Page 173 - Transcriptions d'actes notariés - Tome 20 - 1682-1686

deepened his Irish fientinient and gave hini a kno~ledge of Caelic. so
usetu1 to him afterwards, prevented hini from hining his sttide as a
student. Philosophy and Literature attraeted him, but his true bent as
a scientist did not reveai itself until he entered the Medical School.
There, however, it eventually found full scope, and hia graduatian as
an M.D. in 1883 launched him upon a seientific career which i~as to
carry him very iar, even to membersbip in the Royal Society within
fifteen ycars.
Another circumstanee of his years in the Medical School entered
deeply into his habit of thonght and continued to the end. Deprived of
his father by death, he had to aupplement the diminished faniily resourees
by eoaching baekward students, and by part-time teaching in local
aeademies. Shortage of funds is not an uncommon experience with
ahidents. What is uncommon ie that one of them should remernber it
to the advantage of suceeeding generations of studcntfi. Sir Bertram did
remember it. One of the features of his administration at Cork was his
move to provide Municipal Scholarships. For the gradua~ee at Cork he
proved to be a veritahle employrnent bureau, to the dcep gratitude of
many of ihem. At Toronto it was the nndergraduates who were to
bcnefit from his generrisit y. He will alwayfi be remembered there through
the Windle Scholarships for which he graciously provided in his will.
Windle's active eareer in the British TsIes is divided between Birm-
inphani and Cork. The Birmingham period set ihe pattern that was
renolutely folIowed tu the end uf his life - competent scholarship,
proljfic pen. and bonndless energy. What stands ont is his drive to get
thinp done. Starting as a resident pathologist in the General Hospital
elilin aftcr graduation {rom Dnblin, he went on to the chair of Anatomy
in ihe Medical Sehool, later beeame its Dean, and eventually the eliief
influence in creating the Univerdty of Birmiiigham, which came into
bein~ in 1900.

What Sir Bertram did lor Birmingham was, however, more than
matchcd by what Birmingham did for him. That eity was, in the 188Ois,
the honie of Cardinal Newman. How could Windle wjth his inquiring
mind and wide interests avoid contact with him ! The eontaet was made
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through reading the Apolo~ia. But it was not made upon a cold niuscle.
Already Windlc had moved away irom the anti-Catholieism whjch was
a major sport at Trinity in his undergraduate daYs. lt happens that
in Birmingham St. Chad's Cathedra1 stands across the Street from the
GeneraI Hospital. The young pathologist was attracted by the Grepiirjan
music, and became a frequent visitor to the eathedral. At one visit he
heard a sermon on the Irnmaculate Coneeplion, which aronsed hi3
interest. It was at this favorable moment that he read the dpobgin.
But another book did even more for hirn, paradoxieally. It wa3
Littledale's Plain Reasons /or Nos Joining ~he Church O/ Rome, sent by
a friend who probably suspected the drift of Windleos thinking.
LittIedale stopped hirn in his Romeward tracks, but only teinporarili;.
The chance discoverv in a bookstore w,indow of an An~wer to Phin,
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- .. .
Reasons removed the roadblock, and even served to accelerate his speed.