Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
A Birmingham Schoolmaster
Comrie was a less-than-ideal site for earthquake research, too thinly popu-
lated and too close to mountains and sea. From a scientific perspective, the
Colchester earthquake was an improvement, but still not as propitious as
the earthquake of 1896. that year, a week before Christmas, a wide patch
of England between Cardiff and Birmingham awoke to an early morning
temblor centered in Hereford. this was a densely populated, urban region
“containing numerous capable and intelligent observers.” while this shock
“was strong enough to be interesting, it was not too severe for accurate
study. those who felt the shock were able to bestow their full attention
upon it.”
47
these were the judgments of Charles Davison, mathematics master at
King Edward's School in Birmingham. when he felt his bed tremble on the
morning of 17 December, Davison got to work. He had acquired an interest
in earthquakes by way of geology and the contraction theory of the earth's
development. As a graduate of the elite mathematics tripos at Cambridge
(thirteenth wrangler), Davison was interested in part in sophisticated analy-
ses of the frequencies of earthquakes. Since 1889, however, he had grown
increasingly enthusiastic about the prospect of studying “British earth-
quakes” by surveying witnesses.
48
Like his Swiss and Austrian colleagues,
he was interested in mapping the areas affected by ground movement in
order to locate tectonic faults. Unlike many of the seismological pioneers
of the nineteenth century, Davison was not blessed with personal wealth
and leisure time. He wrote his numerous treatises on seismology, as well as
several mathematics textbooks, in his classroom during the lunch break.
49
In the collection and analysis of evidence, he was equally indefatigable. For
the 1896 earthquake alone he processed 2,902 questionnaires and a stash of
newspaper reports, which, “if continuously extended, would form a column
200 yards in length.”
50
By the 1920s, Davison's work had become definitive
of “British earthquakes,” as it would remain until the 1980s.
51
Davison was interested, in part, in what could be learned about the phys-
ical nature of earthquakes from human perceptions. But he was also keenly
interested in the human impact of earthquakes in its own right. Characteristic
was a letter he wrote to the
Times
on that classic tale of man's battle with na-
ture,
Robinson Crusoe.
Davison wanted to draw attention to the verisimilitude
of Defoe's account of the earthquake that occurs six months after Crusoe's
shipwreck. In particular, he noted that Crusoe was not atypical to feel sick
to his stomach, “like one that was tossed at sea.” He complained, however,
that Crusoe should have felt more terrified in the aftermath: “For hours after
