The Inspiration for Beatrix Potter's Squirrel Nutkin ?

In 

Loving Memory of

Susannah Nutkins

who entered into Rest

Aug 3rd 1906

In her 90th Year

Also

Tom William Nutkins

Grandson of the Above

who died June 26th 1906

Aged 14 Years

Also of

George Nutkins

who entered into Rest

December 24th 1915

In his 62nd Year

also Helen Nutkins

Born Feb 16 1877

Died Feb 12th 1959

R.I.P

Whilst visiting Brompton Cemetery our guide made a reference to the name of 'Nutkins' on this headstone, as the source of inspiration for the character of Squirrel Nutkin in the much loved Tales written by Beatrix Potter . Whom it was believed, had often walked through the cemetery and had been inspired by the name for the little squirrel in her books. As Brompton simply oozes squirrels, which are tame enough to take food from your hand, the story sounded a very likely one.

But like all good stories as this one is, 'The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin' was published in 1903 and the first of the 'Nutkins' family was not to be interred until 1906, some three years later.

So it seems unlikely, but it's a nice little Tale......

Grave Humour

A tourist was walking through the Zentralfriedhof cemetery in Vienna, when suddenly

he hears music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source. 

He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a monument that reads 'Beethoven'.

He realizes that the music is in fact the Ninth Symphony and that it is being played backwards!Puzzled, he leaves the cemetery and persuades a friend to return a little later with him. However by the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed and now it is the Seventh Symphony that is playing and like the previous piece, it is also being played backwards.

Curious, the men agree to consult a Music Scholar, so they return with the expert and by now the Fifth Symphony is playing where once again they realise that it is playing backwards. 

The Scholar notices that the symphonies are also being played in the reverse
order in which they were composed, the 9th then the 7th and then the 5th.

The following day, word of this has spread and a crowd has gathered around

the graveside. Everyone is intently listening to the Second Symphony as it is being played
backwards. 

The cemetery's caretaker notices the sizable crowd now gathered there and asks what they are all doing. As they tell him, someone in the group asks him for an explanation for the music. 'I would have thought it was obvious' says the caretaker 'he's decomposing'

Nobel Laureate ~ John Cockcroft

John 

Douglas Cockcroft

O.M K.C.B C.B.E Sc.D F.R.S

First Master of

Churchill College

27th May 1897

18th Sept 1967

Whose love was his strength

Timothy

son of John

and Elizabeth Cockcroft

Jan 26th 1927 Oct 11th 1929

Elizabeth

Beloved Wife

Loving Mother

Oct 26th 1898

Aug 4th 1989

John Douglas Cockcroft was a British Physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the Atomic Nucleus with Ernest Walton in 1951. Cockcroft was instrumental in the development of Nuclear Power.

John was born on 27th May 1897 at Todmorden, W.Yorkshire, England. His family had been Cotton Manufacturers for several generations.

He studied mathematics at Manchester University in 1914 and served as a Signaller in the Royal Field Artillery during the First World War. He then returned to Manchester and studied electrical engineering and after an apprenticeship with Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Co. he went to St. John's College Cambridge and took the Mathematical Tripos in 1924 and became a Fellow of St.John's in 1929.

In 1925 he married Eunice Elizabeth Crabtree and had six children, John Haslam ~ known as Timothy was born 29th January 1927 ~ 86 years ago today, but died at the age of two years old. He is buried with his Father and Mother in the Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge.

John and Elizabeth had four daughters and another son. 

He worked on the acceleration of protons in 1928 and was joined by Ernest Walton. 

In 1929 he became a Fellow at St.John's and in 1939, Jacksonian Professor of Philosophy.

In that same year he took a war~time appointment as Assistant of Scientific Research in the Ministry of Supply and started work on Radar to Coast and Air Defence problems. After which he was appointed Head of the Air Defence Research and Development Establishment.

In 1944 he went to Canada and took charge of the Canadian Atomic Energy Project and returned to England in 1946 as Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. From 1954 to 1959 he was scientific research member of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority.

In 1959 he became First Master at Churchill College, Cambridge and Chancellor of the Australian National University, Canberra. From 1960 to 1962 he was President of the Institute of Physics, the Physical Society and that of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from 1961 to 1963.

John Cockcroft recieved honorary doctorates from some 19 Universities and a fellow or honorary member of many Principal Scientific Societies.        

Nobel Laureate ~ George Paget Thomson

George Paget Thomson

K.T   F.R.S

1892 ~ 1975

Scientist Nobel Laureate

Master of Corpus Christi 

and his wife

Kathleen Buchanan Thomson

1900 ~ 1941

Daughter of

Rt Rev. Sir George Adam Smith

George Paget Thomsom was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937 for his work in discovering the wave like properties of the electron. The prize was jointly shared with Clinton Joseph Daivsson who made the same discovery independently.

George was born in Cambridge on 3rd May 1892. He was the son of Physicist and Nobel Laureate J.J. Thomson ~ who had won his Nobel Prize for discovering the electron as a particle.

George read Mathematics and Physics at Trinity College, Cambridge. When World War One broke out in 1914 he was commissioned into the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. After service in France, he became a Fellow at Cambridge. 

  

In 1924, George married Kathleen Buchanan Smith, daughter of the Very Reverend Sir George Adam Smith. They had four children, two sons and two daughters.

In 1930 George Paget Thomson was appointed Professor at Imperial College and in the late 1930's during the Second World War he specialised in Nuclear Physics and as a chairman of the 'Maud Commitee' in 1940 ~ 1941 he concluded that an Atomic Bomb was feasible.

In later life he continued this work on Nuclear Energy and also wrote works on aerodynamics and the value of Science in society.

George stayed at Imperial College until 1952 and became Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was Knighted in 1943 and died on the 10th September 1975 and is buried in the Churchyard of St. Andrew and St. Mary in Granchester, Cambridge. 

Wednesday's Children

In Memory of

Our

Dear Brothers 

and Sisters

Reginald Wren

1923 ~ 1924

Mabel Wren

1923 ~ 1930

Victor Wren

1926 ~ 1932

Doris Wren

1920 ~ 1923

Who is Interred Nearby

At the Old Mortlake Burial Ground this marble book tells a very sad tale indeed when you do the maths and add it all up.

Doris died at around the age of three and in that same year, Reginald and Mabel were born ~ as there are no exact dates, there is a possibility that they may have been twins. 
The following year Reginald dies and two years after that, Victor is born and Mabel is now about three years old. Four years later Mabel dies around the age of seven, then two years after Mabel's death, Victor dies aged about six.

As the memorial is dedicated to them by their other siblings, it's good to know that some of the Wren children made it into adulthood.

   

Monday Mourning ~ Jolly Jumbo

In Loving Memory 

of

my Beloved Husband

 William Thomas Ecclestone

who Departed this Life

April 5th 1915 Aged 52 Years

Long days and nights he bore his pain

To wait for cure but all in vain

Till God above saw what was best

And took him home and gave him rest

Also Anne

Beloved wife of

Sol Goodman

who fell asleep May 22nd 1955

aged 89 Years

May her dear soul rest in peace

William Thomas Ecclestone was affectionately known as Jolly Jumbo, he weighed 38 stone and was regarded as 'The Second Heaviest Man in the World' at that time.

He was the owner of the Canterbury Arms Public House in West Kilburn, London and a local celebrity who needed a special pony and trap to move around in.

It is with some irony, that as a young man in the Army, he introduced exercises so effective that they became standard training and he later became a renown trainer of runners and boxers in the area.

Picture Taken Circa 1910 ~ Right to Left

Liver Davis ~ trainer: Jimmy Walsh ~ Bantam Weight Champion: Jolly Jumbo: 

Sam Langford ~ Five times World Colored Heavyweight Champion : Joe Woodman: 

Jack L.... : Unknown

Click on the Bold type above for more information on Sam Langford

On a Bright and Frosty Morning

I couldn't resist the perfect combination of Sunshine on Frost, so I nipped over to the Cemetery with my camera, before starting work this morning.

I hope you enjoy the views as much as I did.