Hales’ pneumatic trough

The idea of having a job for life (or even for a few years) has come to be seen as a bit quaint and old-fashioned. Those who work in the gig economy face a stress and uncertainty that those with ‘permanent’ contracts may not appreciate.

Long before employment law, in many European countries, the clergy was a route both to an education and to a stable, predictable career. Many a young man would angle for a quiet curacy out in the country. The life of James Woodforde, a country parson with livings in Norfolk and later Somerset, was utterly unremarkable but for the fact that he kept a daily diary for about 40 years. His parish duties interfered little with a life of fishing, hare-coursing, playing cards, and hanging out with friends to eat jugged hare, mutton, hot tongue and the odd pig’s face.

But for others the security of their living gave them the leisure and the headspace for wider pursuits. One of the most memorable of these would make key experiments to understand the movement of fluids in both animals and plants and invent the apparatus that would usher in pneumatic chemistry.