The Postcard
A Valentine's Series postcard that was printed in Great Britain.
The card was posted in Ormskirk using a ½d. stamp on Tuesday the 16th. June 1908. It was sent to:
Miss E. Plant,
15, Duke Street,
Douglas,
Isle of Man.
The message on the divided back was as follows:
"Dear Eva,
Many thanks for yours
of yesterday, I will write
on Wednesday.
Hope you are all keeping
well.
Kindest regards to Mr. &
Mrs. S.
Yours sincerely,
H. & H.G."
Vernon Ellis Cosslett
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 16th. June 1908 marked the birth of Vernon Ellis Cosslett, FRS. Vernon was a British microscopist.
-- Vernon Ellis Cosslett - The Early Years
Vernon was the eighth child (of six sons and five daughters) of Welsh cabinet maker and carpenter, later clerk of works on the estate of the Earl of Eldon at Stowell Park, Edgar William Cosslett (1871–1948). His mother was Anne (née Williams; 1871–1951).
Vernon was raised in Cirencester, and educated at Cirencester Grammar School, the University of Bristol, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut, Berlin-Dahlem, and University College, London.
-- Vernon Ellis Cosslett's Career
Vernon was a research fellow at Bristol after completing his PhD in 1932, having been awarded an H. H. Mills Memorial Fellowship, remaining there until 1935.
He then lectured at Faraday House Engineering College, London, until 1939, whilst undertaking part-time research at Birkbeck College, London.
Between 1939 and 1941 he was Keddey-Fletcher-Warr Research Fellow at London University, working at the University of Oxford as a temporary lecturer, then lecturing in physics at the University of Oxford Electrical Laboratory from 1941 to 1946.
From 1947, as an ICI Research Fellow, he worked with William Lawrence Bragg at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University on the electron microscope, and founded the Electron Microscopy Department. He also developed improved x-ray machines.
Cosslett was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1972 and won the Royal Medal in 1979:
"In recognition of his outstanding contributions
to the design and development of the X-ray
microscope, the scanning electron microprobe
analyser, the high voltage and ultrahigh resolution
(2.5A) electron microscopes and their applications
in many disciplines."
Vernon was elected president of the Royal Microscopical Society, and was also instrumental in the creation of International Federation of Societies for Electron Microscopy where he was president from 1970 till 1973.
-- Vernon Ellis Cosslett's Personal Life
Cosslett's first marriage was in 1936 to Rosemary Wilson. During the Second World War, Cosslett provided accommodation for refugee scientists at his flat in Hampstead.
Thus he met Viennese physicist and microscopist Dr. Anna Joanna Wischin (1912–1969) whom he married in 1940 following his divorce from his first wife. Dr. Anna Cosslett also worked at the Cavendish Laboratory. He had a son and a daughter from his second marriage.
Vernon died at the age of 82 on the 21st. November 1990.
Marian Montagu Douglas Scott
Also born on the 16th. June 1908, in London, was Marian Louisa Montagu Douglas Scott.
Marian Louisa, Lady Elmhirst (previously Ferguson; née Montagu Douglas Scott, was the first daughter born to Lord Herbert Montagu Douglas Scott and Marie Edwards.
She was the paternal grandmother of Sarah, Duchess of York, and the maternal great-grandmother of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York.
Lady Elmhirst was also a first cousin of Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott, who became the Duchess of Gloucester after her wedding to Prince Henry, and an aunt-by-marriage of Queen Elizabeth II. The Countess Spencer, Cynthia, paternal grandmother of Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, was her 2nd. cousin.
-- Marian Montagu Douglas Scott - The Early Years
Montagu Douglas Scott was born the second child of Lord Herbert Montagu Douglas Scott and Marie Josephine Edwards, daughter of James Andrew Edwards and Kate Marion Agnes MacNamara.
-- Marian Montagu Douglas Scott's Marriage and Family
On the 1st. November 1927, at the age of 19, Marian married Colonel Andrew Ferguson (1899 – 1966), in London. The couple had two children:
-- John Ferguson (1929 – 1939)
-- Ronald Ferguson (1931 – 2003)
Her first son, John, was ten years old when he died from peritonitis. In 2019, Marian's granddaughter Sarah, Duchess of York, revealed in a speech that her uncle had died as a result of an allergic reaction after he ate a crab sandwich.
Her second son, Ronald, was the father of Sarah, Duchess of York, and the maternal grandfather of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York. Ronald Ferguson died on the 16th. March 2003 from a heart attack, after a lengthy battle with skin and prostate cancers.
On the 30th. October 1968, a little more than two years after the death of her husband, Andrew Ferguson (4th. August 1966), Marian married Sir Thomas Elmhirst, widower of the late Katherine Black, thus becoming Lady Elmhirst. Sir Thomas died on the 6th. November 1982.
-- The Death od Lady Elmhirst
Lady Elmhirst died on the 11th. December 1996, at Dummer, Hampshire, in her 88th. year. At the time of her death she was survived by her son, Major Ronald Ferguson, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
