Life
1857-1933; engineer, geologist, and physicist; b. Rathmines, Dublin [var. Co. Laois], ed.
TCD; invented melldometer, a hydrostatic balance, etc.; reduced aluminium
from topaz; propounded generally accepted cohesion theory of rising sap,
with H. H. Dixon (1893); studied radioactivity in geology; issued The
Surface History of the Earth (1925); responsible for building TCD
science schools. DNB
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Notes
Brian Inglis, Downstart (London: Chatto &
Windus 1990): [on his father Claude’s education]: ‘in Trinity
College, Dublin [...] he had been fortunate enough to study under the
remarkable John Joly, a Fellow of the Royal Society. Joly still secures
an entry in Chambers’ Biographical Dictionary for inventing the photometer,
making the first precise calculation of the age of the earth, pioneering
colour photography and initiating the technique of radiotheraphy. He was
also an inspired teacher [...]’
Encyc. Britannica gives birth-place as
Holywood, King’s County [Laois], Ireland.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)