English novelist and physical chemist (1905?1980)
Baron Snow
|
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C. P. Snow in 1969 by Jack Manning for
The New York Times
|
Born
| Charles Percy Snow
(
1905-10-15
)
15 October 1905
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Died
| 1 July 1980
(1980-07-01)
(aged 74)
London, England
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Nationality
| English
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Education
| Alderman Newton's School
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Alma mater
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Known for
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Spouses
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Children
| 1
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Scientific career
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Fields
| Physics, chemistry, literature (novelist)
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Institutions
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Thesis
| The Structure of Simple Molecules
(1930)
|
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Doctoral students
| Eric Eastwood
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|
Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow
,
Kt
CBE
FRSL
(15 October 1905 ? 1 July 1980)
[1]
was an English novelist and
physical chemist
who also served in several important positions in the
British Civil Service
and briefly in the
UK government
.
[2]
[3]
He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as
Strangers and Brothers
, and for "
The Two Cultures
", a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals".
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Born in
Leicester
to William Snow, a church organist and choirmaster, and his wife Ada,
[8]
Charles Snow was the second of four boys, his brothers being Harold, Eric and
Philip Snow
,
[9]
and was educated at
Alderman Newton's School
.
[1]
[10]
In 1923, he passed the intermediate British School Certificate, but remained at Alderman Newton's to work as a laboratory assistant for a further two years.
[11]
In 1925 he began a
University of London
external degree in science at
University College, Leicester
, graduating with a first in chemistry in 1927 and an MSc the following year.
[12]
[13]
Upon leaving Leicester, Snow gained a prestigious Keddey-Fletcher-Warr postgraduate studentship worth £200, allowing him to embark on doctoral research at
Christ's College, Cambridge
.
[14]
He received his
PhD
in physics from Cambridge in 1930, with a thesis on the
infrared spectra
of simple
diatomic molecules
.
[15]
[16]
Career and research
[
edit
]
In 1930 he became a
Fellow
of Christ's College. After a
Nature
paper on a new method of synthesising
Vitamin A
turned out to be incorrect, he withdrew from further scientific research.
[17]
Snow served in several senior civil service positions: as technical director of the
Ministry of Labour
from 1940 to 1944, and as a civil service commissioner from 1945 to 1960. He was appointed a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in the
1943 New Year Honours
.
[18]
Snow was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on the
Nazis
'
Special Search List
, of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to the
Gestapo
.
[19]
In 1944, he was appointed director of scientific personnel for the
English Electric Company
. Later he became physicist-director.
[20]
In this capacity he was to employ his former student
Eric Eastwood
.
In the
1957 New Year Honours
[21]
he was
knighted
, having the honour conferred by Queen
Elizabeth II
on 12 February,
[22]
and was created a
life peer
, as
Baron Snow
, of the
City of Leicester
, on 29 October 1964.
[3]
[23]
As a politician, Snow was
parliamentary secretary
in the
House of Lords
to the
Minister of Technology
from 1964 to 1966 in the Labour government of
Harold Wilson
.
[3]
Snow married the novelist
Pamela Hansford Johnson
in 1950; they had one son. Friends included the mathematician
G. H. Hardy
, for whom he would write a biographical foreword in
A Mathematician's Apology
, the physicist
Patrick Blackett
, the X-ray crystallographer
J. D. Bernal
, the cultural historian
Jacques Barzun
and the polymath
George Steiner
.
[24]
[25]
At Christ's College he tutored H. S. Hoff ? later better known as the novelist
William Cooper
. The two became friends, worked together in the civil service and wrote versions of each other into their novels: Snow was the model for the college dean, Robert, in Cooper's
Scenes from Provincial Life
sequence.
[26]
In 1960, Snow gave the
Godkin Lectures
at
Harvard University
, about the clashes between
Henry Tizard
and F. Lindemann (later
Lord Cherwell
), both scientific advisors to British governments around the time of the Second World War. The lectures were subsequently published as
Science and Government.
For the academic year 1961 to 1962, Snow and his wife both served as Fellows on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at
Wesleyan University
.
[27]
[28]
[29]
Literary work
[
edit
]
Snow's first novel was a
whodunit
,
Death under Sail
(1932). In 1975 he wrote a biography of
Anthony Trollope
. He is better known as the author of a sequence of novels entitled
Strangers and Brothers
in which he depicts intellectuals in modern academic and government settings. The best-known of the sequence is
The Masters
. It deals with the internal politics of a Cambridge college as it prepares to elect a new master. With the appeal of an insider's view, the novel depicts concerns other than the strictly academic that influence decisions of supposedly objective scholars.
The Masters
and
The New Men
were jointly awarded the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
in 1954.
[30]
Corridors of Power
added a phrase to the language of the day. In 1974, Snow's novel
In Their Wisdom
was shortlisted for the Booker Prize
.
[31]
In
The Realists
, an examination of the work of eight novelists ?
Stendhal
,
Honore de Balzac
,
Charles Dickens
,
Fyodor Dostoevsky
,
Leo Tolstoy
,
Benito Perez Galdos
,
Henry James
and
Marcel Proust
? Snow makes a robust defence of the realistic novel.
The storyline of his novel
The Search
is referred to in
Dorothy L. Sayers
's
Gaudy Night
and is used to help elicit the criminal's motive.
The Two Cultures
[
edit
]
On 7 May 1959, Snow delivered a
Rede Lecture
called
The Two Cultures
, which provoked "widespread and heated debate".
[3]
[32]
Subsequently, published as
The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution
, the lecture argued that the breakdown of communication between the "two cultures" of modern society ? the sciences and the humanities ? was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems. In particular, Snow argues that the quality of education in the world is on the decline. He wrote:
- A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the
Second Law of Thermodynamics
. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of
Shakespeare
's?'
- I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question ? such as, What do you mean by
mass
, or
acceleration
, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' ? not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their
Neolithic
ancestors would have had.
The satirists
Flanders and Swann
used the first part of this quotation as the basis for their short monologue and song, "First and Second Law".
As delivered in 1959, Snow's Rede Lectures specifically condemned the British educational system, as having since the Victorian period over-rewarded the humanities (especially
Latin
and
Greek
) at the expense of
science education
. He believed that in practice this deprived British elites (in politics, administration, and industry) of adequate preparation for managing the modern scientific world. By contrast, Snow said, German and American schools sought to prepare their citizens equally in the sciences and humanities, and better scientific teaching enabled those countries' rulers to compete more effectively in a scientific age. Later discussion of
The Two Cultures
tended to obscure Snow's initial focus on differences between British systems (of both schooling and social class) and those of competing countries.
Snow was attacked by
F. R. Leavis
in his Richmond Lecture of 1962 whose subject was "The Two Cultures", something that has come to be referred to as "the two cultures controversy".
[33]
[34]
Although it was seen as a personal attack against Snow, Leavis maintained that he was targeting how public debates worked.
[34]
Publications
[
edit
]
Coat of arms of The Lord Snow
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Crest
| A telescope fesswise between two pens in saltire Proper.
|
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Shield
| Azure semy of snow crystals Proper.
|
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Supporters
| On either side a Siamese Cat Proper.
|
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Motto
| Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam
[35]
|
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Strangers and Brothers
series
[
edit
]
- George Passant
(first published as
Strangers and Brothers
), 1940
- The Light and the Dark
, 1947
- Time of Hope
, 1949
- The Masters
, 1951
- The New Men
, 1954
- Homecomings
, 1956
- The Conscience of the Rich
, 1958
- The Affair
, 1959
- Corridors of Power
, 1964
- The Sleep of Reason
, 1968
- Last Things
, 1970
Other fiction
[
edit
]
- Death Under Sail
, 1932
- New Lives for Old
, 1933
- The Search
, 1934
- The Malcontents
, 1972
- In Their Wisdom
, 1974, shortlisted for the
Booker Prize
- A Coat of Varnish
, 1979
Non-fiction
[
edit
]
- The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution
, 1959
- Science and Government
, 1961, First Four Square Edition, 1963
- The Two Cultures and a Second Look
, 1963
- Variety of Men:
Rutherford
; G. H. Hardy;
H. G. Wells
;
Einstein
;
Lloyd George
;
Churchill
;
Robert Frost
;
Dag Hammarskjold
;
Stalin
, 1967
- The State of Siege
, 1968
- Public Affairs
, 1971
- Trollope: His Life and Art
, 1975
- The Realists: Portraits of Eight Novelists
, 1978 (
Balzac
;
Dickens
;
Dostoevsky
;
Galdos
;
Henry James
;
Proust
;
Stendhal
;
Tolstoy
)
- The Physicists: A Generation that Changed the World
, 1981
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Anon (2017).
"Snow, Baron (Charles Percy)"
.
Who's Who & Who Was Who
(online
Oxford University Press
ed.). Oxford: A & C Black.
doi
:
10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U159735
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
C. P. Snow
at
IMDb
- ^
a
b
c
d
The Columbia Encyclopedia
(6th Edition, 2001?2005). "
Snow, C. P.
" Accessed 26 July 2007.
- ^
Markl, H (April 1994). "Dementia dichotoma?the 'two cultures' delusion".
Experientia
.
50
(4): 346?51.
doi
:
10.1007/BF02026636
.
PMID
8174681
.
S2CID
34079880
.
- ^
"Are We Beyond the Two Cultures?"
,
Seed Magazine
article, 7 May 2009
- ^
Lisa Jardine
(2010) "C.P. Snow's Two Cultures Revisited,"
Christ's College
magazine, pp. 48-57
- ^
Snow, C. P. (1963).
The Two Cultures: A Second Look
. London: Cambridge University Press.
- ^
Philip Snow
(1982).
Stranger and brother: a portrait of C.P. Snow
. Macmillan. p. 3.
ISBN
0-333-32680-6
.
- ^
Philip Snow
(1998).
A time of renewal: clusters of characters, C. P. Snow, and co, ups
. Radcliffe Press. p. 234.
- ^
Plomley, Roy (1975).
"C. P. Snow's Desert Island Discs"
.
BBC
.
- ^
Snow,
Stranger and brother
, p. 22.
- ^
Snow,
Stranger and brother
, pp. 25, 29.
- ^
Tredell, N (2012).
C.P. Snow: The Dynamics of Hope
. Springer.
ISBN
9781137271877
.
- ^
Snow,
Stranger and brother
, p. 30.
- ^
Snow, Charles Percy (1930).
The structure of simple molecules
.
cam.ac.uk
(PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
doi
:
10.17863/CAM.31121
.
OCLC
1085143960
.
EThOS
uk.bl.ethos.763531
.
- ^
Anon (2017).
"This Month in Physics History: May 7, 1959: C.P. Snow Gives His "Two Cultures" Lecture"
.
aps.org
.
American Physical Society
.
- ^
Peter Lachmann
(2019) 'The Two Cultures at Cambridge',
European Review
, Volume 27, Issue 1, pp. 46?53
doi
:
10.1017/S1062798718000571
- ^
"No. 35841"
.
The London Gazette
(Supplement). 1 January 1943. p. 16.
- ^
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
,
William L. Shirer
, Book Club Associates, 1971, page 784.
- ^
"C.P. Snow facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about C.P. Snow"
.
encyclopedia.com
. Encyclopedia.com.
- ^
"No. 40960"
.
The London Gazette
(Supplement). 1 January 1957. p. 2.
- ^
"No. 41003"
.
The London Gazette
. 15 February 1957. pp. 1044?1045.
- ^
"No. 43477"
.
The London Gazette
. 30 October 1964. p. 9195.
- ^
"Letters to the Editor: George Steiner, Maugham in China, George Sand, etc"
.
The Times Literary Supplement
. 27 March 2020.
ISSN
0307-661X
. Retrieved
29 March
2020
.
- ^
C. P. Snow
Christ's College Magazine
231, 67?69, (2006)
- ^
Shrapnel, Norman. Obituary, William Cooper,
The Guardian
, London, 7 September 2002.
- ^
Recent Thoughts on the Two Cultures
, Wesleyan University
- ^
"WesFacts"
. Wesleyan University. Archived from
the original
on 24 September 2007
. Retrieved
23 November
2009
.
- ^
Guide to the Center for Advanced Studies Records, 1958?1969
Archived
14 March 2017 at the
Wayback Machine
, Wesleyan University
- ^
"The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes: The Prize Winners"
. Englit.ed.ac.uk. 21 May 2012. Archived from
the original
on 15 January 2007
. Retrieved
22 June
2012
.
- ^
C P Snow
Archived
3 January 2010 at the
Wayback Machine
at the Man Booker Prize website
- ^
W. Patrick McCray
(2019) Snow's storm Vol 364, Issue 6439 pp. 430-432
doi
:
10.1126/science.aaw9396
- ^
Ellis, David, ed. (2013),
"The Richmond lecture"
,
Memoirs of a Leavisite: The Decline and Fall of Cambridge English
, Liverpool University Press, pp. 67?73,
ISBN
978-1-78138-711-5
, retrieved
19 August
2023
- ^
a
b
Collini, Stefan (16 August 2013).
"Leavis v Snow: the two-cultures bust-up 50 years on"
.
The Guardian
. London.
ISSN
0261-3077
. Retrieved
19 August
2023
.
- ^
Debrett's Peerage
. 1973.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- C P Snow and the Struggle of Modernity
. John de la Mothe. (University of Texas Press, 1992).
ISBN
978-0-292-72916-2
- "Venturing the Real" Geoffrey Heptonstall (Contemporary Review June 2008) (Britannica On-line May 2010)
- C P Snow: A Reference Guide
. Paul Boytinck. (Hall, 1980).
- "The scientific papers of C P Snow
." J C D Brand.
History of Science
, Vol 26, No 2, pages 111?127. (1988).
[1]
- C P Snow: The Dynamics of Hope
Nicholas Tredell. (Palgrave Macmillan 2012).
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University of St Andrews
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