MOMENTS IN HISTORY |
Presented by
Bill ‘Mastermind’ Fitzgerald®
Recently, when I was doing some research for this radio program I had a conversation with a friend about people who have had a great impact on history, but who, for whatever reasons, did not become well known. This led me to think about some connections between people and places that are familiar to me and how some of those have had great impact. A fairly recent case in point, for example, was the Australian television ‘Professor’ Julius Sumner Miller. He was very famous in Australia as a popular educator, and late in his life for his Cadbury chocolate ads on television.
I remember reading his obituary and learning that he had come from the United States, from a small town in Massachusetts named Billerica. This is just outside of my hometown of Boston. And it was the place where one of my sisters had lived early in her marriage.
It so happens that Billerica is adjacent to another small town in Massachusetts, Woburn, where today’s subject was born in 1753. You have to imagine how small and isolated that town would have been almost two hundred and fifty years ago. Opportunities to travel would have been limited, of course, due to the transport of the day, to say nothing of the fact that Thompson was not born of wealth. He wasn’t born ‘Count Rumford’!
In 1753, Massachusetts and the other twelve colonies of North America, south of French Canada, were under British control. So the citizens were, in addition to their colonial allegiances, loyal subjects of the British crown. At that time the British monarch was George II (1727-1760).
Two years after the young Thompson’s birth the colonies were engaged in the, French and Indian War, the American colonial equivalent of the, Seven Years War, in Europe. (During the American colonial period it wasn’t always easy to keep track of who was at war with who because of the European connections, the switching of alliances and the time it took to convey the news from Europe to America!)
It was during the French and Indian War that the British were able to capture Quebec and in the subsequent peace negotiations secure all of Canada for Britain. There are only two small islands off of Newfoundland that still remain French possessions. They are the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon.
Young Benjamin Thompson showed an early aptitude for mathematics and became apprenticed to a merchant in Salem, Massachusetts. (That was the same Salem made famous by the Salem witch trials of 1692.) He was more interested in reading and scientific experimentation, however, and spent much time with one Loammi Baldwin of North Woburn. Baldwin was a civil engineer and a soldier. However, he should be remembered for producing the ‘Baldwin Apple’ that became the standard winter apple of eastern America!
Well, it just didn’t seem that Thompson was cut out to be a merchant! He drifted into school teaching and studying medicine before marrying a widow in 1772. Fortunately, she was a wealthy widow.
His fortuitous marriage provided Thompson with the opportunity to promote himself to the Governor of New Hampshire, Governor Wentworth. Unfortunately the American revolution broke out and curtailed his advancement. This apparently brought on some soul searching about where his loyalties (and perhaps his opportunities) lay.
In 1775 he decided to go with his British loyalties and when the British forces evacuated from Boston he joined them and sailed to England, leaving his wife and baby daughter behind.
Thompson became successful in his scientific pursuits in England and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1779. He didn’t remain long in England, however. He accepted a commission as a Lieutenant-Colonel and returned to America to fight against the American rebels. He saw action at Charleston, South Carolina and again at Long Island, New York before returning again to England. There he was knighted for his services to the Crown. But this restless and successful colonial opportunist wasn’t finished yet.
He began a tour of Europe and before very long he found himself offering his services to the Elector of Bavaria! He was made a Major-General, a Councilor of State and Head of the War Department! This fellow was either extraordinarily brilliant and charming or simply a conman. The evidence supports the former conclusion. In either case he had to be amazingly lucky as well.
For his services to the Elector of Bavaria he was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, hence his title ‘Count Rumford’ . Those services, by the way, included draining the marshes around Mannheim, reforming the army, establishing a military academy, planning a poor law system and introducing the cultivation of the potato to Germany! That vegetable had been introduced to Europe in the previous century but had not become as widespread as it is now until Rumford!
In 1799 after other adventures and scientific work in Bavaria, including the planning of the Bavarian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the supervision of the Police Department, as well as improving the breeds of cattle and horses and laying out the English Garden of Munich, Thompson, now Count Rumford, moved to Paris where he decided to marry again. This was not a man easily contented! (Remember, he left his first wife in America when he joined up with the British forces.) His choice for a wife this time was the widow of the famous French scientist, Lavoisier. He married her in 1804 and moved into her villa at Auteuil where he eventually died in 1814.
He published papers on his scientific endeavors as well as on a wide range of other subjects, including one entitled: Of the Excellent Qualities of Coffee (1812) in which he described the drip method coffee pot. His primary scientific research was in the field of heat transmission. He established the Rumford medal of the Royal Society and the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences!
I think it’s safe to say that Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, made an impact in his sixty-one years of life. He certainly managed to get around in an age when it wasn’t easy to do that. In addition, of course, he had neither money nor extensive formal education. Yet, he remains relatively unknown. That is, he was relatively unknown until now.
And now you know.
This is Bill ‘Mastermind’ Fitzgerald® signing off until next time.