Young Lewis Fry Richardson in Yorkshire

Lewis Fry Richardson (1881–1953) was a meteorologist, physicist, mathematician and social scientist. He performed the first weather forecast by numerical methods (Richardson 1922), developed techniques for understanding turbulence, laid the groundwork for the concept of fractals, derived numerical methods for solving mathematical equations and devised a scientific approach to ending human conflict. From 1921 to 1924 he was an honorary secretary of the Royal Meteorological Society. Numerous biographies have been written about him (Gold, 1954; Ashford, 1985) and his contributions to science (Platzman, 1967; Wilkinson, 1980; Vreugdenhil, 1994; Hunt, 1997; Nicholson, 1999; Lynch, 2006). Ashford’s (1985) Chapter 2 describes Richardson’s education at Bootham School in York. As that school is just minutes away from where one of us (Schultz) lives, we thought it was worth a visit to see the archives pertaining to young Richardson and seek to understand how his early life in Yorkshire influenced his later career. Richardson was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 11 October 1881 to Catherine Fry and David Richardson, their seventh and youngest child. His family were devout Quakers. Richardson’s passion for science developed early in life. At the age of five he became interested in electricity, and by ten he expressed an interest in chemistry, probably as a result of interactions with family friend Henry Richardson Procter, who worked in the production of leather and became head of the applied chemistry department at Leeds University. In 1894, Richardson, like his father and three of his brothers before him, was enrolled in Bootham School in York, a Quaker boarding school (Figure 1). He studied there until 1898 and flourished in this environment of strong discipline and excellent teaching. One of his masters, James Edmund Clark, was an active member of the Royal Meteorological Society and co-edited its yearly phenological report on observations of spring leaf-budding and bird migrations Figure 1. Bootham School leavers photograph, 1898. Richardson is second from left in the front row. (Courtesy Bootham School.)