Hi Doug, He was certainly not all starchy white in reputation and was definitely a bit of scoundrel at times, in a very British way of course.
You wrote "Anyways, he was definitely one of the most colorful characters of early meteorite enlightenment, and as a publicist actuallydeserves in my opinion even more credit than he gets" You also wrote "Wonder what Prof. Pillinger thinks of this?" Well, i know that Professor Pillinger is currently researching a book all about Edward Topham so we will have to wait and see what his conclusions are! :-) Cheers Martin On 10 February 2012 11:22, MexicoDoug <[email protected]> wrote: > "Edward Topham was not a Sir" > > Hi Martin, > > Thanks for the kind reply; Someone else also said he was a Sir, I'm trying > to remember. Maybe there really is more to the story. But, even if he were > to have been knighted, wasn't George a bit too mad by that time, or are > there others who have that power I wonder... > > Topham didn't even earn his title of "Major", he was just a captain, and > upon retirement I think the policy was just to bump Captains up to Majors so > they got bigger pensions. The newspaper he founded, as far as I can tell, > was the very first widely circulated tabloid newspaper in the world > (coincidently named 'The Globe'). However, he got into all kinds of legal > troubles just before the meteorite fell and had to close it down, since he > apparently has offended a well-respected recently dead man. If I recall, he > pulled through the episode by the skin of his teeth and set some common law > presicents in England saying a dead man's estate can't sue for libel. > > While he may have been respected in certain circles, I think he just sponged > off Mrs. Wells during fair weather, made a business out of her with benefits > (after this blew over she became a nun) and then as her superstar status > began to wane, let her rot in jail and took her children away from her for > himself. I'm sure it was a bit more complicated than that (she had a > brother or brother in law who was a scoundrel), but still, IMO he was just a > fancy-pants socialite. I really don't mean to offend since we like to give > as much respect as we can to those great men and women in the history of > meteorites, but the respect he got was probably more like a straight Perez > Hilton of today (and many people live for that stuff in the USA!). So I > think it is worthwhile mentioning. > > When you think about the circumstances of the exhibition of the meteorite, > it sort of fits together in my opinion, but I'm sure there are alternate > interpretations out there that make him a hero instead of one of the King's > yes-men ;-) > > Anyways, he was definitely one of the most colorful characters of early > meteorite enlightenment, and as a publicist actuallydeserves in my opinion > even more credit than he gets. Wonder what Prof. Pillinger thinks of this? > > Kindest wsihes > Doug -- Martin Goff www.msg-meteorites.co.uk IMCA #3387 ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
