WN Hartley & Family

“One of the major instruments in the entire collection is the 'giant spectrometer' used by Walter Noel Hartley in his classical researches on the spectra of the chemical elements. Although of English birth, Hartley moved to Dublin in 1879, where he was employed in the Royal College of Science in Merrion Street, now the Offices of the Taoiseach. He was the first person to establish that relationships exist between the wavelengths of spectral lines of the elements and their positions in the periodic table (published in 1883), and he studied also the relationship between the structure and spectra of a wide variety of organic compounds. This important work led to his election to Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1884, and to a Knighthood in 1911 (J. Burnett in Mollan 1990a,39).”

Following WN Hartley's death, the following obituary appeared in "The Times" on 12 September 1913:

Sir Walter Noel Hartley, F.R.S., D. Sc., died at Braemar yesterday in his 68th year.
Sir Walter Hartley was for many years a leading figure in the scientific life of Dublin. He occupied there with great distinction the Chair of Chemistry and was Dean of Faculty of the Royal College of Science in Ireland. He was an authority on the scientific side of Irish education, and was granted the degree of D. Sc., honoris causa, by the late Royal University. He acted for some time as vice-president of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland. Sir Walter Hartley, who was knighted in 1911, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the author of numerous publications in the transactions of various learned bodies, including the Chemical Society and the Dublin Society. Among his public works may be mentioned: 'Air and its Relations to Life' (1876), 'Water, Air and Disinfectants' (1877) and 'Quantitative Analysis' (1887). He was awarded a gold medal at the St Louis Exposition, 1904, for scientific applications of photography and a silver medal in chemical arts. In 1906 he gained the Longstaff medal of the Chemical Society for researches in spectro-chemistry, and in 1908, the Grand Prix for spectrographic research at the Franco-British Exhibition. He was president of Section B (Chemistry) of the British Association, 1903-04.
The funeral will be at Braemar.

Walter and his wife Mary known as May (nee Laffan), who he married in 1882 and probably later separated from, had one son, Walter John, born in Dublin in 1889, who died at Gallipoli (from the CWGC site : Name: HARTLEY, WALTER JOHN Initials: W J Nationality: United Kingdom Rank: Captain Regiment: Royal Irish Fusiliers Unit Text: 5th Bn. Date of Death: 16/08/1915 Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 178 to 180 Cemetery: HELLES MEMORIAL

Following is some information about his wife, Mary Laffan:

1849-1916; née Mary Laffan; b. 3 May, 41 Phillipsburgh AVe., Clontarf (Dublin), 2nd child & eldest dg. of a Catholic father and Protestant mother, Michael Laffan and Ellen Sarah [née Fitzgibbon]; raised Catholic; moved to 4 Cross Ave., Blackrock; ed. Dominican Convent, Sion Hill; d. of Mrs. Laffan, 1861; d. of Ellen Sarah, her dg.; proceeded to Alexandra College; poss. spent time in France; acted as volunteer social worker in the Liberties with Fr. C. P. Meehan; contrib. article on ‘Convent Boarding Schools for Young Ladies’to Frazer’s Magazine (June 1874), criticising the regime; issued Hogan MP (1876), an Irish retelling of the Faustian theme, and suffered nervous breakdown at its ill-reception; issued The Hon. Miss Ferrard (1877) ...; issued Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor (1879), together with The Game Hen, accounts of poverty in Dublin, and Baubie Clarke, concerning a street singer in Edinburgh; Flitters led to an admiring letter from John Ruskin [printed in his Correspondence]; trans. Hector Malot’s San Famille as No Relations (1880); fnd.-member of Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1880; m. Walter Noel Hartley, chemist of King’s College and FRS, 1882; moved to Ballsbridge; engaged in promoting High School for Irish Catholic Girls; ceased writing during her marriage; issued Ismay’s Children (1887), set in Paris and prob. written by 1882; issued A Singer’s Story, also set in Paris; a son, Walter John, b. 1889, became lect. in bacteriology in Cardiff and d. at Gallipoli. 1915; May Laffan Hartley becomes mentally unstable, and admitted to Bloomfield Hosp., 1910; Walter Hartley knighted 1911 and d. suddenly 1913; May d. 23 June; highly praised by T. P. O’Connor in his additional vol. to Read’s Cabinet (1880); author’s correspondence held by Macmillan & Co.

And

‘May Laffan Hartley’, in Blackrock Society: Proceedings 2003 [2004]: ‘May Laffan Hartley, novelist, was born at 41 Phillipsburgh Ave., Clontarf, Dublin on May 3rd, 1849, second child and eldest daughter of Michael Laffan and his wife Ellen Sarah, nee Fitzgibbon. There was a gap in social rank between the parents. The Fitzgibbon family, originally tenants on the Knight of Glin’s Estate in Co. Limerick, moved to Dublin in the 1820s, joined the Church of Ireland, and took part in the business life of the city. Gerald Fitzgibbon, fourth son of the family, became a barrister, and subsequently a judge. He founded a legal dynasty, and was guardian of his niece, Ellen Sarah, whose father, Thomas Fitzgibbon, died young. Michael Laffan also came from a tenant-farming background, but in North Tipperary. His father was a publican, and Michael, exceptionally for a Catholic, had become clerk in the Dublin Custom House in the 1840s. / May Laffan had one older brother, William (b. 1848), two younger brothers, Michael Fitzgibbon (b. 1852) and James (b. 1854), and two younger sisters, Ellen Sarah (b. 1850) and Catherine (b.c. 185 8). All the Laffan children were reared as Catholics. / [...] May Laffan Hartley wrote accurately and entertainingly of the emerging middle class in nineteenth-century Ireland, particularly with reference to Dublin. Her novels owe little to English influences; much more to Balzac. She can be seen as belonging to that late nineteenth-century group of Irish realist writers to which Emily Lawless, Violet Martin, George Moore and Edith Somerville also belonged, though unlike them she did not come from a land-owning background. Her inheritance of mixed religious traditions enabled her to comment on differing views and beliefs in a way which presents a vivid and original picture of the social and political climate of her time.’(Bibl., James Murphy, Catholic Fiction & Social Reality in Ireland 1873-1922, 1997; John Sutherland, The Stanford [sic] Companion to Victorian Fiction, 1989; Robert Welch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, 1996.)