SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS
[BY MISS ELLEN LANGDON]
THE above chapters were written by my father Roger Langdon, and I, his
daughter, Ellen, am continuing the story of his life. So I will begin by
saying that the school kept by my mother was conducted in the same
manner as were the church schools at that time. Everything was very
orderly and we just had to mind our p's and q's.
Our parish church and school were five miles away, so it was only
possible for us to go there occasionally. We usually made the journey
sitting on a trolley which father pushed part of the way, and then we
would clamber up the railway bank and walk on to church. But there was
another church nearer, to which as soon as we were big enough father
would take us on alternate Sunday mornings, when he was off duty.
We had a large front room which was used as a schoolroom, and here we,
with our neighbours' children, were taught reading, writing, arithmetic,
spelling, geography, sewing, and the Catechism. When father was on night
duty (the duty in those days was twelve hours at a time) he would be at
home in the morning, and sometimes he would take us for Scripture. In
this his teaching was unorthodox and advanced, and he always gave us
plenty to think about. When later on we went to a school at Taunton we
found ourselves in most subjects in advance of children who had attended
schools in the town.
During the eight years my parents spent at Durston three more sons were
born to them; so there were now six of us, and I have often wondered
since how mother managed to keep the school going with such a large
family of her own. My grandmother, my mother's mother, was a frequent
visitor, and would also be at work all day long. My father's father too
would often come, and he used to make us stand by the harmonium and
sing. I would like to say that my grandfather was one of Father
Matthew's earliest converts to teetotalism, and he tried his best to get
others to believe in the same thing.
At this time father made a harmonium, which proved such a success that
he was able to sell it, and with the proceeds he bought material to make
a second. He also made a magic-lantern, and made slides of the stars and
sun and moon and comets, and at Christmas time he would invite the
neighbours to see the lantern, and he would give them all the
information he could on the subject. He also told us about the
electricity which was some day to light up our houses and town and drive
our railways and carriages. He told us about photography, and how we
should live to see "living pictures." Then for us he made all sorts of
mechanical toys--walking dolls, wooden horses and boats. The forms
which were used in the schoolroom he also made, as well as tables,
chairs, our boots, and his own, a little carriage for the smaller
children, and later on a perambulator. He was able to make anything he
wished, but of course it all meant labour, and never a moment's
idleness. And he had to put up with a great deal of enmity on account of
his being so set against the drink traffic, and never going to the
_Railway Hotel_ to spend his earnings.
While we were at Durston we had the pleasure of seeing Garibaldi. His
train was crossed on to another line. We children were playing as usual
on the bank above the station, and when Garibaldi's carriage stopped
right in front of us of course we all screamed with delight, and our
noise brought everybody out, and the men got so excited they crawled all
over the top of the carriage and shouted for all they were worth.
In 1865 my father was removed to Taunton. His duty was at Norton
Fitzwarren crossing, where there was no station, so he had only a small
office to sit in, which, as he still had the night duty, he began to
find very trying. House rent at Taunton was heavy, so mother applied for
a schoolmistress's situation, and she kept this post for nearly two
years. Meanwhile another son was born. But we were not very happy at
Taunton, for father was often ill during the time we were there.
The school in which mother taught was next to our house, and was also
used on Sundays as a Mission Chapel. When we first went there they used
to chant the _Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_, and a hymn, to the
accompaniment of an accordion. Father did not like the sound,
especially when he had to sleep on Sunday before going on night duty; so
he offered to lend his new harmonium if they would take care of it and
could find some one to play it. The curate, the Rev. J. Jackson, was
much pleased with the idea, and he persuaded a crippled lady, Miss Emma
Mockeridge, to undertake the duties of organist. She used to be wheeled
down on Sundays to play, and twice in the week besides she would gather
the children round her in the schoolroom and teach them the hymn. So she
came in all weathers from quite a long distance to do this work, and
after a time she began to visit the people who attended the service, and
told them that since Mr. Langdon would not accept any payment for the
use of his harmonium it was their duty to provide themselves with a new
one of their own. Before very long she succeeded in collecting enough
money to buy one. At this time Mr. Jackson held evening classes for men
and charged them a halfpenny a week. Father with some others went to him
to learn Greek, and got on very well with it. He greatly enjoyed these
classes, and in later life would say how grateful he was for them.
While we were at Taunton there was an election, and father had a vote. A
great deal of bribery went on; indeed the Conservative member was
afterwards unseated for bribery. Mr. Henry James (now Lord James) was
the Liberal candidate, and he won the election. My father told us all
about it, and said if any one meeting us in the town, or calling at the
house, should offer to give us children anything we must on no account
take anything. I do not know who the people were, but they mostly
called in the evening, and would offer us groceries and other things.
One evening I had been to the station to meet father, when a gentlemanly
looking person came up to him, saying, "Mr. Langdon, I believe."
Father raised his hat and said, "Yes, that is my name."
"You have got a vote?"
"Yes, I have."
"Well, are you going to give it to us?"
"That is my business, not yours."
"Come now, don't be a fool," said the gentleman, "you have got a little
family; what will you do it for?" at the same time holding up one
finger. "I am not to be bought," father replied. The gentleman then went
on holding up fingers till he had got all his ten fingers up, and father
at last cried, "No, I tell you no," to which the other replied, "You
thundering fool." Father raised his hat with "Thank you, and you are
another," and off we went.
My father was deeply interested in astronomy, which he had studied a
great deal with the help of books, and he had bought celestial and
terrestrial globes. Now he wanted a telescope. Mr. Nicholetts, a dear
old gentleman who lived at Petherton, had a telescope; and he often
invited father to his house to look through it, and this gave father
great pleasure and increased his ambition to possess one of his own. So
for a few shillings he bought some second-hand lenses, and soon
succeeded in making a small telescope, with a 1-1/2-inch reflector
mounted on a wooden stand and swivel. This small instrument only
whetted his desire for something better; so he sold it for 7_s._ 6_d._
and with the money obtained materials for another. After many
difficulties and disappointments, which by sheer luck and hard work he
surmounted, this second telescope was at last completed. This one had a
four-inch reflector, and with its aid the ring and some of the
satellites of the planet Saturn could be seen. The crescent form of
Venus and some of the nebulae were also plainly visible. And when father
first saw the moon through it he said he was fairly astonished, for up
to that time he had no idea how much of the physical features of the
moon could be seen.
In 1867 father was appointed station-master at Silverton in Devonshire.
It was at the end of 1868 that we left Taunton and took up our abode in
our new home; and thus began what father always described as the
happiest time of his life. For one thing he had from this time forward
no more night duty, and his health improved considerably in consequence,
so that he became stronger than he had been for many years. He greatly
rejoiced, too, that there was no drinking bar at this station. Another
great advantage was that we were now within reach of Exeter where there
was a good school to which the younger children could be sent daily by
train. In March 1870 my youngest sister was born; so now there were
eight of us. But the following year my eldest brother was killed by an
accident at the station. This was a terrible blow to both my parents,
and the trouble turned father's auburn hair as white as snow. At
Silverton father made many friends, amongst them Sir Thomas Acland and
our good rector, Rev. H. Fox Strangways and his lady.
In 1870 my father became acquainted through the _English Mechanic_ with
Dr. Blacklock, and this gentleman gave him advice regarding the building
of his telescopes; but it was all done by letter, for they never met,
and it was wonderful how Dr. Blacklock found time with all his work to
write so many letters as he did. Father also received letters from Mr.
Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, on the same subject. Mr.
Nasmyth took great interest in him and would write two or three sheets
at a time, pointing out the difficulties and explaining how they might
be overcome, and drawing diagrams of the tools he would need. After
father had made the speculum, which he found exceedingly difficult, it
had to be silvered on the front surface; and on this point Dr. Blacklock
gave him valuable information which enabled father to do it successfully
at the very first attempt.
In 1874 father made a model in plaster of Paris of the visible
hemisphere of the moon, showing five hundred principal objects, hollows,
craters, and mountains. This model he afterwards presented to the Devon
and Exeter Institute. Mr. C. R. Collins of Teignmouth once wrote an
article describing the discovery of a new crater on the moon by Dr.
Hermann J. Klein of Cologne. Going to his observatory father was able to
show on this model of the moon, as the result of his own observations,
this very crater.
Father had now made two telescopes, but he hoped to make another and
still better one; so he set to work, and it was in the making of this
that he received so much valuable advice from Mr. Nasmyth and Dr.
Blacklock.
This third telescope was a beautiful instrument. It had a six-inch
speculum with a five foot focal length. With this he was enabled to
detect certain markings upon the planet Venus. In 1871 he read a paper
before the Royal Astronomical Society in London upon this subject. He
said afterwards that he never was so nervous in his life as on this
occasion, and he wished the earth would open and swallow him up. But his
paper was very well received, and commended.[1] He also made over a
thousand drawings and photographs of the moon's surface.
[1] Webb quotes from this paper in his book _Celestial Objects for
Common Telescopes_. My father's observations are also mentioned in
Clarke's _History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century_.
Much as father had accomplished, he was still bitten with the idea that
his telescope was not so good as he would like, although it was a
splendid one, and had cost him many weary hours' hard work to make. So
he sold it for L10, and in the year 1875 set about making his fourth
telescope--a very noble instrument, for which he had to build an
observatory. He describes it thus: "An 8-1/4-inch silver-on-glass
reflector mounted in a stout zinc tube, which turns in a cast-iron
cradle on its own axis. The focal length is seven feet. There is a
diagonal place for viewing the stars and a specially prepared glass
wedge for observing the sun. The whole is mounted as an equatorial upon
a strong cast-iron stand. It had two stout brass right ascension circles
divided to 10 seconds, and declination circles divided to 5 minutes of
arc. The telescope is furnished with a driving clock which keeps the
celestial object in the field of view. The observatory is a circular
iron building with conical-shaped revolving roof, two swing flaps of
which give the required opening to the sky."
This telescope took a long time to make, and night after night through
many a weary month, when station duty was done, father would work at it
for hours together in his home-made work-shop. But, as usual, the want
of funds hampered him a good deal, and he found many difficulties to
overcome; but he worked away with intense enthusiasm, and with the
advice of Dr. Blacklock and Mr. Nasmyth, he at last completed this
Newtonian equatorial reflecting telescope fitted with a finder with
Ramsden eye-piece. He added to it a trap for taking photographs, the
invention of his own brain, and in visiting Greenwich Observatory some
years later he was pleased to find that the apparatus in use there for
the same purpose was almost identical with his own. With this telescope
my father photographed the transit of Venus and took also several
pictures of the sun and of the moon.
To make his first telescope in 1865 he bought some second-hand lenses
for a few shillings, and by means of a turning lathe he turned a stick
upon which to roll the tin case, according to the size of the lens.
The second telescope was a much more difficult undertaking for one whose
acquaintance with mechanical processes was entirely self-acquired. He
was as a man groping in the darkness. To obtain the special glass
necessary for the speculum; to grind it to the most delicately accurate
shape and density; to polish and silver the speculum; to make the metal
tube to the requisite size and scale; to mount it with the necessary
adjustments and accuracy; all these were so many enigmas which only his
intense enthusiasm and perseverance enabled him to solve.
To grind the speculum of the third telescope a special and very curious
tool was necessary, and here Mr. Nasmyth gave father valuable
information and sent a drawing of the tool. After making this tool
according to Mr. Nasmyth's pattern, father found it applicable to metal
specula only, and unsuitable to glass inasmuch as it would not
parabolize, or work in the figure of a parabola. This was a great blow.
However he eventually surmounted it by using Ross's machine, a
description of which he came across; after considerable inquiry. This
grinding completed, he succeeded in polishing his speculum with a disc
of pitch squares, an apparatus which gave him much thought and trouble.
Then came the silvering, and then the rolling and soldering of the tube,
which was accomplished by means of a circular block of wood turned in
the lathe to the required size. Here another difficulty presented
itself, for when it was done, the wood was found immovably fixed inside
the tube, and it became necessary to procure a steel augur to bore it
out.
However, this taught father something, for in making the next telescope
he used a number of laths fixed together and turned in the lathe. One of
them was cut through diagonally so that the two parts when separated
formed wedge-shaped sections, which could be readily knocked out when
the case had been fixed; and thus the whole circular bundle could be
easily removed. I know that the building of these telescopes was real
hard work, and the difficulties and disappointments they involved were
numerous, and were only overcome by sheer hard work and indomitable
perseverance. The fourth telescope he had reason to be proud of. He was
assisted with the adjustment of this as well as in making the pitch
plate with which to polish the speculum by Mr. Newton, a gentleman from
Taunton. This was the telescope for which father built the observatory,
and it has been described as a real triumph of skill.
Many a time after his day's work was done he would take his
magic-lantern and give a lantern lecture on astronomy. He also wrote a
paper, "A Letter from the Man in the Moon," which was published in the
_Exe Valley Magazine_. Another paper, "A Journey with Coggia's Comet,"
appeared in _Home Words_. Some of his mechanical toys, Stoke Canon
Church with its peal of bells, ships rocking on the ocean, and others,
have often been shown at church sales of work, and so helped the funds.