Guardian Notes & Queries 16 10 13 - Why is Humpty Dumpty an egg?
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In July 1945, the chief architect of the atomic bomb, J Robert Oppenheimer, pondering on the success of the recent nuclear test at White Sands, recalled a line from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
One hundred-and-forty-three years earlier, and approximately five-thousand miles to the east, another man of science, this one a “rattle-brained” naturalist by the name of Edward Caton, had also earned himself the moniker 'destroyer of worlds.' On this occasion the title was not self-appointed, but was bestowed upon him by his peers at The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Knowledge of the Natural Sciences (later it was renamed The Royal Society of the Natural Sciences by men with more common sense than its founders).
Caton's grand folly, which was to earn himself a toehold in the footnotes of history, was the careless placement of a perfectly spherical gharial egg (a gharial is a narrow-jawed, fish-eating crocodile native to the Indian subcontinent) which, during a prolonged idle moment, had been transformed by the society’s librarian into an ornamental globe of the planet earth. While the egg/globe was far from unique, forming part of a whimsical collection of orbicular specimens that had been harvested from various species of bird and reptile and subsequently painted with geopolitical maps of the world, it was regarded as one of the better examples of the art form. Invariably it rolled from its temporary settings and shattered into pieces on the tiled floor of the map room at the headquarters of The Royal Society, which was at the time located in Somerset House.
Even in their undecorated state, gharial eggs remain impressive feats of evolutionary engineering. They emerge from the body of the female as a floppy, leathery pouches, each the size a golf ball. During the hours immediately after being laid, the combined actions of heat and humidity causes them to inflate until they have taken on roughly the same proportions and dimensions as a football, at which point the shell calcifies and hardens.
The uniqueness of this particular gharial egg was compounded by it being possibly the only globe of its time to incorporate the short-lived African country of Banda, which existed as a nation state for a mere 20 days before forces beyond the control of its nascent sovereign government wiped it from existence.
We learn more about the circumstances of the breakage from a written account of a meeting that took place at The Royal Society the following day. It is here that we also encounter the first mention of 'Humpty Dumpty'.
Caton's grand folly, which was to earn himself a toehold in the footnotes of history, was the careless placement of a perfectly spherical gharial egg (a gharial is a narrow-jawed, fish-eating crocodile native to the Indian subcontinent) which, during a prolonged idle moment, had been transformed by the society’s librarian into an ornamental globe of the planet earth. While the egg/globe was far from unique, forming part of a whimsical collection of orbicular specimens that had been harvested from various species of bird and reptile and subsequently painted with geopolitical maps of the world, it was regarded as one of the better examples of the art form. Invariably it rolled from its temporary settings and shattered into pieces on the tiled floor of the map room at the headquarters of The Royal Society, which was at the time located in Somerset House.
Even in their undecorated state, gharial eggs remain impressive feats of evolutionary engineering. They emerge from the body of the female as a floppy, leathery pouches, each the size a golf ball. During the hours immediately after being laid, the combined actions of heat and humidity causes them to inflate until they have taken on roughly the same proportions and dimensions as a football, at which point the shell calcifies and hardens.
The uniqueness of this particular gharial egg was compounded by it being possibly the only globe of its time to incorporate the short-lived African country of Banda, which existed as a nation state for a mere 20 days before forces beyond the control of its nascent sovereign government wiped it from existence.
We learn more about the circumstances of the breakage from a written account of a meeting that took place at The Royal Society the following day. It is here that we also encounter the first mention of 'Humpty Dumpty'.
As has been previously mentioned, the gharial egg was a recent addition to the society's collection. Professor Joseph Hislop (grandfather of the missionary – The Reverend Stephen Hislop) had been present during its arrival at Somerset House and had watched one of the stewards struggling with the wooden crate that it had been delivered in:
“The man heaved the crate so that it was about level with his chest. The great strain of his efforts causing him to make an involuntary sound: “HHMMMMmmmtee!” He duly staggered through two rooms while I followed behind at a respectful distance, ready to offer assistance if any was required. Upon reaching the map room he gingerly lowered the crate to the ground, making a “DMMMMmmmteee” sound as he did. I knew not what was contained within the crate but resolved, there and then, that, whatever the contents, I would name them Humpty Dumpty in recognition of this gentleman’s sustained efforts.”
Hislop's account ends with the popular nursery rhyme. There is no indication as to who penned the ditty, or whether it was recited at the meeting, although its presence in the minutes suggests that it was. There is a long-standing, casual tradition of members' poetry infiltrating the otherwise formal proceedings of The Royal Society, most famously Erik Haslter's lament for what was potentially an entirely new species of monkey, last witnessed by him leaping with reckless abandon into the caldera of an active volcano.
Confusingly, the lines in the nursery rhyme relating to “all the king's horses and all the king's men' appear to refer to a completely separate incident that had occurred during the previous week: A French diplomat had visited the court of King George III on an undisclosed matter. The meeting had not gone well and had eventually escalated into an angry exchange of insults. At some point the English monarch had made a sweeping gesture with one arm and had overturned the vase that had earlier been presented to him by the diplomat, causing it to fall to the floor where it smashed.
Although there is no evidence to suggest that the breakage was anything other than an unfortunate accident, the French contingent, of course, took it as an intentional snub. As the servants of the King gathered around the shattered vessel in an attempt to assess and possibly repair the damage, the diplomat and his entourage flounced from the court. Mention of the king's horses probably arises from a rumour that King George had received the diplomat while mounted on his horse, although this may well have been propaganda aimed at discrediting the monarch and casting aspersions on his sanity.
One of the unforeseen consequences of the deteriorating relationship between France and England was the sudden removal of the aforementioned African nation of Banda from the geopolitical landscape. Had the vase remained intact, it is likely that the country would have endured long enough to find its way onto world maps and globes beyond those fashioned from unusually spherical crocodile eggs.
The Royal Society meeting ended with Edward Caton making an impassioned defence of his actions. Here we learn that he removed 'Humpty Dumpty' from its stand in order gain access to a copy of Martin Lister's Tractatus de Araneis, placing the egg/globe securely on a narrow counter where it had appeared to move and subsequently topple under its own momentum.
There are a number of interesting postscripts to this story:
A week after the destruction of Humpty Dumpty a baby gharial was discovered in a desk drawer at The Royal Society. The engineer, Andrew Mulinder, speculated that it may have emerged from the broken egg and then been concealed there by Caton out of embarrassment. The more likely explanation is that it was placed in the drawer as a practical joke by society member Marcus Deary, who was known to collect live reptiles, and who had past form for exactly this kind of thing, having once hidden a leopard iguana in his oldest daughter's bridal bouquet.
The gharial was christened Humpty Dumpty after the broken vessel from which it had reputedly emerged. A home was eventually found for it in an ornamental pond in what was to become Regents Park. The pond was annexed by London Zoo in 1861 and remained a habitat for gharials right up until 1964 when it was re-landscaped and colonised by terrapins.
A 'Catons Omelette' is a term that remains in common use in museums and galleries, both in the UK and abroad. It describes the accidental destruction of an artifact, or work of art, as a result of human error, usually occurring during transportation: e.g. – “Kemp made a right Caton's omelette of that Picasso.”
A large fragment of the Humpty-Dumpty globe, depicting the long-forgotten African nation of Banda, along with other parts of northern Africa and southern Europe, remains in the inventory of The Royal Society, but has not been seen in public since 1973. When I last spoke to Sir David Fetch I mentioned this to him. He told me that the piece was “extremely delicate and really beyond the point where it can be handled”.
“The man heaved the crate so that it was about level with his chest. The great strain of his efforts causing him to make an involuntary sound: “HHMMMMmmmtee!” He duly staggered through two rooms while I followed behind at a respectful distance, ready to offer assistance if any was required. Upon reaching the map room he gingerly lowered the crate to the ground, making a “DMMMMmmmteee” sound as he did. I knew not what was contained within the crate but resolved, there and then, that, whatever the contents, I would name them Humpty Dumpty in recognition of this gentleman’s sustained efforts.”
Hislop's account ends with the popular nursery rhyme. There is no indication as to who penned the ditty, or whether it was recited at the meeting, although its presence in the minutes suggests that it was. There is a long-standing, casual tradition of members' poetry infiltrating the otherwise formal proceedings of The Royal Society, most famously Erik Haslter's lament for what was potentially an entirely new species of monkey, last witnessed by him leaping with reckless abandon into the caldera of an active volcano.
Confusingly, the lines in the nursery rhyme relating to “all the king's horses and all the king's men' appear to refer to a completely separate incident that had occurred during the previous week: A French diplomat had visited the court of King George III on an undisclosed matter. The meeting had not gone well and had eventually escalated into an angry exchange of insults. At some point the English monarch had made a sweeping gesture with one arm and had overturned the vase that had earlier been presented to him by the diplomat, causing it to fall to the floor where it smashed.
Although there is no evidence to suggest that the breakage was anything other than an unfortunate accident, the French contingent, of course, took it as an intentional snub. As the servants of the King gathered around the shattered vessel in an attempt to assess and possibly repair the damage, the diplomat and his entourage flounced from the court. Mention of the king's horses probably arises from a rumour that King George had received the diplomat while mounted on his horse, although this may well have been propaganda aimed at discrediting the monarch and casting aspersions on his sanity.
One of the unforeseen consequences of the deteriorating relationship between France and England was the sudden removal of the aforementioned African nation of Banda from the geopolitical landscape. Had the vase remained intact, it is likely that the country would have endured long enough to find its way onto world maps and globes beyond those fashioned from unusually spherical crocodile eggs.
The Royal Society meeting ended with Edward Caton making an impassioned defence of his actions. Here we learn that he removed 'Humpty Dumpty' from its stand in order gain access to a copy of Martin Lister's Tractatus de Araneis, placing the egg/globe securely on a narrow counter where it had appeared to move and subsequently topple under its own momentum.
There are a number of interesting postscripts to this story:
A week after the destruction of Humpty Dumpty a baby gharial was discovered in a desk drawer at The Royal Society. The engineer, Andrew Mulinder, speculated that it may have emerged from the broken egg and then been concealed there by Caton out of embarrassment. The more likely explanation is that it was placed in the drawer as a practical joke by society member Marcus Deary, who was known to collect live reptiles, and who had past form for exactly this kind of thing, having once hidden a leopard iguana in his oldest daughter's bridal bouquet.
The gharial was christened Humpty Dumpty after the broken vessel from which it had reputedly emerged. A home was eventually found for it in an ornamental pond in what was to become Regents Park. The pond was annexed by London Zoo in 1861 and remained a habitat for gharials right up until 1964 when it was re-landscaped and colonised by terrapins.
A 'Catons Omelette' is a term that remains in common use in museums and galleries, both in the UK and abroad. It describes the accidental destruction of an artifact, or work of art, as a result of human error, usually occurring during transportation: e.g. – “Kemp made a right Caton's omelette of that Picasso.”
A large fragment of the Humpty-Dumpty globe, depicting the long-forgotten African nation of Banda, along with other parts of northern Africa and southern Europe, remains in the inventory of The Royal Society, but has not been seen in public since 1973. When I last spoke to Sir David Fetch I mentioned this to him. He told me that the piece was “extremely delicate and really beyond the point where it can be handled”.
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