Honoured by the Japanese forgotten by his own country
Earthquake Milne - 1850-1913
'Earthquake' Milne' was the nickname given to Professor John Milne, the father of seismology, who, after his return from Japan in 1895, lived and worked for many years at Shide Hill House on the outskirts of Newport. The observatory he established there became the world cente for earthquake science. To it came every record of an earthquake, many seismologists of note, others interested in the earth's crust and distinguished men from all walks of life.But Professor Milne was more than just a cold scientist. He was a man abounding with energy and his enthusiasm for his beloved earthquakes was matched by his many other interests. He was an explorer, a keen naturalist and both a first class geologist and mining engineer. Other interests included golf, music, literature and photography. Besides textbooks and many papers on seismology he wrote a number of science-based fiction stories as well as a best selling humorous travel book. - Earthquake Milne and the Isle of Wight by Leslie Herbert-Gustar and Patrick A. Nott, Vectis Biographies (1974)
Earthquake Milne, inventor of the horizontal pendulum seismograph, twenty years in Tokyo establishing the world's first earthquake laboratory, honoured by the Japanese virtually forgotten by his own country. At least Marconi once had a television set named after him.
The record that Milne was ever on the Isle of Wight remain in scattered corners of the Newport. A couple of cherry trees planted in honour by the Japanese neglected. Biographies lost on dusty library shelves together with Milne's excellent description of his overland trip to take a job at the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo. By train, by Mongolian camel route his trek reads like Indiana Jones without the Hollywood gloss.
At least Milne's grave, in the cemetary at the back of St. Paul's Churchyard, has a gleaming, readable flagstone. Shide Hill House was broken up into flats long ago. The gardens now crammed with houses. On the top gate a badly painted sign hangs ajar with the words 'Milne House' roughly scrawled on it. A picture of Milne, the golfer, hangs in Newport Golf Club and a trophy bears his name.
With knighthoods and honours given out with the cornflakes, National Lottery money lining all kinds of grandiose pockets it beggars belief that the work of Earthquake Milne has been unrecognised for so long.
Until his early death at the age of 63 in 1913 Shide Hill House became the world centre for earthquake study. Earthquake Milne received not only visitors from the universities of the world but Royalty from Russia and Japan and our own Prince of Wales. Milne selected Shide Hill House because 'the clay suited his seismological experiments'. When the Professor came to Shide he brought his Japanese wife Tona and his assistant Mr. Hirota who was nicknamed 'Snowy'.
The stream of foreign visitors, records received of every earthquake, mail from all corners of the world and strange lights at night gave rise to all kinds of rumours amongst the locals. Milne's experiments at night conjured up a local ghost 'Spring Heel Jack' amongst the regulars at the nearby Barley Mow pub.
Earthquake Milne was anything but a dry dusty old scientist. He had the ability to mix at all levels of society. As this description from a local shows:
"I remember it as if it were yesterday and it was all of sixty years ago. I still have in my mind the squat figure of the old gentleman standing up there on the golf course behind his home, with that broad-brimmed hat of his, and his slight stoop, pointing out the houses on the other side of the valley, and making us laugh at the jokes he made as he explained their movement. He always spoke with a quiet Lancastrian accent which fascinated us lads, as did his nicotine-stained, bushy moustache with a gap burned in it by numerous cigarettes." - Earthquake Milne and the Isle of Wight by Leslie Herbert-Gustar and Patrick A. Nott, Vectis Biographies (1974)
Earthquake Milne would joke that he could calculate the time that the carts stayed outside the Barley Mow while their owners were in the pub by looking at his seismograph. One local experiment did have him baffled however. He attempted to measure the tilting of the land by the Prince Consort at Ryde. This tilting was caused by the high tide putting pressure on the sea-bed.
The seismograph was placed on an upright drain-pipe firmly embedded in the ground. Although he observed that tilting did take plce it was not as great as he had expected and he decided that this was because at that point the water table in the land immediately behind also built up as the tide rose. Colonel F. J. T. Mew tells an amusing story about these experiments:'When the seismograph had been set up,' he recalls, 'Milne visited it often but nothing ever seemed to happen. Then, one day, the Professor was excited but puzzled to find a series of enormous swings on the trace for which he could not account. A week later and at the same time of the day they appeared again. Milne eventually deduced that the records were made when the butler and the housekeeper were both off duty together!' - Earthquake Milne and the Isle of Wight by Leslie Herbert-Gustar and Patrick A. Nott, Vectis Biographies (1974)