John Dalton - Father of Atomic Theory - and Cumbrian
When John Dalton became famous as a scientist he was living and working in Manchester, where today one of the city's major streets is named after him.
His origins, however, were in a very different place. In marked contrast to the enginerring and textile mills of central Lancashire (the cradle of the industrial revolution) Dalton grew up surrounded by the rivers, hills and lakes of Cumberland in the far northwest of England, on the northern fringes of the Lake District.
He shared his home town with William Wordsworth the great poet (what two people could have been so different?) being born just four years earlier than the future Romanticist. Another local man, born around the same time in Cockermouth was Fletcher Christian who was to become famous, or notorious depending on one's viewpoint, for his role in the Mutiny on the Bounty.
His origins, however, were in a very different place. In marked contrast to the enginerring and textile mills of central Lancashire (the cradle of the industrial revolution) Dalton grew up surrounded by the rivers, hills and lakes of Cumberland in the far northwest of England, on the northern fringes of the Lake District.
He shared his home town with William Wordsworth the great poet (what two people could have been so different?) being born just four years earlier than the future Romanticist. Another local man, born around the same time in Cockermouth was Fletcher Christian who was to become famous, or notorious depending on one's viewpoint, for his role in the Mutiny on the Bounty.
John Dalton's childhood home
The earliest photographs that I've been able to find of Cockermouth are dated 1906, and below I've placed one of the partly ruined ancient castle which would be familiar to Dalton in his younger years and on his later regular visits. For more vintage photographs click here: Cockermouth old photos.
Cockermouth, The Castle, 1906
Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.
I wonder whether he ever went to see the lakes that were just a few miles away. Those were hard times. There was none of the plentiful leisure of the modern day with all its technological development and easy travel. Maybe Crummock Water (below) seemed to him just a distant story ... or maybe he regularly walked over the fells and admired the nearby lakes - Ennerdale Water, Loweswater, Crummock Water and Buttermere. If he did know them, I wonder how he saw the colours (see below).
Cockermouth, The Castle, 1906
Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.
I wonder whether he ever went to see the lakes that were just a few miles away. Those were hard times. There was none of the plentiful leisure of the modern day with all its technological development and easy travel. Maybe Crummock Water (below) seemed to him just a distant story ... or maybe he regularly walked over the fells and admired the nearby lakes - Ennerdale Water, Loweswater, Crummock Water and Buttermere. If he did know them, I wonder how he saw the colours (see below).
John Dalton - Scientist from the English Lake District
I suppose John Dalton is best known from "Dalton's Law", learned at school in science lessons. However, when you look into his life more fully you discover that this 18th/19th century scientist from the northern English Lake District was a thought leader in more than the properties of gases.
Here are some of the fields in which he made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge:
Not bad for the son of a bankrupt farmer in what was then an obscure corner of northern England! But then, Cockermouth at that time had a habit of generating genius ... as William Wordsworth, born just four years later a few miles down the road, was to demonstrate in a completely different field.
Take a look also at the John Dalton paragraphs on my page about his birthplace, Cockermouth, and also here.
Here are some of the fields in which he made significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge:
- Meteorology - He started giving lectures on this subject as a young man while teaching at a school in Kendal. It was later the subject of his first published book.
- Colour Blindness - He suffered from this himself. Having noticed that he described colours differently from many of his friends he set about analysing the phenomenon. He became such an expert in the subject that colour blindness for many years became known as Daltonism.
- The Behaviour of Gases - This has been the subject of many a school science experiment in more recent years, following in the lines of his original observations and the development of Dalton's Law.
- Atomic Theory - Probably his greatest achievement was to lay the theoretical foundations for the subsequent study of the nature of matter. Of course, later discoveries have penetrated far beyond anything Dalton could have envisaged at the beginning of the 19th century, but this was the man who provided a conceptual framework from which to move forward in understanding the nature of the material world.
Not bad for the son of a bankrupt farmer in what was then an obscure corner of northern England! But then, Cockermouth at that time had a habit of generating genius ... as William Wordsworth, born just four years later a few miles down the road, was to demonstrate in a completely different field.
Take a look also at the John Dalton paragraphs on my page about his birthplace, Cockermouth, and also here.
by David_Murray
For almost thirty years I was an adviser to companies, governments and voluntary agencies on strategic managerial and ethical issues. In that capacity... (more)
