Story
John Scott Haldane C.H., M.D., F.R.S. was born in Edinburgh on 3rd May 1860, and was the son of Robert Haldane (1805-1877), writer to the Signet, essentially a solicitor, and his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Burdon-Sanderson (1825-1925, pictured below left), who married on 27th July 1853. Besides John, the couple had other well-known children, including Richard Burdon Haldane (1856-1928), who was Secretary of State for War between 1905 and 1912, and served twice as Lord Chancellor (below right):
John was awarded a B.Med from Edinburgh, after entering the field of scientific research and investigation in his early twenties, and was quickly recognised as one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation. He held a particular interest in coal mining, and had an enormous respect for miners, devoting much of his skills to understanding respiratory diseases, and poisonous gases found in mines. He began teaching as a Doctor of Medicine and Physiology, and lived with his mother at Cloanden Mansion. On 12th December 1891 he married Louisa Kathleen Trotter (1863-1961, pictured below left) in Oxford, and was awarded an Honourable M.A from Oxford University, which he joined in March 1893, working in the Physiological Department, as a lecturer. John and Elizabeth lived at 11 Crick Road and 4 St Margaret’s Road, Oxford. They raised their children in Oxford, the geneticist John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964, below centre), and the novelist Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison (1897-1999, below right). In 2009, a blue plaque was unveiled at 11 Crick Road in Oxford, where John once lived. He was frequently in attendance at mining disasters, as his principal area of research was in the effect of gases upon the human body. He also designed early respirators for rescue workers. In pursuit of his research, John tested his hypothesies upon himself, by standing in a sealed steel chamber and breathing in different gases to record their effects. He also used his son in these experiments.
John travelled from Oxford to assist with saving miners caught in the Peckfield Colliery disaster. His purpose was two-fold: to use his skills to revive and recover survivors of the disaster and members of the rescue parties who had to be carried from the pit suffering from afterdamp gas poisoning, but also to study what was happening physiologically to the miners. In conjunction with Dr. Sydney Griesbach of Garforth, John was able to treat William Naylor Whitaker, who was recovered from the pit after two days, although the miner passed away later the same day in hospital. John wrote papers upon what he found at such disasters to the Home Office. His report from Micklefield is shown below:
On 2nd January 1897, John was featured in a report, which also referenced his efforts at the Peckfield Colliery Disaster (below):
In the same year, John studied Cornish Collieries, and on the back of his experiences, he was the first to suggest that miners could use canaries as a means of detecting poisonous gases, as he had noted that they were very susceptible to impure atmospheres. On 9th December 1911, rescue parties at a mining disaster in Cross Mountain, Briceville, Tennessee were the first mine rescue team to use caged canaries to detect dangerous changes in air quality.
Despite introducing canaries to coal mines, John was broadly opposed to animal testing, stating: “A man’s a man, and a rabbit is a rabbit, and it is man we study.”
John’s brother Richard was the Secretary of State for War under Herbert Henry Asquith’s pre-First World War government, and under the Haldane Reforms for the Army, he re-organised the set-up of the Army to prepare for re-enforcements in the event of a major conflict. These reforms were put to the test from August 1914, when the Expeditionary Force was quickly sent to the Continent in World War One. During the War, John was sent with a colleague to the front line, at the request of Lord Kitchener, to test the types of gas being used by the Germans, a new type of warfare which started in 1915 at the Battle of Langemarck. Using his research, John studied and identified the poisonous gas being used, and created a prototype for the first gas masks which were used in combat to counter the use of gas warfare.
John continued to push himself to extremes even in later life. In 1930, he once again sealed himself up in his steel compression chamber to test the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, saying: “I have often carried out what look like very risky experiments, but there is no danger – if you know what you are doing.” He was nearly caught out on one occasion in his compression chamber, when helping a Mount Everest expedition. His assistant began pumping out the air in the chamber, as they wished to recreate the effect of surviving at 25k feet above sea level, known as the death zone. His assistant only returned the air to the chamber, when he noticed that John was turning blue. In a confused state, John had forgotten to request that the pump should stop. At one speech, John showed the audience his arms, upon which there were various burns that he had inflicted upon himself with a blow lamp, in order to find the most effective treatment for burns. John was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1928, and was awarded the Copley Medal in 1930. He died in Cherwell, Oxford at midnight on 14th March 1930, from bronchial pneumonia, which he had contracted in early February.
In his final years, John studied the stratosphere, as he thought that commercial flying there would be taken seriously in the future. He anticipated that aeroplanes would be able to travel at speeds of up to 800 mph in the stratosphere, much faster than in the troposphere, and at the time twice as fast as the airspeed record. On 20th August 1955, a new air speed record was set of 822 mph at 40k feet, in the lower zone of the stratosphere.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 