled over the lofty, tragic Kokoda trail are indissolubly linked with the Rattlesnake —for the Owen Stanley Ranges were named after the ship’s commander. The Rattlesnake’s stay in Australian waters was cut short when Captain Owen Stapley blew out his brains in Sydney harbour and was buried in St. Thomas’s Churchyard, North Short. Huxley arrived home in London in October, 1850. and one of the most trying periods of his life began. He was £lOO in debt.

Although he was almost immediately made an F.R.S., elected to the council of the Royal Society, and, a year later, given their medal for his brilliant researches, there were no jobs vacant in science. Further, he was separated by four months and 12.000 miles from his beloved Henrietta. Defeats Then came the wonderful news that the infant Sydney University might establish a Chair of Natural History among its first foundations. Huxley wtote to his scientific friend, Sir William MacLeay (of MacLeay street, now King’s Cross): “I trust that you will .keep me in mind.” But unhappily for Australia, our universityfathers decided against a department, of biology, so Huxley applied in des-* peration for a similar job at Toronto.,, A man far inferior in attainment got : the job. Then came jobs vacant in Aberdeen, Cork, and King’s College, London. He applied for each—but failed in each. He was too young and had not enough "pull” despite his proven ability. Again he almost decided to throw up science and become an obscure Syd-; ney doctor. He wrote to Henrietta: “I look upon such a life as,would await me in Australia with great misgivings. A life spent in routine employment, with no excitement and no occupation for the higher powers of the intellect . . . offers to me a prospect that’ would be utterly intolerable but for your love.” Then, suddenly, the drought began to break. In July, 1854, after several years of penury, free-lance lecturing,' and writing, a minor job became; vacant and Huxley got it. It was a" lectureship at the School of Mines, worth less than £2 a week but the’ great Victorian scientist accepted it gratefully. Later, he got another small lectureship that added another £2 a week. Then the drought really broke —he got two more jobs, whi?h brought his combined salary to about £5OO a; year. He was now, at long last, able to marry Henrietta. She arrived in the spring of 1805, and they were married almost immediately. Huxley’s Contribution to Natural Knowledge

Huxley had now a good job. and his Henrietta, and he settled down to a life of distinguished scientific achievement. During the great intellectual storm which rocked Victorian England in 1860, he supported the immortal Charles Darwin against the vindictive attacks of reactionaries who sought to persecute the gentle and sickly author of “The Origin of Species.” As the years went by, Huxley’s contribution to natural knowledge mounted, and so did the legends which «urround him to this day. He became deaf in one ear. "When I dine out,” he told a friend, “the lady sitting by my good ear thinks I am charming, but I make a mortal enemy of the lady on my deaf side.” He whs always devoted to his own children, and those of other people as well: “When a fond mother calls upon me to admire her baby, I never fail to respond: and while coping appropriately I take advantage of an opportunity gently to ascertain whether the soles of its feet turn in. and tend to support my theory of arboreal descent of Man.” Huxley’s attitude to life is partly summed up* in a chance remark made while gazing at the bustling, hardworking, powerful, little tugs that he saw at work, when he sailed up New’ York harbour in 1876. “If I were not a man,” he said, “I think I should like to be a tug.” Huxley worked hard until a month .before his death. He found time to write letters to his younger children and his grandchildren. He used, he said, a “new-fangled fountain pen, warranted to cure the worst, writing, and always “spell correctly.” In 1885, his health became bad, but he worked on. Ten years later, on June 29, 1895, he died, aged 70, one of the gieatest of 1 Queen Victoria’s great Victorians.