Folk Fae Fife

The Fife Science Festival

Many scientists and innovators do not fall strictly into the other main categories of science featured on this website, but their disciplines are indeed scientific in practice. As such, on this page you will find “a scientist”, architects, civil engineers, economists, inventors, ornithologists, photographers and surveyors whose work relied upon scientific method and principles.

Calotype photograph by Adamson and Hill, Fish wives baiting lines. This is a typical scene championed by the partnership, with action and local figures in Fife.

Born in Kirkcaldy, Nimmo was to be most influential in Ireland as a civil engineer. He worked with Thomas Telford who was a valuable advocate. Nimmo published important articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia on the theory of carpentry, bridges and inland navigation. He settled in Dublin.

Alexander Nimmo

· 1783 - 1832, Kirkcaldy and University of St Andrews alumnus

· 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790, Kirkcaldy

The author of the The Wealth of Nations and “father of economics” was born in Kirkcaldy, where he attended a top secondary school. He then studied moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Smith became a major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment whose economic analyses and writings vision promoted liberty and reason.

Adam Smith

The term scientist was inspired by Somerville’s writings. So, in a sense, she was the first scientist. When social conventions to family allowed, she wrote articles about science and earned international acclaim. She and Caroline Herschel were the first two female members of the Royal Astronomical Society, as such they were pioneers for women scientists. Somerville College, Oxford, and a lunar crater are named in her honour.

Mary Somerville

· 1780-1872, Burntisland

Kosacki escaped his native Poland in 1939 and developed the Polish mine detector in St Andrews in 1941. The mine detector was first used at the Second Battle of El Alamein and rapidly increased the army’s ability to clear mines. The technology was used by the army until 1991.

Lieutenant Jozef Stanislaw Kosacki 

· 1909–1990, St Andrews

Lawson is credited for designing some of New Zealand's most important historic buildings. He was most influential in Dunedin, where he designed many churches in the Gothic Revival and Classical styles. He emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1854 then to New Zealand in 1862.

Robert Arthur Lawson

· 1 Jan 1833 – 3 Dec 1902, Newburgh

Lindsay distinguished himself at St Andrews. In 1829 he became a lecturer at the Watt Institution in Dundee. Allegedly he invented the incandescent light bulb, submarine telegraphy and arc welding, but claims are not well documented though evidence remains that he “demonstrated a constant electric light” in Dundee in July 1835, years before Thomas Edison.

James Bowman Lindsay

· 8 Sept 1799 - 29 June 1862, University of St Andrews alumnus

Rev Henry Liston

· 1771-1836, Aberdour

Liston was a minister by profession, but he had strong interests in music. He invented a new organ, known as a Euharmonic Organ, which had 58 pitches within an octave. He also patented an improved plow (1813), which was used locally and had a distinctive shape.

E-mail:

folkfaefife@st-andrews.ac.uk