V. H. Blackman’s academic career spanned an era during which botany became an experimental subject and the interpretation of plant behaviour in terms of contemporary chemistry, physics and mathematics was an exciting new prospect. In Britain during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as he himself remarked, classification was pursued with an enthusiasm which almost excluded other aspects of botany; a circumstance attributed to the expansion of Empire which gave access to many new floras. Blackman belonged to the generations of men whose schooling was entirely in the classical tradition but who yet became professors of science subjects. In the nineteenth century such men expected to teach and discuss every aspect of their chosen discipline and prosecution of research was not an obligation for the teacher; the incentive was curiosity and the reward intellectual. Vocational opportunities were limited to the small university community, the schools and the herbaria of the state institutions. The men who accepted these posts were usually characterized by a strict sense of duty, a high standard of integrity, and a respect for learning. In the university they had almost complete freedom of action and time to think. Blackman was a fastidious and somewhat shy man who maintained the exacting standards of such scholars. He was always immaculate in appearance, unfailingly courteous and never apparently hurried. He trusted his staff and students absolutely and in an effortless and perhaps unconscious manner exercised a remarkable and benign authority which served to impress on those who worked with him, to their lasting benefit, the value of his tenets. Vernon Herbert Blackman was born on 8 January 1872 at a house in York Road, Lambeth, near Waterloo Station. His father, Frederick Blackman, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., practised medicine in the area which included slum streets into which his sisters were not allowed.
Pioneers in Optics: Ernst Abbe (1840-1905)
