From the Archives, Radical Chemist

From the Archives

Radical Chemist

By Alex Hale

Shrewsbury High School’s Archives contain an extensive collection of photographs, documents and artefacts offering a wealth of history about our School. As proud stewards of such rich history since 1885, Scribble publishes poems, stories and history from this period to the present date. In this edition of Scribble we go back in time and look who resided at Tower Place, 28 Town Walls.

The most famous scientific son of Shrewsbury is undoubtedly Charles Darwin, known for his work on the theory of evolution and rightly recognised as one of the greatest scientists of all time.

Another Scientist born in Shrewsbury just over 30 years after Darwin, went on to make a fundamental scientific discovery that not only explains how many chemical reactions work, but also has implications in human health. The contrast between these two scientific pioneers could not be more stark; very few people have heard of Thomas Porter Blunt.

Thomas Porter Blunt (1842-1929) was a pharmaceutical chemist, public analyst for Shropshire, Montgomery and Merioneth, and was responsible for the botanical collection at Shropshire Museum. He lived at 28 Town Walls from at least 1881 until his death in 1929.

Thomas Blunt (By kind permission of Jeanette Jerome).

The Blunt’s Chemist shop in Shrewsbury (By permission of the Master and Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge)

It is likely that his father Thomas Blunt (18031874) also lived at this address. T. P. Blunt ran a pharmacy at 23 Wyle Cop which had been run by his father and grandfather before him, also well-respected chemists. Thomas Blunt supplied distilled water and laboratory equipment to the Darwin family when they lived at the Mount, Shrewsbury.

Letters from the Darwin Correspondence Project at the University of Cambridge reveal that Thomas Blunt continued to correspond with Charles Darwin even after Darwin had left Shropshire and was living at Down in Kent. In December 1864 T. P. Blunt took a first-class degree in natural sciences at the University of Oxford and Charles Darwin wrote to Thomas Blunt in 1867 congratulating him on his son’s degree:

“I most sincerely congratulate you on the success of your son in his scientific studies. Science runs in your blood.”

In 1870 he started a collaboration with Arthur Downes, another Shropshire native, studying the effect of light on various chemical substances as well as bacteria. Blunt and Downes discovered that sunlight could be used to kill bacteria, but the effects differed depending on what filters the light passed through first. These findings were published in 1877. Blunt and Downes proposed that each molecule splits into two equal parts, or ‘radicles’ as they called them.

Another letter by Emma Darwin (Charles Darwin’s wife) refers to Thomas Blunt’s pharmacy as the “best chemist in the world”.

Thomas Porter Blunt sent three of his youngest children to the High School. Mildred Frances Blunt started on May 5th 1885 aged 15. This made her, along with the other 30 senior girls on that day, one of the very first High School pupils. Her younger sister Ethel Marion Blunt started at the High School a week later with the other 18 juniors, and their younger brother Hubert joined kindergarten in 1886. Records of the three Blunt children that came to the High School can be found in the school’s admissions books. Ethel’s

signature has also been identified on a manuscript from 1893 which commemorated the headship of Miss Cannings, the High School’s first headmistress. Marion left the High School in December 1885 to work for the Post Office. Ethel left in 1895 aged 17 and would eventually emigrate to Canada. Ethel’s granddaughter, Jeanette Jerome, who lives in Canada has conducted an huge amount of research into the Blunt family, their time at Town Walls and their scientific discoveries at Wyle Cop.

T. P. Blunt seems to have been a popular neighbour as the school magazines have revealed that he regularly judged the school’s annual Bulb Show and Flower Show and gave talks on botany. The school logbook, which kept a record of important events throughout the school year, has an entry on February 8th 1929 which reads:

“Mr T. P. Blunt died. He had been a great friend of the school and was especially interested in the botanical work and at one time gave a little coaching. He regularly judged the flowers and bulbs at the Bulb Show and the wildflowers at the Flower Show and gave interesting talks on flowers and produced lists on growing them which we much appreciated. His kind and courteous personality made him many friends on the staff as elsewhere.”

Above: Ethel Marion Blunts signature found on Miss Cannings’s Commemorative Manuscript dated 1893

Above: Evidence of Mildred Frances Blunt attending SHS in 1885.

Below: Thomas’ daughter Ethel Marion Blunt who lived at Tower Place and started Shrewsbury High School in 1885