The Metcalfe Society - Scientists

Pushing the Boundaries - Metcalfes and the Sciences

Inventor

Mason Jerome Metcalf, Inventor, was born in Fairfax, Maine, Oct. 18, 1807; son of Solomon and Hannah (Donnell) Metcalf; grandson of Simeon Metcalf, and a descendant of the Rev. Michael Metcalf, son of the Rev. Leonard Metcalf, for many years prior to 1616 rector of Norwich cathedral, Norfolk county, England.

Michael, the first in America, a Puritan, came from Yarmouth to Boston with his wife Sarah and nine children in 1637, and settled at Dedham. Solomon Metcalf was a school-teacher, and with his family went from Maine to Zanesville, Ohio. The family returned to Litchfield, Maine, and the son completed his education in the academy at Monmouth, Maine.

Mason engaged in the manufacture of stencils in Boston, at the same time conducting three mills at Monmouth. He was married, Nov. 13, 1834, to Hannah Elizabeth, daughter of John and Rosalinda (Straw) Welch of Monmouth. He resided alternately in Boston and Monmouth until 1864, and thereafter at Monmouth.

He invented a method of producing letter stencils by means of dies; a form of fence made of slabs from saw-mills, which was widely adopted, and a fan wheel for ventilation. He experimented with models for flying-machines, the principle involving the use of a fan wheel or propeller. Another device was a plough having a revolving cylinder with curved teeth, that could turn up the soil and at the same time pulverize it. He never patented an invention.

He was one of the organizers and the first deacon of the Congregational church of Monmouth. He died in Monmouth, Maine, July 23, 1883.

From : The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Volume VIIsubmitted by Janet Ariciu.

Political Economist

Professor Stan Metcalfe, Executive Director of Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition. He is Stanley Jevons Professor of Political Economy and Cobden Lecturer at the University of Manchester. He has lectured at the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool and has been actively involved in the development of policy in the UK to do with science and technology. His research interests are "evolutionary economics and the modelling of evolutionary processes in relation to innovation, competition and economic growth." (From above link.)

Revolutionary Etherworld Inventor

Dr. Robert Metcalfe formerly of New York, Boston, California and now of Kelmscott Farm, Lincolnville, Maine: Ethernet inventor, 3Com founder, a visiting fellow in Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, England during 1991-1992 and cyberspace visionary and journalist. (Cousin of Clifford A. Metcalfe (M#978)

Got a Hanky?

In December, 1995, "Dean D. Metcalfe, M.D., was named chief of the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., a component of the National Institutes of Health. The laboratory is dedicated to state-of-the-art scientific investigations of allergic diseases, which affect as many as 50 million Americans."

Scientist

Professor Don Metcalf discovered, some ten years ago, a drug called GM-CSF for the treatment of diseases in blood cells. This was used in the treatment of the Spanish tenor Jose Carreras. At a dinner in Melbourne Australia to launch a medical research fund the tenor sang Happy Birthday to celebrate the Professor's 68th birthday. Ballarat Courier 27 February 1997. (Mrs Avis White M656)

Medical Doctor

James O. Metcalfe was a leader in Canadian Urology. He helped win international recognition for Canadian urological training programmes while guiding many of the major urological developments over the last fifty years. Now retired he plays golf, fishes for trout and he and his wife Betty have discovered Bridge. They also travel the continent extensively visiting their four children and fourteen grandchildren. (Supplied by Sandi Walton M541 from an article by Peter Metcalfe - J.O's grandson.)

Scientist

Chris Metcalf is a staff scientist (and co-founder) at InCert Software, Cambridge, USA, a software-development company designing application fault management software. Visit his web site.

Chris Metcalf

Mathematician

Ida Martha Metcalf (August 26, 1857 - October 24, 1952). In the 1870's she taught in various one-room schools in New Hampshire communities. In 1886 Ida earned her Baccalaureate degree from Boston University. She then attended Cornell University, receiving her M.S. degree in 1889. In 1893 she became the second American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics with a dissertation entitled "Geometric Duality in Spaces". For a time she was an assistant to Professor George Williams Jones in writing his mathematical textbooks, drill books in algebra and trigonometry, and logarithm and interest tables. Ida worked for a time as a security analyst in a banking office in New York, then won a competitive examination for a Civil Service position in the office of the Comptroller of New York City. She apparently was the first woman to win such an examination. She served in this office until her retirement.

The Metcalfe Society