I nearly wrote something about the pseudoscience angle — Bernard seems to be remembered mostly for his scepticism about evolution these days, as he co-founded the Evolution Protest Movement in the 1930s, with another physicist, Ambrose Fleming (inventor of the diode). I wondered if Marion might have influenced Bernard’s scepticism about relativity, since she was educated in the pre-Einsteinian days of classical physics? But the problem here is that I’m not sure what Bernard meant by ‘relativity’ — IIRC he uses the term in his 1930 letter to the Times, but there he means the relative motion of birds/aircraft and wind currents.

But his anti-scientific stance and her scientific education are certainly a curious fit, and invites speculation …

My assumption was that Marion was ‘officially’ associated with Neon in some way, and not just by rumour, partly because of the Casey letter (he had the info ‘confidentially’, and he would have moved in pretty high circles). But maybe it was something like what you suggest — after all, most of the discussion I have is from people sympathetic to the RAF and the Air Ministry (Spaight was a senior civil servant there, though he doesn’t actually suggest Neon was a women). Wish I knew why the BL so confidently declared that Neon was Marion!

Anyway, glad I could provide some momentary diversions :)

That is a v. neat detective story which gripped me completely. Judging from the title of “This Bondage: A Study of the “Migration” of Birds, Insects, and Aircraft, with Some Reflections on “Evolution” and Relativity”, the scientific Marion was allowing herself to be a sock puppet for a fairly dotty point of view.

But maybe she sat enthralled at the dining room table listening to the energetic submariner nephew, as her husband was approaching death.

If she had her diploma in 1893, she was born some time around or earlier than 1873. So she was maybe twelve years older than Bernard and probably around sixty at publication. Her husband was older - he was 74.

Assuming that she was not a mature age student and therefore any age short of senility, she could well have relished some kind of entry into a fight that she supported. It was a way out of grief, into a wider immediacy.

We have to wonder why the guess about Marion was considered to be plausible. Surely, in the technocratic culture of London, those who could pick her behind the pseudonym would see past her to the truculent submarining nephew.

There is even a metaphor of concealment in this very idea.

Maybe there was some notion that the argument was denigrated even more completely if it could be pinned on a woman, a recent widow to boot. The Neon name being a primary bit of evidence, of course.

Ah, I do love this superficial crap.

Ah, the fun of trash speculation…

LOL! That would have been a surprise to Mr Acworth too! Thanks.

Nice article and an interesting story.

Sorry to be a picky git, but I fear you may have inadvertently sprung a typo… “It turns out that Marion was the husband of Joseph John Acworth” was a surprise.