CHAPTER XIII

HOME LIFE—LADY ROSCOE—WOODCOTE LODGE—PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS—DEATH

In 1863 Roscoe married the lady whom he had first met in his aunt Crompton’s drawing-room in Hyde Park Square—Lucy, the youngest member of the family of Edmund Potter, Esq., M.P. for Carlisle, a well-known Manchester merchant and a friend and co-worker of Bright and Cobden.

Lady Roscoe was a strong and sincere character, of wide sympathies and generous impulses, with a rich fund of common sense, and a high standard of duty and performance. She had many intellectual interests and a cultivated taste; was well read, a good judge of literary work, and an assiduous collector of old rare and beautiful prints. In the early days of her married life, and at a time when she had to work with wet collodion or to prepare her own dry plates, she was recognized by experts as a clever photographer, and obtained medals from the Photographic Society for the technical excellence and artistic merit of her exhibits. She was an admirable hostess, and all who have had the privilege of partaking of her hospitality cherish an unfading memory of her kindly manner, her quiet dignity, and unfailing tact. Time dealt tenderly with her; the additional years brought an added charm, a widened sympathy, and a larger measure of gentleness and pity. With her healthful, smiling face and beautiful white hair, her characteristically simple dress and the rare lace she draped about her head and shoulders, no woman was ever more successful in the art of growing old gracefully. She died in 1910. Of this union it was said by one who had the best opportunities of judging: “Of the forty-seven years of married life one who looked on can say there never were two more of one heart and mind.” The one sorrow of their lives—and it was a profound sorrow, a grief that changed the whole current of their aspirations—was the death of their only son when an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, just as he was entering on manhood. He was a young man of great charm of manner, of high ideals, and a strong sense of duty and responsibility, and with the ambition to serve in a career of public usefulness or in some position in which his well-marked powers of literary expression might be turned to account. Two daughters were also born of this marriage, the elder of whom married Mr. Charles E. Mallet, formerly M.P. for Plymouth and Under-Secretary for War in the last Liberal Government.

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Nowhere did Roscoe appear to greater advantage than in his home. His domestic life was singularly unclouded save for the one great sorrow “that failed the bright promise of an early day.” He had no great anxieties and few cares—only the passing ones that attend the work of one who strives to do with all his might whatsoever his hand findeth to do. He was

Blessed with a temper whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day.

This happy condition of mind was, no doubt, largely temperamental; it was based upon a calm and equable disposition that would have taken Fortune’s buffets and rewards with equal thanks. That there were more rewards than buffets was due less to Fortune than to himself, for he was the architect of his own career, and used his opportunities wisely. It is true he started with advantages—a handsome presence, a well-knit, manly frame, a frank, ingenuous manner, good social connections, and, after his marriage, no anxieties as to the _res angusta domi_.

He was fond of the society of his fellows, hospitably disposed, and of a warm, genial nature. Indeed he had a genius for friendship, and a boundless capacity for sympathy and kindness—instinctive, spontaneous, impulsive—the sort of sympathy where action follows hard upon the heels of inclination, and the kind of kindness which is doubled because it acts quickly. Innumerable instances of his little nameless, but _not_ unremembered acts of kindness and of love might be culled from a correspondence which stretches over half a century. But one characteristic action must suffice:

10 BRAMHAM GARDENS, _November 25, 1893_.

I heard of you yesterday as having been out in a bath-chair—poor man!—so I came to two conclusions: (1) That you had been very ill. (2) That you were better. We have just come back from three hours at Woodcote, and I said, “I wish Thorpe was here.” “Why not ask him and his wife to stay here next week?” said my better-half. So this I now do, and I hope you will go there: the air is lovely: the house is warm. There is an old woman who can cook—and an old man who cannot. You could take one of your own maids to wait, and there is everything ready—beds and sitting-rooms, bread and meat—only no whisky.

I shall be delighted if you will both go there on Tuesday. There is Judy the pony and its cart at your service, and I can order a closed carriage to take you up.

You _must_ take care of yourself. This attack ought to be and will be a warning to you not to work on as you have done. It is serious, and I am, with many friends, anxious you should draw in your horns. Really your professional work is enough for one man, and what a pile you put on to the top of this!

Let me know, if possible, to-morrow (Sunday) night whether you will go. I am sure you would enjoy yourselves, and I will let E⸺ know so that all shall be ready.

No man was more quick to recognize and to appreciate merit and worthy motives. Of strong common sense, perfectly sincere, frank and direct of speech, of an integrity of purpose which was perfectly obvious and which admitted of no unworthy compromise, he was, as they say in the quaint forceful Lancashire dialect he loved at times to recall as the speech of his forerunners, his eminent grandfather included—“jannock”[31] to the backbone—the very type we associate with the national character. These marks of his personality constituted the source of his influence. A broad-minded man, who thought spaciously and did things magnanimously, nature intended him to be a leader. His example was infectious, and nowhere was it more obvious than at Owens College, where the success of his own department was a constant stimulus to his colleagues. Men valued his counsel because they trusted his judgment.

He knew his limitations as a man of science. He was too honest and sincere to cherish any illusions as to the position posterity would assign to him as a leader in chemical inquiry. The profound respect, amounting almost to reverence, he had for Faraday, Joule, Bunsen, Helmholtz—all men he learned to know personally—was based upon the knowledge that they had reached intellectual heights to which he could not climb. He had not the studious, contemplative habit of his master Graham. Contact with Williamson kindled no latent faculty for speculation. The shibboleths of modern chemistry—types, bonds, linkages, chains, etc., etc., had hardly more real meaning for him than they had for Bunsen, to whom they were practically unintelligible. It was characteristic of both that when, at Kekulé’s solicitation, they jointly attended the chemical congress on nomenclature at Carlsruhe in 1860, when Cannizzaro brought forward his memorable communication concerning the rational basis of fixing atomic and molecular weights, they should not have recognized its significance. Of course they were not singular in this respect. The revolution did not come at once. Avogadro’s hypothesis never affected Bunsen’s teaching; some years were needed before it reached Manchester, and there are still survivals who never have been clear why water should be HO one year and H₂O the next. Bunsen, indeed, used to say that one new chemical fact, even an unimportant one, accurately determined, was worth a whole congress of discussion of matters of theory. The truth was Roscoe, in chemistry as in other matters, was primarily a man of action: he was essentially an “experimentarian philosopher,” as Hobbes sneeringly dubbed the whole of the Fellows of the Royal Society. A fact absolutely ascertained was a definite and permanent addition to knowledge; hypotheses and theories were transitory and mutable; they have their day and cease to be.

But it would be unjust and untrue to assume that Roscoe set no value on theory: he fully recognized that she was the handmaid of Science. He who had so carefully studied Dalton’s papers and followed the workings of his mind in the light of a century’s experience, could not be unmindful of the worth of a fruitful conception. Mendelejeff’s generalization when it was first promulgated at once attracted him, and he followed its startling verifications with the greatest interest. It was always a matter of gratification that his detection of the true relations of vanadium to the other elements, just prior to the announcement of the Law of Periodicity, should have removed at least what would have been one apparent exception to the universality of its truth.

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When Roscoe first settled in Manchester he lived with his mother in the house which had been occupied by his predecessor, the late Sir Edward Frankland. On his marriage he moved to Victoria Park, and subsequently, after the birth of his children, to a larger residence which was built for him in the same neighbourhood. It was a charming, well-arranged house surrounded by a good-sized garden, and with an excellent tennis lawn, to which his colleagues and senior students were freely invited on half-holidays during the summer months. In those days Roscoe was an active player, his reach and length of stride making him a formidable opponent. Both he and Lady Roscoe were fond of horses, and for some years riding in company with her was his usual form of outdoor exercise. Occasionally they would plan a driving tour together, and considerable sections of England and Wales were explored in this way. Whilst his children were young his long vacations were usually spent in the Lakes or in Scotland, or at Mr. Edmund Potter’s country seat, Camfield Place, near Hatfield. Roscoe’s long vacations usually meant to him either a change of occupation, or the continuance of a piece of literary work in new surroundings. Many of his memoirs were, in fact, put together during his vacations: it was only at such periods, when, free from the routine of lecturing, laboratory superintendence and College committees, that he could count upon the necessary freedom from interruption to arrange the results of an inquiry. The compilation of his smaller text-books was usually done at such times. The large treatise which he wrote with Schorlemmer, and which necessarily needed ready access to a library rich in serial publications, was mainly composed in Manchester. At one period of his career he was a frequent contributor to certain of the quarterly reviews, and the early volumes of _Nature_ contain occasional communications from his pen. It was a point of honour to translate any paper of Bunsen’s for the _Philosophical Magazine_.

During the earlier portion of his Parliamentary career he lived in Mrs. Potter’s town house in Queen’s Gate, until he moved to Bramham Gardens, South Kensington, which continued to be his London house until a short time before his death.

Although he always regarded his thirty years at Owens as his chief work, the thirty years of his London life were hardly less busy than the time he spent in Manchester. The occupation might not be so continuous, but it was certainly more multifarious. Ten years of Parliamentary and active political life had brought with them new activities and fresh demands upon his time and energy, and except for occasional periods of enforced idleness due to attacks of gout—the only constitutional weakness from which he suffered, and which, as he used ruefully to observe, he had done nothing to deserve—he was always busy. He had a serious attack of pneumonia in the winter of 1902, which left him enfeebled for a time, but eventually, after a summer in Mürren and Burgenstock and a winter in Algiers and Sicily, he seemed to have completely shaken off its ill effects. Otherwise his sound and vigorous constitution kept him free from even passing ailments, and his fourscore years were passed with few interruptions to his activity from illness.

Shortly after Roscoe took up his residence in London he sought for some _pied-à-terre_ in the country for the sake of rest and change of scene, and relief from the physical and mental strain of continuous life in town. In 1892 he was able to obtain a delightful place on Lord Lovelace’s property in Surrey, some two dozen miles from London. It was beautifully situated on the North Downs, between Guildford and Dorking, amidst some of the loveliest scenery in the South of England. He and Lady Roscoe altered it to suit their requirements: he to build a spacious study and to provide room for his many books, and she to house her own collection which was even more numerous, and to accommodate the many works of art with which she had surrounded herself. Roscoe has given a charming word-picture in his autobiography of this ideal retreat, to which as the years increased they became more and more attached. Here they had

An elegant sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, Ease and alternate labour.

Here Lady Roscoe could indulge to the full her taste in gardening, and the cultivation of flowers and flowering shrubs became her main outdoor occupation. She worked at her hobby with all the enthusiasm and skill she had formerly displayed in photography, and with equal success, for she made Woodcote noted throughout the country-side for the choiceness and richness of its floral wealth. One who knew her well wrote of her:

Flowers were named after her not so much as a criterion of her horticultural knowledge, as a recognition of an almost lavish generosity to the seedsmen and nursery gardeners, many of whom were her personal friends.

Attached to the property was a home-farm of some seventy acres, which had been allowed to get into a very backward state. Roscoe, with no previous experience of farming, resolved to bring it into better condition, and with the help of his Westmoreland bailiff he gradually succeeded in doing so. The business was a constant interest to him. He was proud of his cart-horses which gained commendation and prizes at the local shows; of his well-bred Jersey cows; of his breed of Berkshire pigs—the little pigs were a constant source of amusement—and of his poultry. He records with much satisfaction that “our” field—(he always associated his bailiff with these agricultural triumphs, as he always associated his co-workers with his scientific achievements)—“our field of swedes on several occasions received the first prize for the best show twenty miles round Guildford.” He went round his farm as he used to go round his laboratory, and seemed to be on the same genial terms with every animal on it as he had been with his students. The affectionate regard with which he used to contemplate an old sow—a most prolific creature by the way—was a source of much fun to his friends. If she did not wholly succeed in “paying the rint,” she doubtless did her best towards it, and so merited and received commendation.

The hospitality of Woodcote is a treasured memory to numbers of Roscoe’s friends. Few week-ends passed without one or more of them sharing its pleasures with him. Sometimes it would be one of his old associates in scientific work, or a political acquaintance, or a literary friend, or some distinguished man of science from abroad. Indeed, few foreign scientific men of any note passed through London without finding their way to Roscoe’s hospitable board.

My father (says Miss Roscoe) delighted to bring foreigners, and the more heterogeneous they were the more he was pleased. I remember one luncheon party of late years, consisting of a Chinaman, a Japanese, a Czech, a German, and our three selves, and the Occidentals were much the quietest of the party.

The visitors’ book at Woodcote is a possession of no little historical interest.

In spite of their varied delights and restful charm there were times when Roscoe was not wholly content to breathe his native air in his own grounds: pigs, poultry, and potatoes, as he said, occasionally lost their spell, and “the pathetic sadness of a garden in autumn” would drive him and Lady Roscoe to a sunnier clime. Grasse, Italy, Egypt, Sicily, Algiers, Tunis, Biskra were in turn visited by them during different winters. Both he and his wife were fond of foreign travel, and well-written books of travel were a constant source of interest to her.

And so the evening of their lives drew to its close. Her end came swiftly—and with scarce a warning. His call was to come five years afterwards, and was to be no less sudden and equally unlooked for.

In the meantime came the War, with all its horrors, griefs, and anxieties—the crushed hopes for the Peace he had struggled to preserve so far as in him lay—the unending enmity and bitterness he foresaw between two nations that in his big heart he had fondly linked together as the mightiest humanizing forces of the world. It was a real grief to him that he should have lived to see it all. He frequently thought and spoke of his old Heidelberg friends—most of whom had passed away—and tried to realize their feeling of horror at the spectacle which now confronts us. But his Germany was not the Germany of to-day, and gradually and reluctantly he was compelled to admit it. He still continued to occupy himself with his customary pursuits—so long as recurrent attacks of his arch-enemy the gout would permit. He read assiduously and took an active interest in current topics—the varying fortunes of the struggle, politics, and scientific matters. He preserved, in fact, all the interests of his life to the end. How mentally alert and vigorous he remained will be evident from the following letters:

WOODCOTE LODGE, WEST HORSLEY, LEATHERHEAD, _September 20, 1914_.

I have been laid up, more or less, since the war broke out with dyspepsia and gout, but now I am recovering. What are you doing, and when can we meet—which means when can you come here?

What do you say to Ostwald! I enclose a cutting from the _Westminster_—which please return, as I am going to book it for future reference. I agree with you that his swelled head is cracked.

What horrors! One can scarcely believe that the German, as you and I have known him, could have assumed such brutal characteristics as we read of. Here we are peaceful enough, but thirty young men, including Tom Huck, have gone from our village of 700 souls. Not bad!

Our crops are in—hay poor; oats ditto; wheat fair. Pigs in plenty, but no sale during the summer. I find on totting up that during ten years—some very bad—of farming my average loss has been £58 per annum, which I don’t think is unsatisfactory, as I get quite that amount of value—beyond market price—in having good foodstuffs, and then pleasure in the processes and interest in the varying conditions, and in making things go in a bad situation for a farmer.

The war is not bad for the only commercial undertaking I have ever been connected with, for the demand for K, or rather NaCy, is great owing to the disappearance of the Continental supply, and the C. K. Co. are increasing the production to fill up the void.

Then I am again Chairman of the Lister, owing to B⸺ declining to have anything to do with a proposal to join the National Medical Research Committee—which the Governing Body suggest, and the question is to be settled in October by the vote of the members of the Lister Institute. So I am still awake, though lame and gouty.

Give my love to your wife, and let me hear from you.…

What is the name of the lame organic chemist who went from Heidelberg to the Badische?

* * * * *

WOODCOTE LODGE, _February 19, 1915_.

… The Government have been bamboozled by a want of scientific acumen at the head—a not unusual occurrence _chez nous_. Thanks for sending me the report.… I am at last downstairs, and more or less in my right mind as well. So I feel better, but I do not suppose I shall be able to go up to town and mix with the gay world, as was my wont, until the March winds are over. A chill with me means six weeks indoors, if not something more serious.

What I need is to have some scientific gossip let loose at me, but you in your southern retirement are no use at all in that direction. Has your boat yet been requisitioned by the Admiralty, and if so, do you go out in charge, having, of course, previously joined the Navy?

We have here received notice to be prepared to drive off somewhere or other all our living animals, horses, cows, calves, pigs, and fowls! I scarcely know where I come in. Also I believe we are to destroy all our crops, gathered or not gathered—hay, potatoes, corn, and garden vegetables—so that the Hun may be an hungred! Also I propose to empty my large cellar of wine either down the drain or into the duck-pond, like Sir Wilfrid Lawson.

I await with anxiety the result of the R[oyal] S[ociety] election. If I were a betting man I should back G⸺ and M⸺, and perhaps my R⸺ ought to come in 15th. What about the 104 necessarily rejected candidates! Is it not absurd!

* * * * *

WOODCOTE LODGE, _September 21, 1915_.

… My old friend Pattisson, our Treasurer at the Lister, is dead, and most of our men have joined the war in one or other capacity. So much lies on my shoulders, and though pretty broad, they are old, and I feel the responsibility of chairmanship.

He attended the meeting of the Lister Institute which has been referred to in one of his previous letters. The result disappointed him, but as it was not wholly unexpected, it but slightly, if at all, disturbed his usual philosophic calm. The death of his friend Rücker, the first Principal of the London University, a man whom he greatly respected and admired, which occurred on November 1st, was a far more serious blow, and affected him greatly.

He had retired to rest at his customary hour, in his usual serene and happy condition of mind and health, after spending a couple of hours in his daughter’s society in the drawing-room reading or amusing himself, as was his wont, on the pianola with one of Beethoven’s sonatas or some other classical piece. He had been thinking of his approaching birthday, and had suggested a little gathering of a chosen few of his old students whom he knew would be glad to celebrate it with him. But this was not to be. _Diis aliter visum._ Shortly after daybreak on the morning of December 18, 1915, he was seized with an attack of angina pectoris, and passed away with scarcely a struggle. With

No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.

What was mortal of him was laid to rest in Brookwood Cemetery in the grave which held the cherished partner of his life.

FOOTNOTES

[1]

Johnnie Carnegie lais heer, Descendit of Adam and Eve; Gif ony con gang hieher, Ise willing give him leve.

[2] “Some Chemical Facts Respecting the Atmosphere of Dwelling-houses.” By H. E. Roscoe. _Chem. Soc. Jour._ X. (1858), pp. 251-268.

[3] “The Owens College: its Foundation and Growth.” By Joseph Thompson. Manchester: J. E. Cornish.

[4] “Note on the Spontaneous Polymerisation of Volatile Hydrocarbons at the Ordinary Atmospheric Temperature.” By H. E. Roscoe. _Chem. Soc. Trans._ XLVII. (1885), pp. 669-671.

[5] “Photochemical Researches.” By R. W. Bunsen and H. E. Roscoe: