1851 – 1934
Physicist
Arthur Schuster had been a professor at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1881 to 1907 and designed the physics laboratory in which Moseley worked. After Rutherford’s appointment in 1907, Schuster devoted himself to the international politics of science. But he was German born, to a business family also established in Manchester, and when war broke out he experienced anti-German hostility.
In September 1915 he was the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science when its annual public meeting was held in Manchester. It was customary for a formal presidential banner to carry the town’s coat of arms, but Schuster’s banner depicted science, as a female figure veiling her eyes amidst the guns. It was designed and embroidered by his wife’s cousin.