Cromwell’s rocket man

QUESTION Did Oliver Cromwell’s brother-in-law propose a space mission?

JOHN WILKINS (1614-1672) was an Anglican clergyman and founder of the Royal Society. He was an advocate of natural theology, which saw scientific discoveries as the works of God.

Wilkins studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and was ordained as a priest in 1638.

In 1656, he married Robina French, the youngest sister of Oliver Cromwell.

Believing the Moon and planets were inhabited because God would never create a world without someone to live on it, he postulated space travel could be beneficial because Earth could trade with extra-terrestrials.

These ideas were described in detail in his books The Discovery Of A World In The Moone in 1638 and A Discourse Concerning A New Planet in 1640.

Wilkins experimented with building spacecraft in the gardens of Wadham College, Oxford. While many of his claims were fanciful, he achieved some notable scientific hits, most notably by coining the word ‘cell’ in biology.

K. M. evans, Cardiff.

QUESTION Was the figure in the credits of TV’s Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre a real man or a plaster bust?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, this special effect was achieved by placing the bust on a record deck with a speed of 16 rpm.

Record players had this feature in the Sixties. It was normally used for speech training and some jazz recordings.

John r. Forster, Bournemouth, Dorset.