Queens University Belfast
In the autumn of 1931 Flynn returned to Belfast to take up his position as the Professor of Zoology. As he walked through the arched portal of the Lanyon Building he was entitled to feel a deep sense of pride in achieving the goal he had set himself twenty years earlier.
While Belfast may have lost a little of its status as one of the great mercantile powerhouses of the Empire it was a major city in Great Britain and its university had chosen him as one of its academic leaders. Since the partition of Ireland in 1921 Queens University had an enhanced reputation as the seat of learning in Northern Ireland and set out to match the much older Trinity College in Dublin. He saw the appointment to Queens ‘as one of the most important zoological positions in the British Empire’ and it paid him a total salary of £900 a year plus a pension on retirement.
Queens University Belfast. Flynn’s Department occupied the upper floor of the Lanyon Building to the left of the tower in the above photo. On the first floor above and to the left of the entrance hall was his Department with its large museum and in the left hand wing of the Building was his office looking out at the library. His office was in the centre of the upper floor as shown in photo below.
Flynn’s position had become vacant when his predecessor T Gregg Wilson turned sixty-five. Gregg Wilson, born in Scotland, had been at Queens since 1902, so his tenure was even longer than that of Flynn in Tasmania. In the late 1890s Wilson had been briefly on the staff of the Sydney University with Haswell and Hill, but had returned to Edinburgh before moving to Belfast. In selecting Flynn as the next holder of the chair the university must have been influenced between the similarities of interest of the two men. Both were specialists in embryology and shared an interest in fisheries. Gregg Wilson had for a time been the Inspector of Fisheries for England and Wales.
In 1931 the University had just under 1500 students and 145 of them were enrolled in Zoology. By 1934 that number had grown to 200 but settled down at around 170 until the War ended. Most of the students only did the elementary course (first year) and Flynn took responsibility for teaching this big class. Less than 20 went on to specialise in the subject and they were evenly divided between men and women even though the number of women in first year was often less than 20% of the total class. Flynn gave about 50 lectures to the elementary students during their first year and both first year and advanced students were expected to attend about 150 hours in the laboratory dissecting and describing specimens.
The Zoology Department
When Flynn first arrived he found that he would have the assistance of newly appointed assistant, George Williams, the two would work together for the next seventeen years. Wiliams was a graduate of the University of Liverpool and the two shared an interest in marine biology, particularly pycnogonids Flynn soon recognised his assistant’s abilities and had him promoted to Junior Lecturer in October 1933. Flynn was also able to take on a second assistant and chose another Scot. After nearly three years service Flynn was also able to arrange his promotion. He wrote to the Vice-Chancellor -
“Mr T Kerr MA (Glasgow) Assistant to this Department, reaches the end of his 3rd year of office on 31 Dec next and I have much pleasure in recommending his appointment for a further year. Before Mr Kerr came here he had had a considerable amount of experience as a teacher in the Zoology Department of Glasgow University and the Head of that Department (Professor Graham Kerr FRS) recommended him very highly to us.
He has had charge of the laboratory work (vertebrate and invertebrate) of the senior students, and has also lectured to the advanced classes in certain invertebrate groups and especially has he given a short but very valuable course of lectures on experimental zoology. He is an excellent lecturer. His general manner is quiet but impressive, and from my own observation I know that the students have a great admiration for him and his work.
During Easter 1932 and again this year he took charge of the parties of students studying at the Marine Stations at Millport (Scotland) and Skibbereen (IFS).
Research. In 1932 Mr Kerr finished a piece of work on the ‘Pituitary gland of Lepidosiren and its development” commenced under Professor Graham Kerr and this paper was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Of Edinburgh. Since then, on my suggestion, he has proceeded with 2 lines of research (a) an examination of a Cestode parasite of Echidna. This paper on ‘Linstowia echidnae’ is now awaiting publication in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, (b) an investigation of the early development of some of my own marsupial material. This second problem is one requiring a highly skilled technique. It has not yet proceeded very far but Mr Kerr has already come to highly important conclusions on the origin of the germ-layers in these primitive animals. He is also on his own initiative continuing his research on the pituitary gland of fishes.
I can heartily recommend the extension of his appointment”
As well as teaching Flynn played his part in the administration of the University as he had in Tasmania. Both he and Gregg Wilson were members of the University Teaching Committee and Flynn spent many years on the Buildings Committee. In 1938 he was appointed to represent the Academic Council in the University Senate. He served on the Board of Curators who were responsible for appointing new staff and promotions. Towards the end of the 1938-9 academic year Flynn successfully moved that the Board promote George Williams to full-time lecturer.
The Board found that –
“Mr Williams was born in 1904. He studied in the University of Liverpool, where he obtained the degree of B.Sc with first class honours, he specialised in marine zoology and oceanography, which are the special subjects of the Department of Zoology at this University. Mr Williams was awarded the Herdman Memorial scholarship in 1927, and later received a grant for research in certain fish diseases from the Dept of Scientific & Industrial Research. He was awarded the degree of M Sc by the University of Liverpool in 1929 for a thesis entitled “The parasitology and pathology of edible fish” The major proportion of this thesis was published in the reports of the Lancashire Sea Fisheries.
Mr Williams was appointed Assistant in the Dept of Zoology, QUB in 1929, and in 1933 was raised to the rank of Junior Lecturer, while holding these positions he had complete control of the large first year practical classes and has proved himself to be an excellent disciplinarian and teacher, he has also lectured on certain groups of invertebrate zoology to the senior students and for some years has given the special lectures on genetics to the senior and honours students.
Mr Williams’ investigation on the development of tumorous growths in marine edible fish is well known and his study of the reproductive cycle of the common mussel is the basis of the work of the Electricity Board in preventing the growth of mussels in the submerged apparatus of the electrical station. The importance of his studies of a series of marine biological problems was recognised by the Research Committee of QUB by a grant made in 1936. His work has been published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, the Journal of the Natural History and Philosophical Society of Ireland and other important publications.
It recommended that he be appointed Lecturer in Zoology for a period of 7 years from 1/10/39, at £375 a year, rising by annual increments of £25 to £450 a year.
Like Flynn Williams was the first member of his family to go to University. Although he had a tendency to pomposity he was a good organiser and Flynn recognised his assistant’s abilities and fostered his career in the University. Known universally as ‘Peachy’ for his flawless complexion, he was the very able second-in-command in Flynn’s unit.
The efficient teamwork was soon to be put to the test as war threatened all of Europe.
The Prodigal Son
When the academic year finished Theo and Marelle would often drive to London where he would work with Jimmy Hill for a while on the marsupial project before beginning a holiday. The holidays were often spent in Europe. Marelle drove and in 1935 they went to Spain ‘to enjoy the sun’. During their time in London in 1932 Errol arrived.
A few months earlier he had written to Theo from his Laloki Tobacco Plantation near Port Moresby telling of his hopes of floating the venture as a company so he could manage it for another year and then leave and that he had ‘acquired ambition’.
‘It seems to me Dad that I’ve arrived at the crucial point of my life, next month I will be 23 and I realise I’ve reached the end of a rather prolonged adolescence. But if its been slow its been good and the consciousness of life I now have is perhaps all the more thorough on account of the four and a half years in New Guinea.’
He was at this time very conscious of the opportunities he had squandered ‘whenever I try to write anything really serious. I eschewed education mainly through my own impulsiveness and distaste for the grind of the uninteresting parts.’ He raised again the dream of going to Cambridge, this time to study law. ‘I’ve never passed an exam in my life but no doubts beset me that I could if I decided to.’ Even if he could have afforded it Theo probably had learnt more than enough about his son’s study habits to decline to invest £300 for 3 years in his tertiary education. Thirty years later he told a Hobart newspaper ‘there was never any chance of his following my footsteps in an academic career – school to him was a place to let off his high spirits, not a place where knowledge could be gained’. However he was quietly impressed and perhaps a little envious of what Errol had done since striking out on his own. ‘What other man has owned a goldmine in his early twenties or captained his own trading ship between Australia and New Guinea at 16. Here Theo is revealing a tendency for hyperbole, or poor memory, for Errol did not go to New Guinea until he was eighteen.
Despite his care in drawing up the prospectus the plan to float the plantation did not succeed. However while managing the plantation he wrote a series of articles that were published in The Bulletin and demonstrated his ability as a writer and essayist. He also had his first contact with the film industry when some documentary makers sought him out. When he returned to Sydney in August 1932 his photo in a newspaper led to him being chosen by Charles Chauvel to appear in the film Mutiny on the Bounty in which he played Fletcher Christian. It was his beauty and not his mother’s ancestry that got him the part. This appearance did not lead to fame or wealth either and he briefly returned to New Guinea before setting off for Europe.
On his way to London Errol worked his way around the world from New Guinea via Saigon, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay to Cairo. In Alexandria he landed in jail for two days for obstructing police but finally arrived in England. He, and/or his parents probably decided that Belfast might be rather dull and the new Professor would find it easier to settle in if his adventurous offspring was not in the same city and Errol did not return with his parents to Northern Ireland. He stayed in London for a while but eventually found work writing about the theatre for Spotlight magazine in Northampton. This led him back to the stage with the Northampton Repertory Company where he learnt to act. However after a year or so he had worn out his welcome in Northampton and returned to London. Theo, on his summer break in 1934, relates how he drove his son, in a new Daimler, to the Warner Brothers Studios in Teddington, where Errol worked as an extra. Irving Asher, the company’s representative in England noticed his performances and gave him a screen test. Impressed with his presence on the screen the wayward son had a Hollywood contract before Theo had driven back to Belfast.
Father of a Star
Theo’s predecessor, Gregg Wilson, was appointed Emeritus Professor on his retirement and remained active in University life. He served as both Honorary Treasurer and Bursar and was a member of a number of the administrative committees. Flynn might well have been somewhat apprehensive that his predecessor should remain so involved in university administration and able to look over his shoulder. But it seems that the amiable and pleasant Scot was neither a busybody nor officious. In retirement he had time to introduce the young Vivian Gotto to the wonders of aquatic life in the ponds in the neighbourhood. The two had begun their explorations when Vivian was just 11 years old. The Malone area was referred to as ‘Professor land’ by Gotto for the density of university based households.
Theo was known as a man of considerable presence and enormous charm. In the Department his easy going approach and just allocation of duties resulted in a harmonious team. Since arriving at Queens in 1931 Theo had built a reputation for scholarship and again demonstrated his skill in the lecture hall but five years later he is known as the father of the swashbuckling Errol Flynn. Vivian Gotto, who was a student of Flynn’s in the 1930s and later taught on his staff, remembered ‘the father of the star’ in his book Footprints in the Sea.
Professor Theodore Thomson Flynn, father of Errol would occasionally, expand on the subject of his world famous son.
“When Errol next comes to Belfast, you must play tennis with him” he said. “He’s a pretty good player.” In fact, Errol had performed well as an Australian junior player. “When he plays on a hard court” Theo told me “the blood pours from the back of his right hand.” “How’s that Prof?” I asked. I knew a lot about tennis elbow – but this! “Well, you see” said Theo “he gets down to the ball so well on the backhand that his knuckles scrape the court!” After that, of course, I couldn’t wait to play this masochist – preferably for a modest bet. Unfortunately the match never materialised Errol had a sister, Rosemary, whom I remember partnering at a university dance. Before you enquire, Errol was the sole inheritor of the stunning good looks known the world over, but Rosemary was a very pleasant and agreeable girl to take to a dance.”
The Flynns settled into ‘Professor land’ as though they were born to it. Gwyenth, wife of Vivian Gotto recounts that -
‘Marelle had a reputation as a show off and poseur. George Williams had no time for Mrs Flynn he thought she was snobbish – and indeed she did put on a ‘grande dame’ act on the rare occasions she visited. In 1945 I had hardly got back when the Professor invited me to Xmas dinner at his house in Cadogan Park with a WREN – Prof Stewart’s daughter – to help entertain two Canadian RCAF lads – as part of the Overseas League Christmas event. As I only lived in the next avenue I arrived first; shortly the doorbell rang. As TT moved to answer Marelle said ‘Wait’. Sat herself down at the piano and was thus ‘discovered’ by the new arrivals playing delicately thereon!’
‘Professor land’ enjoyed an active social life in the 1930s and whatever the marital difficulties that Theo and Marelle had in Australia were put aside in Belfast.
Considering the struggle Theo had to meet the costs of his family in Tasmania it is amazing to realize that by 1936 Errol was being paid more than £1000 for a week of filming and later he was earning far more. Theo’s relationship with his son changed from one of dependence and concern to wonder tinged with concern. Errol was transformed from a handsome boisterous and troublesome young man to a world wide model of masculinity and daring with money to burn.
He played his first lead role in a low budget melodrama filmed in England called Murder at Monte Carlo. Warner Brothers sent him to Hollywood in the same year where he made his debut in a Perry Mason mystery called the Case of the Curious Bride, in which he had a famous, if fleeting, role as a corpse. A third minor role in Don’t Bet on Blondes led to his first major part in Captain Blood where he played an Irish physician opposite Olivia de Haviland. In the plot he is sentenced to slavery in Jamaica before escaping to become a pirate. His performance marked Errol’s emergence as a major film star and inevitably triggered significant changes in the status of his family in Belfast. In his 1938 film Dawn Patrol where Errol played a squadron leader in the Royal Flying Corps, his character delivers the line “My father, who is Professor of Biology at Queens University Belfast, says man is the most savage animal on earth.”
By June 1936 Theo and Marelle’s new role as parents of the star had become a public issue.
Irish Times
On This Day/June 6 1936
A special press preview of Captain Blood was given in the Classic Cinema, Belfast yesterday. Prior to the showing of the film, Professor Theodore Flynn of Queen’s University, Belfast, the father of Errol Flynn who has the leading role in the picture, was introduced to those present by TH MacDermott, manager of the Classic. Professor Flynn, in a few concise remarks, spoke of the adventurous career of his son and said that his personality and character were derived from his mother. Captain Blood is showing in Belfast next week.
The next year Errol came to visit on his way to observe the Spanish Civil War as a reporter. When he arrived in Belfast there was greater coverage, and his mother, an avid bridge player, basked in the attention although Theo was still the focus of the newspaper reports.
Irish Times
On This Day/March 9 1937
Errol Flynn follows his father to Queen’s
MR ERROL FLYNN presented the prizes at a bridge session held in the Carlton Restaurant, Belfast, on Monday night in aid of the Queen’s University students’ day hospital collection.
Afterwards Mr Flynn signed scores of autographs and talked to the autograph hunters in a shy, quiet, almost deferential manner that was refreshingly different from the ordinary conception of a film star.
Mr Flynn was introduced by Mrs Ogilvie, wife of the vice-chancellor of Queen's University who said that they all appreciated very much the actor's kindness in giving up that evening out of a short holiday at home in order to present the prizes for the bridge drive.
Mr Flynn said simply "It is a pleasure to come here and I hear that it could not be in a better cause".
Professor PT Crymble said they had all looked forward to seeing the son of their Queen's colleague, Professor TT Flynn.
He wondered what Mr Errol Flynn would think of the party.
"Would any of those present have a chance in Hollywood?" (Laughter)
War Service
Gwyneth Gotto (nee Jones) who enrolled as a first year student in Zoology at Queens in October 1939 and did four years up to Honours in 1943 remembers those years. After completing her degree she served in the WAAF in 1944 and 1945 until the University arranged, on Flynn’s recommendation, for her to be demobilised to become an Assistant Lecturer from the beginning of 1946. She remained in that position until December 1948. Her husband Vivian had also been a student before enrolling in the RAF and after the War was another lecturer in Flynn’s Department. Her recollections describe how Flynn’s Department operated as the War approached.
In those days this was a small one. In 1938 or early 1939 Flynn was asked to take over the Casualty Services of the Belfast Civil Defence. As far as I know he attended the University only to take the first year’s lectures – from 9 till 10 three mornings a week. The rest of the Department was under was under the supervision of the senior lecturer, George Williams M Sc. Williams had been there about as long as Flynn and was very able and well organised, but had a chip on his shoulder because he’d been too young to have fought in WWI, but had to compete with those who had and also had not been Public School educated. In the late 1920s and early 1930s in England (not Ireland) this probably had been significant. He got on well with Flynn who didn’t fit into either bete noires. Williams didn’t seem to mind taking the burden of work and not getting the credit. There was another lecturer, Miss Doris Elias who left for maternity reasons in 1945 thereby opening a place for me. An assistant lecturer Delphine Crowe was appointed about this time (from Trinity College Dublin).
Classes
As in those days Botany, Zoology and Geology were not taught in most Ulster schools, candidates wanting to do Honours in these had to do a pass degree first, then an Honours Certificate in a fourth year. An average year would probably at that time have been some 20 first year students (Intermediate Science-Zoology studenta), 8-10 doing second year 8-10 doing subsidiary Zoology plus 3 or 4 doing Main Zoology, third year 3 or 4 completing their Main degree; fourth year 2 or 3 doing Honours certificate with finally an occasional Postgraduate doing a Masters – say one in 3 years. It was wartime!
However – and presumably why Flynn took first year lectures – all medical and dental first year students had to do two terms of zoology (and botany) – I think about 160 people in all. Also all first year Agriculture students (20-25) had to do three terms. Thus the first year lectures were very large but it is a credit to Flynn’s personality that they were very quiet. The same ‘audience’ two hours later each day gave their Chemistry lecturer a very noisy time!
Prof’s lectures circa 1939
I remember the first year as fascinating – Intro to Zoology – but mainly general human stuff. As there were no epidiascopes and normal charts were too small, he had chalk diagrams covering the enormous double blackboards of eg. circulation systems. I don’t know whether he came in ‘after work’ to do them or whether Miss Elias did them. I do know that when he was back full time in 1945-6 etc. he did do them most meticulously himself.
Second year. Any Agriculture student doing Honours had to do a Zoology subsidiary – usually 4 or 5 of them. For all students, the second and third year were combined , all doing invertebrates one year and vertebrates next or vice versa. Courses were Classification based primarily, followed by more specialised topics The second and third year courses were combined. i.e. The whole years 2 and 3 did an invertebrate year and the next year 2 or 3 did vertebrates – everybody was basically Classification based though of course all other sections came in as well.
The senior students and a few casuals helped Mr Williams demonstrating in practicals for first term (3 hours once a week for all). There was one lab assistant (untrained – ex-footballer) and later a junior – likewise not even having done science at school!
Serving the cause
In 1939 David Lindsay Keir became Vice-Chancellor at Queens. Vivian Gotto described him as ‘tall, dark, undeniably handsome and possessed a very genuine but almost overpowering charm. To encounter him, however casually, was to trigger a return to the courtesies of 16th century England. If women were involved, he didn’t exactly make a formal bow, but the downward sweep of his hat and outstretched arm came pretty close to it. These invariable and rather touching gestures made him a master of fund-raising for Queen’s. He also had the enviable ability to get along splendidly with everybody’. Keir and Flynn with similar reputations as charmers became friends.
Keir, actively supported the enlistment of University staff in both the armed services and associated civilian services: by 1941 twenty-one staff members were engaged in national service. It is likely that Keir encouraged Flynn to work in the civil defence of the city. From the beginning of October 1940 Flynn was given leave of absence ‘for national service’ and ‘his services were ‘placed at the disposal of the Civil Defence Authorities in Belfast’. Williams was designated acting Head of Department and paid an extra £100 a year, the assistants, Miss Elias & Miss Gaffikin also got £50 pa extra each .
The Belfast City Corporation had an Air Raid Precaution Committee as the War began but both the authorities and the citizens believed their city was beyond the range of enemy bombers. Civil Defence in Belfast was the responsibility of the Minister for Public Security, John Clark MacDermott, but supervised by part-time volunteer officers. The Casualty Service was headed by the Belfast City Medical Superintendent, Dr. Charles Thomson. In September 1940 Thomson reported that Prof Flynn ‘had been doing magnificent service as Equipment Officer but he considered that his abilities could be better utilised if he were in control of the existing organization under the Medical Superintendent and his deputy’. He added that Flynn should be given a free hand to run the lay side of the casualty service. The Minister, the Corporation and the University Council agreed that the University would replace Flynn on ‘a whole time basis except for special lectures to be given one or two mornings a week.’ £350 a year would be provided to employ substitute lecturers. The ‘special lectures’ were to first year students where Flynn would address more than 200 students.
When Dr. MacMillan resigned in 1941 the whole administration was vested in Flynn as Chief Casualty Officer. Around Christmas 1940 Flynn inspected a number of similar centres in England and on his return to Belfast reorganised his service by planning to establish 22-25 depots where casualty and transport staff would be located. He returned the 15 buses that had been lent for use as mobile aid posts and replaced them with cheaper vehicles. However he had difficulty in convincing his superiors of the urgency of the task. Although Belfast was the most densely populated city in Great Britain it had only 200 air raid centres in the early days of the War. On March 24, 1941, John McDermott, Minister for Security, wrote to the Prime Minister, John Andrews expressing his concerns that Belfast was so poorly protected. "Up to now we have escaped attack. So had Clydeside until recently. Clydeside got its blitz during the period of the last moon. There [is] ground for thinking that the ... enemy could not easily reach Belfast in force except during a period of moonlight. The period of the next moon from say the 7th to the 16th of April may well bring our turn." Unfortunately, McDermott was proved right. On the night of the 7-8th April, Belfast suffered the first of 4 air raids in 5 weeks. On the first night Flynn’s service recorded 13 killed but this was dwarfed by the loss of 900 8 days later.
“On Easter Tuesday, April 15, 1941 up to 200 bombers left their bases in Northern France and the Low Countries and headed for Belfast. At 10:40PM the air raid sirens sounded. The first attack was against the city's waterworks, which had been attacked in the previous raid. High explosives were dropped and when incendiaries were dropped and the city burned, the water pressure was too low for fire-fighting. Altogether 203 metric tons of high explosives bombs, 80 landmines attached to parachutes, and 800 firebomb canisters containing 96,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. There was no opposition. In the mistaken belief that they might damage RAF fighters, the 7 anti-aircraft batteries, ceased firing. But, the RAF had not responded. The bombs continued to fall until 5AM. About 1,000 died. 56,000 houses (more than half of the city's housing stock) were damaged leaving 100,000 temporarily homeless. Outside of London, this was the greatest loss of life in a night raid during the Blitz. By 4AM the entire city seemed to be in flames. Since 1:45AM all telephones had been cut. “[Wikipedia]
Belfast Blitz 15 April 1941
Major Seán O’Sullivan, reported on the intensity of the bombing in some areas, such as the Antrim Road, where bombs “fell within fifteen to twenty yards of one another.”
The most heavily-bombed area was that which lay between York Street and the Antrim Road. His opinion was that the whole civil defence sector was utterly overwhelmed. Heavy jacks were unavailable. He described some distressing consequences, such as how “in one case the leg and arm of a child had to be amputated before it could be extricated.”
In his opinion, the greatest want was the lack of hospital facilities. He went to the Mater Hospital at 2PM in the afternoon, 9 hours after the raid ended, to find the street with a traffic jam of ambulances waiting to admit their casualties. He spoke with Professor Flynn, (Prof Thomas Flynn a Newzealander (sic) based at the Mater Hospital father of Errol Flynn of Hollywood fame) head of the casualty service for the city, who told him of “casualties due to shock, blast and secondary missiles, such as glass, stones, pieces of piping, etc.” O’Sullivan reported: “There were many terrible mutilations among both living and dead - heads crushed, ghastly abdominal and face wounds, penetration by beams, mangled and crushed limbs etc”. His report concluded with: “a second Belfast blitz would be too horrible to contemplate’.
On the 4/5 May another 191 residents of the city lost their lives and 14 more killed the next night. The impact on Flynn and his civilian staff must have been enormous and many citizens joined the forces after the experience although general conscription was not imposed. The result of the raids lasted for a long time and sorely tested Flynn’s unit. The Sorella Buildings, set aside for the ARP headquarters, was where all the minutiae of administering the impact of air raids on the city were dealt with and the expected threat from V1 and V2 rockets addressed. From reducing the cost of hiring ambulances, to the complaints of lost materials when persons were moved from bombed buildings, and ‘an unprovoked attack on two of the uniformed ARP officers while on duty near the Shankill Road.’
After the War
As the War was ending Flynn wrote a history of his Service that detailed its successes and failures. Considering that until Belfast was unexpectedly bombed for the first time in 1941 Civil Defence was not treated seriously, the failures were relatively few. The inexperience of his staff was revealed when as bombs fell his ARP officers often rushed to physically save people and abandoned their crucial role in maintaining communication and delivering supplies. Similarly mortuary arrangements tended to fall down as staff rushed to aid the injured. Flynn remained in charge until the service was disbanded in 1945. He was created a Member of the Order of the British Empire by King George Vl for his service.
When the War ended Flynn returned to full-time teaching and head of his Department but the transition was smooth. Flynn had given the big first year lectures often still in his uniform. George Williams had run things so well that that Theo could ease himself into place and think about the future. He was now sixty-two years old and knew that he must retire in three years time. The disruption to his serious research projects may have also brought that aspect of his life to an effective end. He was a fellow of the Linnaean and Zoological Societies of London and the International Institute of Embryology and a member of the Irish Academy but he was now not just looking at a future life as a former distinguished academic but also as the father of one of the world’s best known men. His visit to America just before the War had showed him a world he could scarcely comprehend but which must have left an indelible memory.
Marine Research at Queens
The study of marine biology had been a feature of Queens for more than 80 years when Flynn arrived in 1931. The first Professor of Natural History at Queens College, as it was then known, William Thompson studied the marine life in Strangford Lough and published the first scientific paper on the area. The third incumbent was Sir Charles Wyville Thomson FRS, a founder of deep sea oceanography, who had held the chair from 1854 to 1868. He had come to Belfast when he was just 24 years old and from there launched his pioneering work with James Carpenter. Although he had never completed an undergraduate degree he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society of London when just 39 and knighted for his studies when 46. The fifth professor, Gregg Wilson, was predominantly a freshwater entomologist but, like Flynn, had played a part in managing commercial fisheries and both conducted research in marine biology. Flynn’s assistants George Williams, who had been a student at the University of Liverpool’s marine laboratory on the Isle of Man, and Thomas Kerr continued the tradition. Easter excursions to conduct field studies were a traditional element in teaching of biology at Queens. The Ulster Fisheries and Biology Association had established a marine biological facility in Larne in 1903 but, although a new station was planned, it soon closed. The Easter excursions often consisted of visits to other marine stations in Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
While Flynn dabbled in marine research on the Zaca he left George Williams to work on a more serious initiative to boost the capacity of the Department to undertake marine research and teach students marine biology. In January 1946, before Flynn left for America, he had obtained the approval of the Academic Council to set up a Marine Biological Station at Portaferry. A month later the Council decided that the control of the station would be vested in a Committee to be chaired by the Professor of Zoology. Thus Flynn held the title of Director when he left to visit Errol. On returning to Belfast from the Zaca cruise Flynn announced that his son planned to set up a fund to study marine life to be jointly administered by Queens and an American university. Flynn hoped that the planned foundation would endow the Portaferry facility of which he was Director. It is unclear whether this demonstrates the success of Errol’s strategy to resume a closer relationship with his father but as with other such schemes this one came to nothing.
Retiring
On reaching sixty-five Theo was required to retire from the University. The Finance Committee discussed Flynn’s retirement benefits and decided that in return for a computed seventeen years service he would be paid a lump sum of £850 and an annual pension of £450. His loyal lieutenant would again act as head of Department and receive an allowance of £300 a year.
The almost twenty years that Flynn spent in Belfast were, despite World War II, far more tranquil than his time in Tasmania. It was also less productive in terms of the number of papers published. His teaching was still lauded but his research work was more focused. Before arriving in Belfast he had published almost 40 scientific papers, afterwards only the two major works with Hill. It is as though his time in Tasmania was a time of exploring the world of biology combined with frantic single-minded effort to prove himself. Having gained international recognition the struggle could be put aside. In addition in Tasmania he was always battling to meet his financial commitments and for much of the time he lived alone.
Gwyneth Gotto’s summary of him at this time is in marked contrast to the more frantic existence in Tasmania.
The Prof was pleasant, not exactly easy going but not demanding, good company and a pleasure to work with. Mrs F on the other hand I think didn’t have such an easy touch with her husband’s colleagues and staff, tho’ accepted as a poseur but harmless.