Richard McLauchlan (18:15)

Serious Minds charts the astonishing range of the Haldanes of Cloan, the remarkable Scottish dynasty who, like the Darwins and Keyneses, helped to reshape modern Britain.

Richard Burdon Haldane was hailed as ‘one of the most powerful … intellects’ British statesmanship had ever seen. His brother John, a great physiologist, invented the first gas masks. Their sister Elizabeth was among the first women to become a senior public servant. Their mother Mary, friend and advisor to top politicians and churchmen, nurtured these exceptional minds.

The next generation was no less distinguished, and included the novelist Naomi Mitchison, author of 85 books, and her brother, the brilliant but controversial scientist JBS Haldane, whose work became the foundation of the concept of the chemical origin of life.

Richard McLauchlan, Scottish writer and co-founder of the educational charity Light Up Learning, draws on new material for this riveting biography of a family that is a phenomenon to this day.

In conversation with Alan Taylor
Event sponsored by Baillie Gifford

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