Islay McLeod's Scotland

 

Three traditional shops

1. Menzies of Dunkeld

 

Tomorrow's traditional shop: Boa of Biggar

 

 

Person of the Week

 

Resolute Scot

 

Barbara Millar on Norman Davidson

 

His interest in his future wife was first stirred when she gained a higher mark than he did in a university chemistry exam. And, as the relationship progressed between James Norman Davidson, the only child of elderly parents who lived a sheltered life in a quiet Edinburgh suburb, and Morag McLeod, one of a large family of seven, he visited her family home in Barnton, and was amazed to be embraced by a rowdy ensemble who all talked at once and ate at great speed.
     Eminent biochemist Davidson – always called Norman, or Norrie to friends – was born in Edinburgh 100 years ago this month. He went to George Watson's College – where he was dux – his intellectual ability and capacity for hard work apparent at an early age.
     His father, James Davidson, came from Peterhead and trained in a law office in Elgin. In 1896 he joined a firm of solicitors in Dunfermline. A few years later, when the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland was established, he joined as its first treasurer and it was here that he met his wife, Wilhelmina Foote, daughter of a congregational church minister, who had trained as a secretary and was also working at the Carnegie Trust. They married in 1909.
     Their son chose to study medicine at Edinburgh University, although, as his real interest was in the biological sciences, specifically the discipline of physiological chemistry and its infant cousin, biochemistry, he took an intercalated degree – allowing the study of additional courses. He obtained his first class honours BSc in chemistry in 1934 and his MB ChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) degrees in 1937. Morag graduated in bacteriology.
     His interests always lay in the laboratory and, in 1937, he took up a fellowship in the laboratory of German physiologist, doctor and Nobel laureate, Otto Warberg, in Berlin, a posting which profoundly influenced him. Davidson's daughter, Professor Rona MacKie, herself a distinguished physician and researcher, and widow of Sir James Black, Nobel prize-winning pharmacologist, said that the year spent in Germany was a very anxious time for her father, because of the rise of the Nazi party. 'He always kept his passport and a return ticket to the UK in his pocket.'
     In 1938, he returned to Britain and a lectureship in biochemistry at the University of Dundee, where he began his first investigation of nucleic acids and of the techniques of tissue culture. He also married Morag and their first daughter – Rona – was born in 1940. He was then offered a post at Aberdeen University and they lived in the city from 1941-46, their second daughter being born there.
     In 1945, he joined the staff of the Medical Research Council and, a year later, Davidson was appointed professor of biochemistry at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School in London. He accepted, but made it clear that he felt his long-term future lay in Scotland.
     In 1948, when he was offered the Gardiner chair of physiological chemistry in Glasgow, he accepted immediately and remained at the university for the rest of his career, as professor and head of an ever-expanding department, which grew into an independent department of biochemistry, second to none in Britain and with an international reputation.

 

     Robert Y Thomson, a student of Davidson's in the 1940s and, later, an assistant in his department, has said: 'Norman Davidson brought the resources of a powerful mind, enormous energy, industry, fixity of purpose and tenacity in its pursuit', which enabled him 'to transform research and teaching in his department and to gain for it a place in the university it had never previously enjoyed'.
     Before Davidson's arrival, biochemistry had been taught almost exclusively to medical students and only to a level thought sufficient for their needs. Only a handful of science students went on to do an honours degree in the subject. Davidson transformed this situation: after he had been there for 20 years a quarter of entrants to the Faculty of Science took biochemistry at some stage in their curriculum and admission to the honours class was the subject of fierce competition.
     'It astonishes me that biochemistry excited a young man as variously gifted as Davidson,' said Robert Thomson. 'But excite him it did. Perhaps his decision to opt for such an unfashionable speciality was an early example of his extraordinary insight. It proved wise.'
     Davidson was an outstanding teacher and researcher who firmly believed in the importance of teaching and research in university departments and in the place of biochemistry in relation to medicine and other sciences. His aim was always to provide an environment in which younger men and women could do good work.
     In 1960 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh – later he was its president and took great delight in helping design a new coat of arms. He was appointed a CBE in 1967 and was also a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and of Glasgow, and a management board member at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He published widely.
     He has also been described as 'a resolute Scot'. A colleague from Glasgow University wrote: 'He knew the English well, respected them, perhaps even feared them a little, but never gave them a square centimetre of ground they had not earned. Do not underestimate the English, he would say, I have lived among them'.
     The same colleague added: 'Norrie Davidson had truly high standards: absolute honesty, rigid discipline, and a sense of humour and irony which he only shyly revealed to close friends. He was a good colleague, a loyal academic, a true and good scientist'.
     Davidson never allowed himself much time for relaxation, his daughter Rona MacKie recalls: 'He was deeply committed to his work and always brought home a large briefcase. He enjoyed an occasional holiday game of golf and was a good amateur pianist, but his hard work took its toll on his health'.
     He had his first heart attack when he was in his early 50s and, adds his daughter: 'He accepted that he would die 'in harness', as he put it, and, sadly, this was the case'. He was 61 when he died in September 1972 at his home in Glasgow. In 1999 the university named the building which houses the department of biochemistry in his honour.

 

Barbara Millar is a journalist and tour guide