scholarly journals Sir Diarmuid Downs CBE. 23 April 1922—12 February 2014

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 159-181
Author(s):  
David Morrison

Diarmuid Downs was a one-company man. He started work at Ricardo in 1942, after graduation from the University of London, Northampton Polytechnic (now City University) with a first-class honours degree in engineering, and retired 45 years later. His early meticulously executed research concentrated on spark-ignition combustion phenomena—essentially knock, pre-ignition and the effects of fuel additives— an important understanding in those early days for the oil and additive companies. Later, in the 1970s, his attention moved to engine and vehicle exhaust emission control, a key emerging technology at that time. In his more senior years, he took a broader picture of the industry and technology, building on his detailed pioneering research as he continued to develop his vision and balanced technical judgement. Recognized and encouraged initially by Harry Ricardo, he rose quickly to senior positions in the company, becoming a board member at the age of 35 and managing director 10 years later. In 1976 he became joint chairman and managing director, ultimately to become chairman and finally to retire in 1987. He authored or co-authored some 46 technical papers in his working career. He has been described as a ‘gentleman engineer’ with strong support for his staff at all levels. In the broad spectrum of engineering disciplines, Diarmuid leaned more towards the intellectual/scientific end. He was a deep thinker, with a prodigious memory and love of the arts as well as biographical and historical literature. He inspired respect through his vision, balanced judgement and supreme confidence and was an articulate orator. He was awarded many honours in his lifetime, including a CBE in 1979, a knighthood in 1985 and in the same year Fellowship of the Royal Society. He held appointments in over 30 professional organizations, including four charities, to which he and his wife, Carmel, were dedicated, helping the vulnerable and homeless. He was a lifelong devout Catholic and active supporter of the church and related charities, recognized by a Papal knighthood in 1993.

Author(s):  
Robert A. Schneider

Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII’s first minister and the architect of French absolutism, is often celebrated for his role in reviving the arts and letters in the crucial period in the formation of French classicism. This book looks less at him than at the writers and intellectuals themselves in the creation of a new culture distinguished by the rise of the French language over Latin and the emergence of a literary field. The author argues that even the French Academy, founded by Richelieu in 1635, was more the result of an already established literary and linguistic movement that he merely managed to co-opt. Dignified Retreat examines the work and activities of over one hundred writers and intellectuals, focusing especially on their place in the urban context of a revived Paris after several generations of religious warfare in the sixteenth century. The theme of “retreat”—a withdrawal from public engagement and certain modes of public expression—runs throughout the book as a leitmotif that captures the ambivalent position of these men (and a few women) of letters as they tried to establish the legitimacy of their calling outside the established institutions of the Church, the law, and the university. Building on the work of such French literary scholars and historians as Marc Fumaroli, Alain Viala, Hélène-Merlin Kajman, Christian Jouhaud, and others, Schneider offers a novel approach to this important period in French cultural history.


1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-245
Author(s):  
Winton U. Solberg

For over two centuries, the College was the characteristic form of higher education in the United States, and the College was closely allied to the church in a predominantly Protestant land. The university became the characteristic form of American higher education starting in the late nineteenth Century, and universities long continued to reflect the nation's Protestant culture. By about 1900, however, Catholics and Jews began to enter universities in increasing numbers. What was the experience of Jewish students in these institutions, and how did authorities respond to their appearance? These questions will be addressed in this article by focusing on the Jewish presence at the University of Illinois in the early twentieth Century. Religion, like a red thread, is interwoven throughout the entire fabric of this story.


Author(s):  
Paul A. Bramadat

Is it possible for conservative Protestant groups to survive in secular institutional settings? Here, Bramadat offers an ethnographic study of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) at McMaster University, a group that espouses fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible, women's roles, the age of the earth, alcohol consumption, and sexual ethics. In examining this group, Bramadat demonstrates how this tiny minority thrives within the overwhelmingly secular context of the University.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 5S-7S
Author(s):  
Jill Sonke ◽  
Lourdes Rodríguez ◽  
Melissa A. Valerio-Shewmaker

The arts—and the arts and culture sector—offer fertile ground for achieving a culture of health in the United States. The arts and artists are agents of change and can help enable this vision and also address the most critical public health issues we are contending with, including COVID-19 and racism. The arts provide means for engaging dialogue, influencing behaviors, disrupting paradigms and fueling social movements. The arts uncover and illuminate issues. They engage us emotionally and intellectually. They challenge assumptions. They call out injustice. They drive collective action. They heal—making arts + public health collaboration very relevant in this historic moment. In this special Health Promotion Practice supplement on arts in public health, you’ll find powerful examples and evidence of how cross-sector collaboration between public health and the arts can advance health promotion goals and impacts, and make health promotion programs not only more accessible to diverse populations but also more equitable and effective in addressing the upstream systems, policies, and structures that create health disparities. You will see how the arts can empower health communication, support health literacy, provide direct and measurable health benefits to individuals and communities, and support coping and resilience in response to COVID-19. This issue itself exemplifies cross-sector collaboration, as it was created through partnership between Health Promotion Practice, the Society for Public Health Education, ArtPlace America, and the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, and presents voices from across the public health, arts, and community development sectors.


1828 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 153-239 ◽  

In the year 1790, a series of trigonometrical operations was carried on by General Roy, in co-operation with Messrs. De Cassini, Mechain, and Legendre, for the purpose of connecting the meridians of Paris and Greenwich. In England, the work commenced with a base measured on Hounslow Heath, whence triangles were carried through Hanger Hill Tower and Severndroog Castle on Shooter’s Hill, to Fairlight Down, Folkstone Turnpike, and Dover Castle on the English coast; which last stations were connected with the church of Notre Dame at Calais, and with Blancnez and Montlambert upon the coast of France. An account of these operations will be found in the Philosophical Transactions for 1790. In the year 1821, the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Board of Longitude at Paris communicated to the Royal Society of London their desire, that the operations for connecting the meridians of Paris and Greenwich should be repeated jointly by both countries, and that commissioners should be nominated by the Royal Academy of Sciences and by the Royal Society of London for that purpose. This proposal having been readily acceded to, Messrs. Arago and Matthieu were chosen on the part of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and Lieut.-Colonel (then Captain) Colby and myself were appointed by the Royal Society to co-operate with them.


Richard Nichols, The Diaries of Robert Hooke, The Leonardo of London, 1635-1703 . Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild, 1994, Pp. 185, £15.00. ISBN 0- 86332-930-6. Richard Nichols is a science master turned historian of science who celebrates in this book Robert Hooke’s contributions to the arts and sciences. The appreciation brings together comments from Hooke’s Diaries , and other works, on each of his main enterprises, and on his personal interaction with each of his principal friends and foes. Further references to Hooke and his activities are drawn from Birch’s History of the Royal Society, Aubrey’s Brief Lives , and the Diaries of Evelyn and of Pepys. The first section of the book, ‘Hooke the Man’, covers his early years of education at home in Freshwater, at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon joined the group of experimental philosophers who set him up as Curator of the Royal Society and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, Bishopsgate. Hooke’s domestic life at Gresham College is described - his intimate relationships with a series of housekeepers, including his niece, Grace Hooke, and his social life at the College and in the London coffee houses.


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