The life of Sir Robert Jones / [Frederick Watson].

  • Watson, Frederick, 1885-1935.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of Sir Robert Jones / [Frederick Watson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Upon October 20th, 1884, the earliest meeting was held. The Minutes relate that, acting as a delegate, and upon forty-eight hours’ notice, Rose spoke with great conviction upon “ The Book of Job—its Literary and Moral Aspects.” He treated it as an allegory and drew the attention of the deeply silenced gathering to philological ambiguities of purely academic value. It is also recorded in the Minutes that the gentleman originally chosen to explain Job rushed in shortly afterwards and proved, without any question whatever, that the book was not an allegory at all, but an historical document. Such divergencies are the very life and blood of a debating society. Rose wrote a description of himself as he appeared at these meetings which is excellent. “ At the far end of the table,” he remarks, “ and consequently next to the Secretary, was a little gentleman with a pale face, black hair and whiskers, who was lighting a very large pipe. When the pipe was lighted he leaned back in his very large chair, smoked complacently and tried to look dignified and imposing. By his position and the fact that the bell was at his right hand I judged that he must be the Chairman, and in this supposition I afterwards found I was correct, though why they had appointed him to that important post I could not conceive, but thought it might have been on account of his pipe. The proposition was ‘ That the execution of Charles I was a murder and quite unjustifiable.’ The Chairman,” records Rose, “ got upon his feet looking very unhappy. Bending forwards slightly, with his hands on the table, he spoke without the slightest inflexion in his voice, and with no other expression on his face than that of being particularly uncomfortable. From time to time he would raise his left hand to his chin as though to assure himself he had shaved that morning, and finding he had not, kept rubbing his chin gently for some time as if to smooth away its inequalities.” Rose went to the Isle of Man in 1889 where he practised as an oculist. He founded a Medical Society which, like the Liverpool body, is still a great success, and here in excellent verse is his account of the affair :—