From Despair to Triumph
Flynn arrived in London on 6 October. Professor Hill put him on the train for Paris the same evening in order to discuss his fellowship with the European office of the Rockefeller Foundation in Paris. After he returned to London and started work, Wilbur Tisdale, Assistant Director of the Natural Sciences Division in the Foundation visited him: ‘saw his work on monotremes. JP Hill says there is nothing like his material anywhere. They have together solved the sectioning problems …they have quite taken London by storm.’ On 7 November Hill told University College administration that Prof T Thomson Flynn has now settled down to work here with a subvention from the Rockefeller Foundation. I desire to recommend that Prof T Thomson Flynn be appointed an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Anatomy & Embryology. He is Ralston Professor of Zoology in the University of Tasmania.’
Flynn took with him ‘an unexampled collection’ of monotreme eggs. ‘The monotremes (platypus and echidna) form a group at the very base of the stem of higher mammals and their investigation, hitherto neglected, is of the highest importance’ he later reported to the Ralston Trustees. The sectioning that Tisdale refers to was very difficult; Flynn, Hill and their assistant W Barker had to develop a new technique. It was not until Easter 1931 that they had the first series of thirty eggs ready for study. Flynn said he gave two lectures to the Zoological Society and one to the Anatomical Society during his stay in London. Hill reported the work to the British Association later in the year.
Theo’s future looked black. However, midway through his year’s fellowship Flynn found the opportunity he was seeking. The Chair of Biology at Queens University Belfast became vacant; this prestigious position was heaven sent if he could only land it. Eleven men applied including two other professors and one associate professor. Three of the applicants held positions at Welsh universities, two in England and one in Scotland. Two were working in Canada and another two in Egypt; one of these latter was R S Wimpenny, the Director of Fisheries Research there.
Queen’s Senate appointed a nine member Board to consider the applications. It met three times, and called Flynn to Belfast for an interview before selecting him, and NJ Birrell, Associate Professor of Zoology at McGill University in Montreal, as their nominees to the Senate. Senate confirmed Theo’s appointment at its meeting on 17 June 1931. Flynn cabled the Tasmanian Vice-Chancellor ‘Appointed to-day Chair of Zoology, Belfast. Commencing early October. Leaving next week arriving Hobart end of July’. At the next University Council meeting in Hobart, ‘It was moved by the Vice-Chancellor, seconded by Professor Pitman and resolved that the resignation be accepted’.
When Errol heard the news he concluded that there was -
a friendly planetary influence that watches over the destinies of the Flynns when they’re in adverse circumstances. I’ve noticed it time after time. When things look blackest and there seems no loophole of escape, something pops up and alters the entire complexion of the situation. This has been a phenomena to me over a short but very varied career anyhow.
And to think you click for this job when things are intolerable in Australia and the future of your chair in Tasmania was highly problematical only convinces me more than ever that you must be a very well educated person.
Having to be back in Belfast by October, Flynn’s return to Hobart was hurried. During his short stay he resumed residence at Pressland House where a fellow boarder was Louis Bisdee, later a member of the Tasmanian Parliament. Bisdee recalled that Theo was then ‘a very fine well groomed man’ who always wore a black bowler hat. He was greatly admired by the ladies of Hobart but never mentioned his wife. He took pride in himself and led a good life, always concerned about Errol and had trouble meeting the lad’s debts. Bisdee’s comments appear to confirm that Marelle was still in France all this while.
Miss Travers had competently carried out her teaching and might have had aspirations to continue in the role. However she found difficulty with administrative duties doubtless complicated by her mentor’s legacy of unfinished issues. Flynn had so little time in Hobart that it is doubtful whether he was able to assist his young protégé to assume his position. In the later half of 1931 Isobel taught both botany and zoology and did some botanical research. She commenced work on a University of Tasmania herbarium that would be later greatly expanded by Dr Winifred Curtis. When VV Hickman was appointed Lecturer in 1932, she took a position on the staff of Abbotsleigh in Sydney and then Canberra Girls Grammar School where she met Audrey Morphett. The two formed a partnership that ended only when Audrey died in 1965. In 1934, at the encouragement of Lyndhurst Giblin, the two came to Hobart and founded the Fahan School for girls in lower Sandy Bay. Apart from some teaching of Botany at Fahan Isobel Travers appeared gradually to lose her interest in biology.
Ralston money still came in sufficient quantity to pay Hickman’s salary, but otherwise he could not have started his career in University teaching at a less auspicious time. Government funds decreased and all Australian academics endured salary cuts during the Depression. There were a couple of retrenchments in Tasmania. As the numbers studying Biology increased Hickman found it very difficult to get to do the research needed to satisfy the Ralston Trustees. The situation did not improve until he got an assistant to teach Botany in 1937.
One Last Tasmanian Problem
The reproduction and embryology of the echidna had been studied by Flynn at least since 1927. It was the last link in his examination of the embryology of the Tasmanian marsupials. In one of the specimens he collected he found the first egg that had been seen in this animal for forty years. Alexander Morton found that egg in the pouch, while Flynn’s was the first found in the uterus. He displayed it to members of the Royal Society and published the note in its Papers and Proceedings. Flynn collected more specimens between 1927 and 1930, it was this study that led him to Hill’s Department. His collections were endorsed and funded by a grant from the Royal Society of London. In 1930 Flynn published a description of the unsegmented ovum of the Echidna that he had dissected out from the preserved egg by removing the yolk with needles and a small brush. The paper was recognised as a major advance in the study of marsupial embryology, and is still widely reported almost 80 years later. One of his students, FD Cruickshank, dissected out the uteri while Flynn was in London.
Some of these animals Flynn collected himself but most must have been provided by hunters. About a month before Flynn left for London the Mercury printed an article questioning the collection of these animals. A new Board had been set up in 1929 to better conserve native fauna and Police Commissioner Lord added its chairmanship to his responsibility for the Sea Fisheries Board.
By the time this ‘Animals and Birds Protection Board’ had met in October 1930 the newspaper article and a letter had come to Lord’s attention and he had police investigate the matter. They reported to Lord that forty or fifty echidna had been supplied to Flynn without a permit, and parts had been taken to England. The Board decided to write to the University about this apparent breach of the law. The Registrar expressed his regret; Flynn was in England and the Board’s letter would be forwarded. On returning to Hobart in July 1931 Flynn declared ignorance of the Board’s concern. The Board reconsidered the case on 11 August, being told that Police had found fifteen live echidna in the possession of Arthur Weeding of Triabunna, addressed to Prof Flynn. Weeding said he assumed Flynn had a permit for he had been supplying the animals for some years. Flynn wrote to the Board on 12 August tendering his apology for not obtaining a permit saying that he had talked with Lord and sought permission and believed Lord had said ‘it would be alright’. Lord told the Board he had no recollection of such a discussion. Flynn sought a permit for twelve echidna (that he already had) and asked to meet the Board.
A special meeting was held on 18 August, the day before Flynn was due to leave Tasmania forever. Before Flynn joined them members were told that he had received 100-120 echidna and that police had found an abandoned crate in Strickland Avenue containing seventeen echidna ‘that had passed through Prof Flynn’s hands’. The Government nominee on the Board, lawyer A L Butler, said he was not impressed with ’the generosity and sincerity’ of Flynn’s statement and he accused Flynn of selling echidna skeletons in America. On his second last day in Tasmania Flynn may have recalled that about ten years earlier he had locked horns with another lawyer from the extensive Butler family, still Theo professed contrition.
‘had he not believed that he had permission he would never have advertised for the animals’.
He ‘exceedingly regretted the misunderstanding’ with Lord.
He had not known the Board was upset ‘until the last few days and he would not have been so disrespectful or foolish as to go on collecting’.
Nevertheless Flynn rejected Butler’s claim about sales to America and said he had not taken large numbers to London, merely some parts of females in glass jars for teaching and research purposes.
Flynn left again for London with his permit and the twelve echidna, and the Board followed up with a letter. It said the Board was not against scientific research, but an offence had occurred and Flynn was to blame. The Board had been ‘grossly ignored’ by Flynn in not seeking a permit, but accepted the specimens he had were for bona fide research and not for commercial gain. This was not a precedent for leniency, and permits must be sought if further specimens were required.
The work by Flynn and Hill on the echidna was so promising that further specimens were required. Care was taken to apply properly through the University of Tasmania. In June 1933 the Board received a letter from Hill thanking them for ‘allowing Mr V V Hickman to collect porcupines for them’. Further
“Mr Hickman had advised them that he had secured a number of eggs and Professors Hill and Flynn were in hopes that they would be able to complete their monograph on the early stages of the echidna, which the Zoological Society of London had agreed to publish and so a fill a gap in zoological knowledge which had existed since 1884 when Caldwell first showed they laid eggs. Their only regret was that the work had necessitated the capture of one of the most interesting members of Australian fauna, but they hoped the addition to scientific knowledge would prove sufficient justification.”
Despite this peace offering Eric Guiler came to believe that this, and another similar case involving a researcher, created a long lasting antagonism between the Board and science. The above story is another example of Flynn’s rather cavalier attitude to form and regulation. He admitted that he should have had a permit, but did not bother to seek one. Of course it should be recognised that it must have been common knowledge to those in and around the Board that he had been collecting these animals for at least four years. He dissected them, used them in his classes and exhibited them at a meeting of the Royal Society, yet no one queried his collecting. He had considerable contact with Colonel Lord between 1927 and 1931, perhaps they did discuss the subject. Perhaps this final brush with authority added to Theo’s relief at going to a new position far, far away.
The Tasmanian Legacy
The grim situation, begun by the reluctance of the University to nurture its major benefactor, and elevated to a crisis by the onset of the Depression, was relieved by Flynn’s resignation. However, the teaching of biology at the University did not escape so easily and the relative position of research compared to teaching in the University was also inhibited. The University of Tasmania had to wait a long time before such farsighted support for academic research reappeared.
Hickman believed much blame for the whole debacle lay with the Trustees. However a closer examination suggests a more complex situation. Hickman was teaching chemistry at the Launceston Technical College throughout the 1920s so was not a first hand observer of the debate going on between the Trustees and the University. He was a protégé of Flynn’s and the two met each time the professor went to Launceston to report on his research. In the twelve years that Hickman taught in Launceston Flynn fostered his interest in biology by sending specimens and equipment. Thus it would be understandable that Hickman, through to old age, should reflect Flynn’s own view. The forgoing pages have shown that the Trustees made their views clear to the University, which refused to take heed. Many of Flynn’s problems had more to do with the University administrators than with the Ralston Bequest and Trustees.
In spite of all, during his Tasmanian sojourn Flynn showed outstanding talent. Accordingly a top British university selected him for a Chair when the institution in which he had worked for more than twenty years planned to demote him. While other Australians had been appointed to chairs in British Universities, Flynn appears to have been the first to have been both born and trained in Australia and directly appointed as a professor. Such an achievement seems to have been overlooked both at the time and subsequently.
Theo reported to the Ralston Trustees for the last time on 5 August 1931. He thanked them for their many courtesies. ‘I may however express the hope that whoever may be my successor and whatever may be his status he may be given a tenure which will free him from the harassing uncertainty for the future which has caused me so much worry for the past few years.’