88-566: The Malting House School (also known as the Malting House Garden School ) was an experimental educational institution that operated from 1924 to 1929. It was set up by the eccentric and, at the time, wealthy Geoffrey Pyke in his family home in Cambridge and it was run by Susan Sutherland Isaacs . Although it was open for only a few years, the radical ideas explored in this institution have remained influential up until
176-466: A beachhead by spraying an existing building with pykrete liquid that would freeze into a thick layer. Many of these ideas relied upon a misplaced faith in the qualities of supercooled water which he thought could be used as a weapon of war: pumped from a ship it could be used to instantly form bulwarks of ice or even be sprayed directly onto enemy soldiers. However, such ideas were according to Max Perutz , impractical. In September 1943, Pyke proposed
264-668: A London flat in Primrose Hill with her sister Hilda, close to where Susan and Nathan Isaacs were living: her affair with Nathan was ongoing. In 1943 she became director of the National Froebel Foundation. Susan knew of this relationship, and continued to relate well to Nathan intellectually: she concentrated on writing her book based on observations at Malting House. After the outbreak of World War II , Isaacs initially continued to work in London; while Susan
352-459: A cautious endorsement to the idea, adding that it would require a great deal of investigation. Pyke's idea was similar to the cleaning brushes that are sometimes forced along pipes by the pressure of the fluid and to the pipeline pigs which today are used for cleaning and telemetry. Pyke then proposed that his idea for "Power-Driven Rivers" could be extended to the transport of personnel. The pipes would need to be at least two feet in diameter and
440-465: A factor. Evelyn would become Nathan's second wife after Susan's death in 1948. In 1927, Pyke lost all his money. The Maltings School was forced to close, Margaret Pyke had to take a job as headmistress's secretary; she left Geoffrey although they were never divorced. Already suffering from periodic fits of depression and burdened with huge debts to his brokers, he now withdrew from normal life altogether and existed on donations from his close friends. For
528-400: A false passport but he was soon arrested and interned. The story of his escape and return to Britain was widely published. In March 1918, Pyke met Margaret Amy Chubb ; she was intelligent, pretty, and attracted to Pyke's unconventional good looks and wilful unconventionality. They were married within three months of meeting. After the war, Pyke tried his hand at several money-making schemes. For
616-586: A form of charity while Spanish people were fighting and dying for their fellow workers. To answer a shortage of bandages and dressings in Spain, he suggested that sun-dried peat moss sewn into muslin bags could be used as a substitute for cotton dressings. Soon, moss collected by volunteers in Britain was on its way to Spain. In 1939, before the outbreak of the Second World War , Pyke considered
704-578: A hatred of and contempt for The Establishment . After two years at Wellington he was withdrawn, tutored privately and then admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge to study law. Isaacs' mother died when she was six years old. Shortly afterwards she became alienated from her father after he married the nurse who had attended her mother during her illness. At the age of fifteen, Isaacs was removed from school by her father because she had converted to atheistic socialism; her father refused to speak to her for 2 years. She stayed at home with her stepmother until she
792-672: A hatred of and contempt for " The Establishment ". After two years at Wellington, he was withdrawn, tutored privately and then admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge , to study law. At the outbreak of the First World War, Pyke quit his studies to become a war correspondent . He persuaded the editor of the Daily Chronicle to send him to Berlin. He used the passport obtained from an American sailor by travelling via Denmark. In Germany, he conversed with local Germans, and eavesdropped on other people's conversations, witnessing
880-709: A long telegraph report Pyke had sent from Amsterdam, had become one of the biggest Fleet Street scoops of the war. Pyke was the first Englishman to get into Germany and out again, and he was encouraged to write a series of articles for the Chronicle . Pyke refused, citing lost interest in being a war correspondent. He divided his time between lecturing on his experiences and writing for the Cambridge Magazine , edited by Charles Kay Ogden . Pyke arranged for some food parcels to be sent to friends in Ruhleben;
968-475: A man's mind. It has been known to make men think very seriously about the rights of property, and a few have become so unbalanced as to become socialists. During confinement, Pyke longed for books, writing material and socialising. When allowed out for exercise, he moved around the yard and exchanged words with other inmates. He pieced together poems from memory – If by Rudyard Kipling and Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll – and recited them loudly in
SECTION 10
#17327916181691056-467: A memorandum, nearly fifty pages long, explaining his ideas for a solution to the problem of unloading stores from ships where no proper port facilities are available and few roads inland. This circumstance was common in the Pacific War theatre and fundamental to the 1943 decision to invade France by landing on the beaches of Normandy, with no harbours and a 24-foot tide. Pyke's idea was to use pipes of
1144-576: A report for the War Office . Pyke tried to generate interest in his opinion poll results and in repeating the exercise in Germany using people from neutral countries. He got little support, but did attract the attention of Conservative Member of Parliament Leo Amery . Amery did think that Pyke's idea was worthwhile and privately convinced others including Clement Attlee and Sir Stafford Cripps . Pyke's friends concluded that nothing would come of
1232-424: A short time The Maltings was a critical if not a commercial success; It was visited by many educationalists and the radical ideas explored in this institution have remained influential up until the present day. It was the subject of a film documentary. Visitors to the school included Jean Piaget and Melanie Klein . Geoffrey Pyke Geoffrey Nathaniel Joseph Pyke (9 November 1893 – 21 February 1948)
1320-431: A slightly less ambitious plan for pykrete vessels to be used in support of an amphibious assault . He proposed a pykrete monitor 200 feet (61 m) long and 50 feet (15 m) wide mounting a single naval gun turret ; this could be self-powered or towed to where it would be used. He also suggested the use of pykrete to make breakwaters and landing stages. At the time, Max Perutz thought the ideas were practical and that
1408-442: A son, David Pyke (1921–2001), and Pyke became preoccupied by the question of his son's education. In October 1924, to create an education that differed from his own and promoted curiosity whilst equipping young people to live in the twentieth century, he set up an infants' school in his Cambridge home. His wife, Margaret, was a strong supporter of the school and its ideas. Pyke recruited a psychologist, Susan Sutherland Isaacs , to run
1496-424: A subclass of wh-questions : Isaacs proposed a sub-classification, as "informational", "epistemic", "justificatory" and "affective and expressional". In discussion of a lecture of Wolfe Mays , Isaacs commented, on young children's understanding of questions, and Piaget's use of them, that the understanding had to be seen as incremental, depending on the acquisition of concepts. By the early 1930s, Isaacs had joined
1584-631: A while, he made a lot of money speculating on the commodity market using his system of financial management instead of more conventional techniques. Geoffrey Pyke and Margaret Pyke had a son, David (1921–2001). Geoffrey Pyke became preoccupied with the question of his son's education. He wanted to create an education that promoted curiosity and equipped young people to live in the twentieth century – an education that would be utterly different from his own unhappy experience. To do this he set up an infants' school in his Cambridge home. Founded in October 1924,
1672-413: Is achieved and not given, [...] the book will appear [...] a valuable contribution to philosophy." In the educational field, Isaacs deprecated "empirical psychology". He admired both James Mark Baldwin and John Dewey for their approaches. Under Baldwin's influence, he considered that clarity of speech and thought should early be encouraged in children. Clifford Geertz , writing of a lecture given by
1760-452: Is not only this country but the whole world which, as compared with knowledge of other natural phenomena, lacks knowledge of snow and ice. This is fortunate, for whoever gets there first may get a great advantage. In September 1942, Pyke sent a 232-page memorandum to Mountbatten detailing his ideas. It suggested a number of uses for ice and for super cooled water (water that has been cooled below its freezing point while remaining liquid) and
1848-483: Is not the case. Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice, German scientist Dr. A. Gerke of Waldenburg in Germany proposed the idea and carried out some preliminary experiments in Lake Zurich in 1930. Pyke's memorandum included a couple of cover notes. The first requested that Mountbatten should read
SECTION 20
#17327916181691936-618: The Aristotelian Society : he gave a paper there in 1931 that influenced the Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932) by Lionel Robbins. His interest in philosophy was continuing. But he was unsatisfied with typical philosophical discussion. It has been commented that when Isaacs tried to publish about philosophy proper, he met with continual rejection. His paper What do Linguistic Philosophers Assume? (1960)
2024-517: The Dutch frontier . As they rested, they were discovered by a soldier and tried to talk their way out of the encounter, only to discover the soldier was Dutch and they were already 50 yards (46 m) inside the Netherlands. From here, made their way to England . Pyke visited his news editor to confess that his mission had failed. However, the editor told Pyke that the story of his escape, based on
2112-619: The Foreign Office , Pyke recalled all his agents and they arrived back in England over the following few days. Pyke's original idea had been to present Hitler with an account of the true feelings of the German people, but this did not materialise with the outbreak of war. Raleigh and Patrick Smith did make a broadcast on the newly formed BBC World Service in which they contrasted the mood in Germany with that in London, and Pyke prepared
2200-588: The M29 vehicle. In April 1942, Pyke was presented with the problem of how to prevent the icing of ships in Arctic waters. He took the problem to Max Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory , Cambridge ; Pyke knew that Perutz had previously worked on the physical properties of snow with regard to the difficulties of Operation Plough. Perutz proposed a solution and in a footnote his memorandum noted that: It
2288-682: The Montessori education which the idea of children choosing the means of educating themselves. The Malting House School fostered the individual development of children; children were given great freedom and were supported rather than punished. The teachers were seen as observers of the children who were seen as research workers. The school attracted the attention of a wide range of intellectuals. The children came from parents with an academic or professional background who had, in many cases, already achieved eminence in their fields. They included two sons of G. E. Moore (Cambridge philosopher and ethicist),
2376-525: The Royal Signals . He met during this time Lionel Robbins , to whom he introduced himself as an agnostic , in the winter of 1916–7. He was in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 with the 51st Highland Regiment , was gassed, and was invalided out of the army. After the war ended, Isaacs again worked for Bessler, Waechter & Co., where he became a manager. He and Lionel Robbins in 1919 attended
2464-464: The invasion of Norway , Pyke considered the problem of transporting soldiers rapidly over snow. He proposed the development of a screw-propelled vehicle based on an old patent called the Armstead snow motor. This consisted of a pair of lightweight cylinders, shaped like very large artillery shells, to support the weight of the vehicle. These cylinders have a spiral flange that digs into the snow; when
2552-655: The Child (1924). The project was financed by Geoffrey Pyke, and resulted also in a 1927 anonymous editorial by Isaacs in Nature , under the title "Education and science", alluding to the curious child. He agreed with A. S. Neill that the assumption of curiosity in the education of children turned out in practice to be dependent on social class. The work was published in the form of an appendix to Susan's Intellectual Growth in Young Children (1930). "Why" questions are
2640-707: The City and coming away with all its money, and with it endowing a worthwhile work. Certainly, no individual in the strange company ever made any noticeable personal profit, and Pyke's high salary was always paid immediately into the Malting House account. The Malting House School was based on the theories of the American philosopher and educationist John Dewey . It fostered the individual development of children; children were given great freedom and were supported rather than punished. The teachers were seen as observers of
2728-455: The Isaacs', and found that Nathan was disillusioned with business, looking to retire and move to the country. An advertisement placed by Geoffrey Pyke , who was setting up a progressive school , was drawn to Susan's attention by James Glover, a psychoanalytic colleague who had worked with Pyke. Susan, Nathan and Pyke hammered out an agreement. Pyke and his family moved into the house containing
Malting House School - Misplaced Pages Continue
2816-570: The Nazis, raising money to set up an organisation to combat anti-Semitism. He wrote a number of magazine articles on the irrationality of prejudice and started work on a book. In his published letters and articles, Pyke insisted that it was necessary to collect data and this struck a chord with other thinkers who would – giving full credit for the germ of an idea to Pyke – go on to establish the Mass Observation project that set out to document
2904-522: The age of six, Pyke extended the remit of the school and expanded its ambition. He supported the school lavishly and employed Nathan Isaacs the school's researcher at large on a salary of £500 per year. At the end of 1927, Susan Isaacs left the school. It is not clear exactly why she left, one possibility is that Pyke began to interfere with the day-to-day running of the school but the developing emotional and sexual tangle of relationships between Susan Isaacs, Nathan Isaacs and Evelyn Lawrence may also have been
2992-424: The assistance of J. D. Bernal , concluded that Pyke's main proposals were feasible. In December 1942, Prime Minister Churchill issued a directive that research on the project should be pressed forward with the highest priority and he expressed the opinion that nature be allowed to do as much of the work as possible. The project to build a large aircraft carrier of pykrete was known as Project Habakkuk , and Pyke
3080-490: The boxes contained details of his method of escape concealed in false bottoms. Although his parcels arrived, no prisoner attempted to repeat his methods. As an escaped prisoner of war, he was exempt from conscription and his views had begun to drift towards pacifism. He wrote a memoir of his experiences, To Ruhleben – And Back , and published in 1916. Because the war was still on at that time, Pyke omitted some details of his escape from his account. To Ruhleben – And Back
3168-497: The character of the department and Mountbatten allowed unusual talents and ideas. Conservative Member of Parliament Leo Amery wrote to Mountbatten recommending that Pyke's Norway scheme, originally rejected by Keyes, be re-examined and that Mountbatten should take Pyke onto his staff. Mountbatten valued Pyke's ideas, and for liberalising other staff, eventually adopted the plan. The scheme became Operation Plough . When presented to Prime Minister Winston Churchill , he noted in
3256-425: The children, who were seen as research workers. For a short time, The Maltings was a critical if not a commercial success; it was visited by many educationists and it was the subject of a film documentary. Pyke had ambitious plans for the school and began to interfere with the day-to-day running, whereupon Susan Isaacs left The Maltings. In 1927, Pyke lost all his money and became bankrupt . The Malting House School
3344-415: The cost of purchase and conversion being estimated as £1.5M. Maurice and Sylia Dobb lived in a cottage behind the Malting House – he had a position at Trinity College – Ludwig Wittgenstein was lodging with them at the time, at the invitation of Bertrand Russell . Geoffrey Pyke came to public attention when he escaped from internment in Germany during World War I . He had travelled to Germany under
3432-412: The cylinders turn (in opposite directions), the vehicle is propelled forwards. Pyke envisaged that a small force of highly mobile soldiers could occupy the attentions of many enemy soldiers who would be required to guard against possible points of attack. Initially, Pyke's idea was rejected. Then, in October 1941, Louis Mountbatten replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations . This changed
3520-472: The darkness. During this time, Pyke questioned his sanity. In January 1915, he was transferred to another prison where he was able to mix with other prisoners and buy newspapers, learning that thousands of foreigners had passed through this prison for a period of quarantine before being transferred to the internment camp at Ruhleben . Five days later, he was transferred to a third prison in Moabit , and then to
3608-405: The daughter of Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian (neurophysiologist, nobel laureate), Philip Sargant Florence (post-graduate student and later Professor of Economics). Yvonne Kapp , who described Pyke as "an intimate if entirely unpredictable friend" took her children to the school every day. The Pykes, the Isaacs and those around them were dedicated to the teachings of Sigmund Freud. The ethos of
Malting House School - Misplaced Pages Continue
3696-482: The death penalty, and for government support of UNICEF . On the evening of Saturday 21 February 1948 in Steele's Road, Hampstead, Pyke shaved his beard and consumed a bottleful of sleeping pills . His landlady found his body the following Monday morning. The coroner gave a verdict of suicide at a moment of mental unbalance. Before consuming the pills, he had written private letters that made it clear that his death
3784-528: The earlier work of Susan Isaacs. Over a long period, Isaacs worked on an essay that would be a major statement of his views. It appeared after his wife Susan died, as The Foundations of Common Sense (1949), bearing the subtitle "A Psychological Preface to the Problems of Knowledge". It had a hostile review from J. J. C. Smart , stating that "nowhere does he describe an experiment". Another reviewer wrote "[...] to those who are willing to grant that certainty
3872-479: The end of the war, more than seventy vehicles had been contributed. Organised by Trade Unions , workers were, with the assistance of sympathetic employers who lent the use of machines and premises, able to produce useful items of equipment. Pyke also invented a motorcycle sidecar to carry medical supplies or a patient. He raised funds to pay for American-built Harley-Davidson motorcycles that were then plentifully available second-hand, and persuaded workers to make
3960-489: The first German city to be targeted would be Frankfurt . Pyke travelled to Frankfurt where he met Peter Raleigh . Raleigh suggested that there were enough of Pyke's golfers in Germany to challenge the Frankfurt golf club to a match. Pyke concluded that this would be an excellent idea, and put this new plan into action. By 21 August, Pyke had ten interviewers working in Germany. On 25 August, following hints from contacts at
4048-491: The godfather of their young son. In 1923, Margaret Pyke found herself to be the object of Ramsey's affection and he made sexual overtures to her. In 1924, Geoffrey became infatuated with Susan Isaacs and before long they began an affair with Margaret blessing and encouraging the relationship – although Nathan was kept in the dark. Margaret eventually turned down Frank Ramsey's advances. A year or so after it had started, Geoffrey and Susan's affair petered out. As young David reached
4136-470: The internment camp at Ruhleben. At Ruhleben, Pyke met fellow graduates from Oxford and Cambridge . They supplied him with extra clothes, food, books and other amenities. Pyke soon became ill and he nearly died of double pneumonia and food poisoning, but recovered in summer. Despite illness, he thought about the possibility of escape and repeatedly questioned fellow inmates. Most were pessimistic about escape, but an Englishman, Edward Falk, agreed despite
4224-609: The lives of ordinary Britons. During the Spanish Civil War , Pyke founded the Voluntary Industrial Aid for Spain (VIAS) organisation, encouraging individuals with little money to contribute their time and skills instead. This was opposed by trade unionists who believed that unpaid work might set a dangerous precedent, but Pyke persisted. By October 1938, twenty-five vehicles had been sent to Spain including two mobile blood transfusion units, and by
4312-401: The low success rate of other attempts. Pyke compiled statistical data on previous escapes, and together with Falk, made a decision to escape, following a regime of calisthenic exercise to prepare. On the afternoon of 9 July 1915, Pyke and Falk crept into a hut and hid under tennis nets, using glare from the sunset to blind the patrolling guard. Successful, they waited until dark and climbed over
4400-456: The metals trade, but after his marriage to Susan Sutherland Fairhurst , they were partners in her work on early education. Isaacs was born in Nuremberg , Germany, (or Frankfurt ) in 1895, into a Jewish family of Russian background, who moved shortly to Switzerland. His father was Orthodox , had philosophical interests, and did not work: his mother traded in garments from Eastern Europe. He
4488-649: The minutes of the meeting: Never in the history of human conflict will so few immobilize so many. Pyke's snow vehicle project was superseded by Canadian development of the Weasel tracked personnel carrier, produced first for the American - Canadian commando unit the First Special Service Force , which trained first for Norway but was actually deployed in Italy. The US built hundreds of these as
SECTION 50
#17327916181694576-537: The mobilisation of Germans for war with the Russian Empire . In early October, 1914, after six days in Germany, Pyke was arrested in his bed-sitting room, and was taken away leaving a letter written in English on his desk. Confined to a small cell in solitary confinement, he believed that he might not be executed after all; remarking that "the German government was not going to waste 4 d on my keep if it
4664-468: The operating principles of the school were explained. It seems very likely that the form of education was influenced by the ideas of John Dewey and Maria Montessori . In the 1920s and 1930s, John Dewey became famous for pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' actual experiences. Montessori's ideas gave rise to
4752-452: The perimeter fences. Pyke and Falk took a tram into Berlin, buying clothes and camping equipment and then traveled west. Within 80 miles (130 km) of the Dutch border, they decided to walk, traversing barbed wire fences and quagmire . Approaching the border, they consumed what remained of their food and discarded their equipment apart from some rope made from string, deciding to cross
4840-516: The philosopher George Raymond Geiger (1903–1998) on "cultural foundations of common sense", called it a "fine Deweyian subject". But in The Foundations of Common Sense Isaacs expressed the view that those authors had not gone far enough. With Dewey, Isaacs is now cited as one of the founders of progressive education . Isaacs wrote Children's Why Questions , as a response to, and criticism of, Jean Piaget 's The Language and Thought of
4928-525: The preceding research on pykrete was sufficiently advanced to allow Pyke's plan to be executed. The plan was not put into action, but for the allied invasion of Normandy a system of preconstructed concrete breakwaters and landing stages called Mulberry was employed. Pyke's plans hint that he had some knowledge of the Mulberry plans, perhaps through his contacts with Bernal , who was one of Mulberry's progenitors. In late 1943, Pyke submitted to Mountbatten
5016-631: The present day. Since 2004 it has been owned by Darwin College, Cambridge and used as accommodation. The Malting House is a building in Cambridge on the corner of Newnham Road and Malting Lane in and overlooks the Mill Pond and Sheep's Green . It was originally a malthouse , Oast house , and a small brewery owned, in the 1830s, by the Beales family, a well-known Cambridge trading dynasty. In 1909,
5104-585: The pressures would have to be high. He worked out ideas for supplying the passengers with oxygen and suggested that the problem of claustrophobia might be alleviated by travelling in pairs and by the use of barbiturate drugs. The whole experience (of riding in a pipe) however should be far less unpleasant, and take very much less time to become used to, than parachute jumping, or being bombed. Pyke proposed that this system could be used to move people from ship to shore, from island to island, through swamps and over mountains and anywhere where conventional transport
5192-530: The problem of finding out what the German people actually thought of the Nazi regime. His idea was to perform an opinion poll in secret by sending volunteers to Germany to interview ordinary people. He would train the volunteers personally. The plan was that the interviewers should pose as golfers on a tour of Germany and that interviews should be informal, with the questions being inserted into everyday conversation;
5280-474: The psychology course at London University given by Susan Brierley, née Fairhurst. Isaacs married Susan, after her first marriage to William Broadhurst Brierley ended in divorce, in 1922. He rented a flat in Hunter Street, Bloomsbury , and she carried on a psychoanalytic practice there. Susan Isaacs became principal of Malting House School in 1924. In April of that year, Robbins had dinner with
5368-432: The scheme and persuaded Pyke to let the matter drop. Pyke then wrote on grand strategy and worked on a number of ideas for practical inventions. Inspired by the sight of barrage balloons, he conceived the idea of using them to mount microphones allowing the location of aircraft to be ascertained by triangulation. Pyke was unaware that the development of radar provided a much better means of achieving this effect. With
SECTION 60
#17327916181695456-517: The school lasted until that the end of that year. They were undermined by two love triangles. Susan had an affair with Pyke: it was a short fling, around the end of 1925, about which Pyke's wife Margaret knew at the time, but Nathan did not. It was followed by unreasonable behaviour on Pyke's part. Nathan, subsequently, had an affair with Evelyn Lawrence , who joined the staff as psychologist in 1926. Nathan became her lover in August 1927, as Susan knew at
5544-585: The school was funded by Pyke's City speculations. His wife, Margaret, was a strong supporter of the school and its ideas. Pyke placed advertisements in a number of journals, including the New Statesman and Nature : Pyke recruited psychologist Susan Sutherland Isaacs to run the school; although Pyke had many original ideas regarding education, he promised her, that he would not interfere. Both Pyke and Isaacs had had unconventional and unhappy experiences of growing up. Pyke's father, Edward Lionel Pyke,
5632-448: The school was that children should, as far as possible, not have harmful inhibitions pressed upon them. This philosophy extended to permitting the children to express a full range of feelings including aggression and curiosity about bodily functions. The adults also tried to live their lives without reference to traditional, outmoded, norms of behaviour. The Pykes took Frank Ramsey into their family, taking him on holiday, asking him to be
5720-568: The school, and although Pyke had many original ideas regarding education, he promised her that he would not interfere. Pyke continued with his city speculations which funded the Malting House School. The greater his gains, the more he invested until he began to see himself and the people who ran the Great Ormond Street office as a gang of economic corsairs, youthful Bloomsbury intellectual buccaneers slashing through
5808-531: The school, rented from Hugh Fraser Stewart , in Newnham village , a Cambridge suburb. The Isaacs' rented a flat on Hills Road, Cambridge in autumn 1924, but Nathan continued to work in London, where he spent most of the week. Jean Piaget , the Swiss educator and theorist with whose thought Susan and Nathan Isaacs were closely involved, paid a visit to the Malting House School in 1927. The personal arrangements at
5896-468: The sidecars free of charge with the results being sent out to Spain. Pyke also assisted in arranging for the manufacture of mattresses for the Spanish government, for the collection of redundant horse-drawn ploughs for Spanish farmers, and bundles of hand-tools for use by labourers. He published aggressive propaganda brochures pointing out that British workers were not to consider their contributions
5984-608: The suggestion of the construction of gigantic aircraft carriers from ice that was either frozen naturally or artificially. Whereas conventional aircraft carriers were restricted to relatively small, specialised aircraft, these could launch and land conventional fighters and bombers. As such, they could provide air cover for convoys in mid-Atlantic, staging posts for long flights over seas or as launch pads for amphibious assaults on France or Japan . A biography of Pyke by David Lampe indicates that he had decided to use ice reinforced with wood fibres, but other accounts make it clear that this
6072-431: The suggestions himself before allowing it to fall into the hands of "that damned fool Lushington". The second, longer, note asked that Mountbatten read the first thirty pages of the memorandum before deciding whether it was worthwhile to continue "It may be gold: it may only glitter. I can't tell. I have been hammering at it too long and am blinded". Mountbatten handed it to Brigadier Wildman-Lushington, and Lushington with
6160-465: The then Dean of Trinity College (Dr Stewart) bought the buildings and converted most of them into an Arts & Crafts house and two or three years later the remaining buildings were converted into a small hall to host musical evenings. From 1924 to 1929, it was the Malting House School. In later years, the house reverted to a family home. In 2003, the buildings were purchased by Darwin College of Cambridge University to serve as student accommodation,
6248-580: The time. The Isaacs' left the school soon after. By that period, Pyke was running out of money and sold his interest in the school to Edgar Obermer (1895–1958), one of the parents; with further funding Pyke kept the school going to 1929, when he had a serious breakdown and it closed. Nathan Isaacs continued to work as a metals merchant, and during World War II was a civil servant in the Ministry of Supply . Evelyn Lawrence left Malting House School in 1928. After some time outside London, she started to share
6336-434: The type that were used to transport fuel from ship to shore, to move sealed containers that would contain any type of sufficiently small material objects. Pyke suggested that 4 or 6 inches (100 or 150 mm) pipes would handle smaller equipment and larger objects could be passed through two-foot pipes. Furthermore, there was no reason why the pipes should stop at the shore, they could be extended inland as required. Bernal gave
6424-403: The very greatness of his ideas most of his life was one of frustration and disappointment, but he has left behind to all who knew him and were indirectly affected by him the vision he created for making all things possible. [REDACTED] Media related to Geoffrey Pyke at Wikimedia Commons Nathan Isaacs Nathan Isaacs (1895–1966) was a British educational psychologist. He worked in
6512-552: Was 22. Besides Geoffrey Pyke and his wife, the other leading figures in the school were Susan Isaacs and her second husband, Nathan Isaacs ; and Evelyn Lawrence who arrived two years into the experiment. In April 1927, the school advertised again: This advertisement indicated that Ernest Rutherford , Percy Nunn and J.B.S. Haldane had agreed to assist the directors of the school in the final selection of candidates. In an advertisement for residential pupils, in July 1927, some of
6600-433: Was a Jewish lawyer who died when Pyke was only five, leaving his family with no money. His mother quarrelled with relatives and made life "hell" for her children. She sent Pyke to Wellington , then a public school mainly for the sons of Army officers. At his mother's insistence, Pyke maintained the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew . He became an atheist when he was thirteen. The persecution he suffered instilled in him
6688-429: Was a Jewish lawyer who died when he was only five years old, leaving his family with no money. His mother quarrelled with relatives and made life "hell" for her children. She sent Geoffrey to Wellington, a snobbish private school mainly catering to the children of Army officers; here, she insisted that Pyke maintain the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew . While there, he was a victim of persecution that instilled him with
6776-601: Was a shortage of coal and oil. He recognised that such a use of human muscle power was in some ways distasteful, but could not see that the logic of arguments about calories and coal were unlikely to be sufficiently persuasive. Pyke was given a commission to look into the problems of the National Health Service and, characteristically, made his contribution as a part of a minority report . He remained eager to convey his unconventional ideas, and continued to both write and broadcast them. He campaigned against
6864-490: Was an English journalist , educationalist , and inventor . Pyke came to public attention when he escaped from internment in Germany during World War I . He had travelled to Germany under a false passport, and was soon arrested and interned. During the Second World War , Pyke proposed the newly invented material, pykrete , for the construction of the ship Habakkuk . Pyke's father, Lionel Edward Pyke ,
6952-944: Was based in Cambridge. During The Blitz the Ministry of Supply was moved out of London, and Isaacs was posted to Ashow in the Midlands for most of the rest of the war. Susan travelled there at weekends. Nathan saw little of Evelyn during this time: she had been evacuated at Torquay . In 1945 Isaacs returned to London, with a job at Derby & Co. He was awarded the OBE for his war work, in 1948. In 1946 Susan began to succumb to recurrent breast cancer , and she died in October 1948. She made clear her wish that Nathan, her carer, and Evelyn should support each other. They were married in April 1950. While Piaget's early books met with criticisms formulated by Susan and Nathan Isaac, his later methodology
7040-477: Was difficult. The idea was never used. After World War II, Pyke's inventions continued. One suggestion for the problems of energy-starved post-war Europe was to propel railway wagons by human muscle power – employing 20 to 30 men on bicycle-like mechanisms to pedal a cyclo-tractor. Pyke reasoned that the energy in a pound of sugar cost about the same as an equivalent energy in the form of coal and that while Europe had plenty of sugar and unemployed people, there
7128-565: Was forced to close, Margaret Pyke had to take a job as a headmistress's secretary; she left Geoffrey although they were never divorced. Already suffering from periodic fits of depression and burdened with huge debts to his brokers, he withdrew from normal life altogether and survived on donations from close friends. In 1934, Pyke opposed the wave of antisemitism in Nazi Germany , citing humanitarian reasons. Pyke campaigned for Christian leaders to make simultaneous public statements condemning
7216-472: Was going to be faced with burial expenses on the fifth day". During captivity, he reflected on hunger: Hunger – real hunger – not your going without afternoon tea, or no-eggs-at-breakfast sort of affair – can, when a man is utterly without occupation, make life one continual aching weary desire. If the desire is not satisfied, or does not abate of its own accord (as it very often does), it can have disastrous effects on
7304-471: Was premeditated. An obituary in The Times praised him and lamented his passing, beginning with the words: The death of Geoffrey Pyke removes one of the most original if unrecognised figures of the present century. John Bernal, who knew Pyke well, wrote: He remained always the knight-errant, from time to time gathering round him a small band of followers but never a leader of big movements. Because of
7392-460: Was published, when Oxford philosophy was topical. Lydia Smith, biographer of Susan Isaacs, as a Professor of Education writing about the work of Susan and Nathan Isaacs on educational psychology and child development , stated that "Nathan Isaacs was primarily a philosopher; he was interested in the sources of knowledge, and especially in the relationship between language and thought." Isaacs published in 1960 A Brief Introduction to Piaget , in
7480-475: Was republished in 2002. In March 1918, Pyke met Margaret Amy Chubb , they were married within three months of meeting. Between the First and Second World Wars, Pyke attempted a number of money-making schemes, speculating on the commodity market , using his own system of financial management and working through a number of different stockbrokers to avoid attention and higher stock broking charges. The Pykes had
7568-492: Was sent to Canada with a personal introduction from Winston Churchill to Mackenzie King . While he was away, an Admiralty committee headed by the Chief of Naval Construction sent a memorandum about Habakkuk to Mountbatten. Pyke returned from Canada. Pyke's original memorandum mentioned other applications for pykrete such as building landing ships for the prospective invasion of Japan and for quickly constructing fortifications at
7656-581: Was somewhat different. Isaacs and Evelyn Lawrence promoted his work in the United Kingdom, in alliance with the National Froebel Foundation, who in 1955 published a booklet Some Aspect's of Piaget's Work . Isaacs gave evidence to the committee compiling the Plowden Report on education (commissioned 1963, published in 1967 after his death), as an authority on Piaget. The Report adopted a progressive line, reflecting much of Piaget's influence and
7744-570: Was the middle child of three, having two sisters. In 1907, when Nathan was aged 12, the family migrated to the United Kingdom. Isaacs attended school in London for about four years. He then had a job in Bessler, Waechter & Co., a firm in the City of London trading in metals, particularly pig-iron and ferroalloys . In World War I , he was a private soldier in the British Army , serving in
#168831