The Achievement of George Sidney Brett (1879–1944)

THE ACHIEVEMENT OF GEORGE SIDNEY BRETT (1879-1944) JOHN A. IRVING WITH the death of George Sidney Brett in Toronto on October 27, , 1944, the world lost its greatest historian of psychology, and Canada its most distinguished philosopher. ' I He was born in Briton Ferry, a seaport of Glamorganshire, South Wales, on August 5, 1879, of English parents, George J. and Emmeline Brett. , His father was a Methodist minister whose birthplace was Ca~ter­ bury, in 1849. After training at Didshury ,College, the elder Brett was appointed in '1873 to his fi~st circuit. On the occasion of his death in 1915~ after forty-two years in the ministry, he was described in the minutes of the Wesleyan Conference of England as a man whose personal life was characterized by sincere piety and humility and an absorbing devotion to, duty: "He had a high ideal o'f the Christian ministry, and was loved as a cu1tured, Christian gentIeman. In business he was methodical and exact, cautious and tactful, a capable and strong administrator, giving that strict attention to detail which only a man engrossed in his work could give, and with a fund of quiet, genial humour that smoothed away many difficulties. To partake of the Lord's Supper with him was a benediction. His sermons were thoughtful and incisive, and were born of a rich and ripe experience." Many of these expressions might, with propriety, be used to describe his eminent son. George Sidney Brett was one of the most impersonal ormen; no one could have had a greater regard than he for personal privacy. There is little on public record or floating in tradition regarding his youth. Without being secretive, he rareJy dipped into his personal past, and only then to illustrate some _ impersonal point. From 1890 to 1898 he attended Kingswood , the great Methodist preparatory school founded by John Wesley at Bath. The fare at this school' is wholesome, the discipline very rigid, and the learning of the highest quality. Brett was an extra-year scholarship holder (six years only being allowed 'on the' foundation as of right) in 1896; in that year he also won the Bunting Medal, awarded to the Head Boy of the school, and his name is accordingly inscribed on the walls of Kingswood. In 1897 he was awarded the Farmer Prize for an English Essay, and in 1898 the Meek Medal for proficiency in Greek Testament. ' During his final year he was both Senior Prefect and President of the Senior Literary Society. Before leaving the school he also won a medal for an .open all-England essay 1n political science. At ,Kingswood it was only fitting that Brett (who became and remained , throughout his life one of the most loyal sons and advocates Oxford ever '329 330 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY \ had) should have -come under the infhrence chiefly of two Cambridge men, W. P. Workman and F. Richards. Workman, the Headmaster, was a brilliant mathematician and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Brett's interest in science was developed and strengthened by his courses in physics and statistical method. Between 1890 and 1900 \Vorkman was very much excited about geology and began a collection of specimens at the school (the Bath district is peculiarly suitable fo~ geological collections) which has gone on ever since. Several well-known men, such as Professor Raw, Professor Swinnerton, and F. A. Potts of Trinity Hall, made early c6'ntributions and the collection is now first rate. This enterprise interested Brett immensely, and he referred to it with mor~ feeling than was his custom when he discussed the modern transformation of geological science in his lectures on nineteenth-century thought. His enthusiasm for science and the history of science may be traced directly to the period at Kingswood. While still at school Brett had some thought of taking up medicine as a profession: This early interest in medicine never abated,-and many years later , in Toronto, he became a lay member of a Medical Historical Club. One of his published papers, originally delivered before a Stated Meeting of an Academy of Medicine, dealt with Francis Gall and the condition of medicine at the-end of...