Sir Harold Hartley, F. R. S. An appreciation on his retirement from the editorship of Notes and Records

Abstract

Sir Harold Hartley was appointed editor of Notes Records on 8 May 1952. His achievement in eighteen years of editorship can best be introduced by the words he used of his predecessor, Sir Gavin de Beer, that ‘Note and Records came to be regarded as one of the authoritative journals devoted to the history of science’. In Sir Harold’s hands, Notes and Records not only deepened and established this authority but became among such journals outstandingly interesting and attractive, by reason of the authors he attracted or marshalled, his planning and editing, and his use of illustrations. He introduced issues devoted to particular topics, Charles Darwin and A. R. Wallace, Captain James Cook, Watt and Arkwright, Edmond Halley. Outstanding was the special Tercentenary issue, with its account of the origins of the Society and the biographical articles on the founders, followed in a later issue by three equally important papers on the Intellectual Origins of the Royal Society.