I'Uoi'i'SSoK A. w. i;uKi:K'r()X 



In till- belief that many readers of " KNu\vl.i;nc.l-: " 

 \vlu> have studied the recent articles on "The New 

 Astronomy.'" In Professor A. W. Hickertoii. wdiild 

 like to know something ahont tiie career of this 

 (■a|)ai)ie expounder of a new theory of the uni- 

 verse, the few foilowinn facts li;i\i- 1m( n follii t(il. 

 They will explain ln)\\ it 

 iiap|Hiis that the orif,'in- 

 ator of such an epocli- 

 niakinfj discovery has 

 remained almost un- 

 known in British scientitir 

 circles, whereas had his 

 life-work lain in tin 

 home country his naiiu 

 would have been familiar 

 in our mouths as house- 

 hold words. 



.Mexander William 

 Hickerton comes of an 

 old Cheshire stock and 

 was born at Alton. 

 Hampshire, in 1 N4_'. 

 l)rauj;htsmansliip is a 

 characteristic of his 

 family: his father at the 

 age of fourteen won tiie 

 silver |)alette of tiie 

 Society of .\rts. and later 

 practised as an architec- 

 tural draughtsman: while 

 a son of Professor !>ick- 

 erton is an artist. 



liducated at Alton 

 (iranimar School and in- 

 tended for a civil engineer. 

 Hicki'rton entered the 

 Bridgwater Carriage 

 Works of the Bristol and 



lixeter Railway. Inventi\-eness soon appeared and in 

 lt>64. having devised some machinery for wood -carving, 

 he secured a mill in Painswick, Gloucestershire, in 

 w hich to develop his ideas. .\t this time some science 

 classes were being started in the neighbouring town of 

 Stroud and young I^ickerton attended these, at the 

 end of the session gaining a first class and the 

 national bronze medal in the Science and .Art exam- 

 ination. Being attracted to a scientific career by the 

 enthusiasm of the teacher, he applied himself more 

 closely, and the following vear gained further suc- 

 cesses in magnetism, electricity, and animal and 

 vegetable physiology. In 1866 he migrated to 

 Birmingham, and while studying for his science 

 teacher's certificate organised and taught in evening 

 technical classes in that city. His workshop ex- 

 perience enabled him to tittract artisans to his 

 classes and the\' became most successful. ,\t this 

 time the ri-gulations of the Roval School of Mines 



were altc red an<l the ixaminatious that enabled a 

 teacher to obtain the teaching certificate also 

 (|U,ililied him for an exhibition at the School of 

 Mini's. These regulations were only jjublished 

 thirteen weeks before the examination in 1867, yet 

 pmeK l>\ |iri\,ile -tudv liickerton was able not 

 onh' to i)ass. but also to 

 secure a Koyal Lxhi- 

 bition. and that in a year 

 when the competition 

 was unusually severe. He 

 won three national 

 medals and seventeen 

 yueen's prizes, of which 

 six were first prizes, in 

 \arious subjects. For the 

 next three years he 

 studied at the Koyal 

 School of Mines and the 

 Royal College of Chem- 

 istry and utilised his 

 evenings in organising 

 evening technical classes 

 in London. He was 

 actually the hrst science 

 teacher under the Science 

 and .Art Department who 

 succeeded in London 

 Iter some scores had 

 iitemiJted and failed. It 

 was his classes that 

 originated the gigantic 

 technical educational 

 scheme among the Lon- 

 don working classes, and 

 in 1S70 Sir Henry Cole, 

 before the Royal Com- 

 mission on Scientific Edu- 

 cation, spoke of him as 

 "a great organiser." In the same year an incident 

 is related by Sir Ceorge C. T. Bartle\', Bart, in 

 The Joiiniiil of f/ic Sojicfy of Arts, that accounts 

 in some degree for tin- phenomenal success of 

 these classes througii the enthusiasm engendered 

 in the students bv Mr. Bickerton. .A school 

 was started in .Arthur Street. Chelsea, and the 

 jiremises proving inadequate, others were taken 

 in College Street. These consisted of a disused 

 carriage factory, and funds to fit them for a regular 

 science school being lacking, the students themselves 

 undertook the whole labour of building a lecture 

 amphitheatre with smaller class rooms under part of 

 the raised seats. Carpenters, gasfitters. white- 

 washers, and other artisans came night after night 

 from six o'clock to eleven and even later. The task 

 took six weeks, and so anxious were the workers to 

 finish it and to resume their classes under Mr. 

 liickerlon that tln'\ could liardK be got awa\- each 



Bickerton 



