The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Fame fossilised in a fish
He is a forgotten hero of Scottish science and one of the nation’s most famous mineralogists. Gayle Ritchie finds out more about Matthew Forster Heddle – and the legacy he left behind
Mineralogist, mountaineer, academic, scientist and champion of women’s rights. He even had a fossil fish and a mineral named after him.
Yet Matthew Forster Heddle, who wrote The Mineralogy of Scotland – a veritable bible of all things mineralogical – is hardly a household name.
His great-great-grandson, Hamish Johnston, is now hoping to bring wider attention to this fascinating, largerthan-life character with the publication of a biography dedicated to Heddle, who lived from 1829.
“Heddle deserves to be better known but until now, nobody has written a biography,” said Hamish, of Inverness.
Although he was regarded as Scotland’s greatest mineralogoist – and still is – Heddle (1828-97), did not always see eye-to-eye with his colleagues at St Andrews University where he was professor of chemistry. A scientist in a traditional university, he advocated setting up a separate science faculty and at a time when all students were male, Heddle tried to admit a woman to his class.
Born in Orkney in 1828, from boyhood Heddle loved natural history and often explored the dangerous precipices and cliffs of his native islands. He travelled the wild seas, navigated the coast in a small boat and was interested in botany and collecting shells.
He attended Edinburgh Academy, then, from 1842, Merchiston Castle boarding school. While there he helped start its Natural History Society and developed a herbarium, a collection of pressed flowers. “After a school friend accidently damaged his herbarium he resolved to collect ‘indestructible’ specimens such as rocks and minerals, a precursor to a distinguished career,” said Hamish.
After studying medicine at university in Edinburgh, Heddle worked as doctor in the Grassmarket area, then one of the worst slums of the city. He soon became disenchanted with medicine and gave it up to become professor of chemistry at St Andrews University, where he worked for 30 years.
“He didn’t have an easy time at St Andrews because there was a huge demand for university education in industrial Dundee, yet the university was in a poor financial state, with diminishing student numbers,” said Hamish.
“The worst year was 1876 when there were only 130, Heddle was one of a minority of professors who saw that for St Andrews it was “Dundee or death” and advocated setting up a science faculty there.
“Until 1892, all students were male but in 1862, as the new professor of chemistry, Heddle admitted to his a class a female would-be medical student, Elizabeth Garrett. This was swiftly overturned by the university but Heddle taught her privately. Eventually, as Mrs Garrett Anderson MD, she was the first woman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in Britain and became a major figure in medicine.”
Heddle spent every spare moment engaged in geology and mineralogy, his true passion. In 1861 he led a dig near Cupar to collect fossil fish, one of which was named after him – Gyroptychius heddlei. He was also involved in court cases, as an expert witness in prosecutions of Dundee mill owners with smoking chimneys.
The Mineralogy of Scotland was published after he died. “It’s still the classic book on the subject and first editions sell for £1,000 or more,” said Hamish.