At dawn on the 16th August, 1943, Joseph Needham and his travelling companions woke up in a beautiful Taoist temple at Miaotaizi 廟台子. They had failed to make it to their destination the previous day as the only road had been blocked by trucks stranded at a river ford. They set off at 6.15am, and then stopped for breakfast on the road, as described on page 16 of his travel diary, now available online for the first time in the Cambridge Digital Library. We also know that he used this very diary as a plate from which to eat his breakfast, from a photograph also available on the Digital Library. How did he come to be eating his breakfast from such an unusual plate in such an unusual location?
Needham, a Cambridge bio-chemist, had just been made a FRS, and was well-known in academic circles for his writings on science, society and religion. He had been sent to China by the British Council to see what he could do to lend assistance to China’s scientists. He set about his work with gusto and over the next three years he and his colleagues travelled thousands of miles across the length and breadth of “Free China”, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the state and needs of Chinese scientific research community.
The four travel diaries and over 1000 photographs now available on the Digital Library paint a vivid picture of war-torn China, of scientists doing amazing work in even more amazing conditions - in caves, temples and hastily constructed labs in remote locations – and the trials and tribulations of reaching them on washed-out roads in a cranky old truck.
Needham’s experiences in China changed his life and the entire direction of his research career. He had become convinced of the profound significance of Chinese contributions in science and technology to the development of modern science. On his return to Cambridge in 1948, he set about writing a book to detail these contributions, and to attempt to answer the now famous “Needham Question” – why, considering the advanced state of technology and science in China in the 12th century, had the Scientific Revolution not occurred in China?
His search for answers led to the monumental Science and Civilisation in China series, and the establishment of the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge, where his unique collection of books and other research materials are held. None of this would have been possible without the assistance and support over decades of the hundreds of friends he made in China during those exhilarating and enlightening, anxious and exhausting years in wartime China.