Inscribing Settler Science: Ernest Rutherford,Thomas Laby and the Making of Careers in Physics

Rutherford Ernest , “Early days in Cambridge” (speech commemorating Sir Grafton Elliot Smith), Rutherford Papers, Cambridge University Library, MSS Add. 7653/PA/308.

Falconer Isobel , “J. J. Thomson and ‘Cavendish’ physics”, in The development of the laboratory, ed. by James Frank A. J. L. (Basingstoke, 1989), 104–17; Kim Dong-Won , “J. J. Thomson and the emergence of the Cavendish School, 1885–1900”, The British journal for the history of science, xxviii (1995), 191–226.

Basalla George , “The spread of Western science”, Science, clvi (1967), 611–21, 611, 617; Pyenson Lewis , Cultural imperialism and the exact sciences: German expansion overseas 1900–1930 (New York, 1985), 1, 2, 7, 27; Pyenson Lewis , Civilizing mission: Exact sciences and French overseas expansion, 1830–1940 (Baltimore, 1993), p. xi.

Home R. W. , “Origins of the Australian physics community”, Historical studies, xx (1982–83), 383–400; Jenkin John , “The Cavendish tradition in Australian physics — Time for change”, The Australian physicist, xx (1983), 46–50.

For a variation on Basalla's three phases of diffusion of Western science, see Australian science in the making, ed. by Home R. W. (Cambridge, 1988). For a case study of colonial physics, see Jenkin J. G. Home R. W. , “Horace Lamb and early physics teaching in Australia”, Historical records of Australian science, x (1995), 349–80. For the influence of New Zealand on Rutherford, see Wilson David , Rutherford: Simple genius (London, 1983), chaps. 1–2; Badash Lawrence , “The influence of New Zealand on Rutherford's development”, in Scientific colonialism: A cross-cultural comparison, ed. by Reingold Nathan Rothenberg Marc (Washington, D.C., 1987), 379–89; Campbell John , Rutherford: Scientist supreme (Christchurch, 1999). For the notion of a moving metropolis see MacLeod Roy , “On visiting the ‘Moving Metropolis’: Reflections on the architecture of imperial science”, in Scientific colonialism, 217–49.

Laby T. H. , Lord Rutherford (Melbourne, 1944), 3.

Sanderson Michael , Education, economic change and society in England 1780–1870 (Cambridge, 1995), 27, 62; MacLeod Roy Andrews E. , “Scientific careers of 1851 Exhibition Scholars”, Nature, ccxviii (1968), 1011–16, p. 1012.

Macleod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1012.

Edgerton David , Science, technology and the British industrial ‘decline’, 1870–1970 (Cambridge, 1995), 30, portrays the dyestuffs controversy as overplayed because the total value of the industry was small. For his discussion of ‘declinism’ in economic, science and technology historiography, see pp. 3–10.

Sanderson , op. cit. (ref. 7), 31; Edgerton , op. cit. (ref. 9), 3, 48–69.

Macleod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1012.

Macleod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 49, n. 10.

Archive of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 [hereafter: RCE of 1851], correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 74. Playfair, Huxley, Roscoe, Mundella, Lockyer, and Garnett were leading members of the National Association for the Promotion of Technical Education, “which acted as a unifying organisation” for reformers according to Sanderson , op. cit. (ref. 7), 31.

Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, Record of award holders in science, engineering and the arts, 1891–2000 (London, 2001), 3–5.

RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 69.

Correspondence with colonial universities about the scholarships operated through the Colonial Office in Britain and abroad. By 1914, according to a Memorandum on the Commissioner's Scheme of Science Research Scholarships, new dominion universities including Manitoba in Canada, and Queensland and Tasmania in Australia, requested inclusion in the scheme. RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, ff. 60, 4.

Macleod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1012.

Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, Report of the Science Scholarship Committee (London, 1923), 3–4.

Home R. W. , “The physical sciences: String, sealing wax and self-sufficiency”, in The commonwealth of science: ANZAAS and the scientific enterprise in Australia 1888–1988, ed. by MacLeod Roy (Melbourne, 1988), 147–63, pp. 156, 159.

Macleod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7).

Subsequently a new edition of the Record has been published, op. cit. (ref. 14).

Macleod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1012.

On censuses, see Cohn Bernard , Colonialism and its forms of knowledge (Princeton, 1996), 7–8; idem, “The census, social structure and objectification in South Asia”, An anthropologist among the historians (Delhi, 1990), 224–54. On tables of early modern German academics, see Clark William , “On the ministerial registers of academic visitations”, in Little tools of knowledge, ed. by Becker Peter Clark William (Ann Arbor, 2001), 95–140, p. 111.

For the difficulty of identifying imperial science policy, see Pyenson , op. cit. (ref. 3, 1985), 2.

RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1.

Ronnenberg Conrad E. , “Armstrong, Henry Edward (1848–1937)”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, i, 288–9; Jenkins E. W. , From Armstrong to Nuffield: Studies in twentieth-century science education in England and Wales (London, 1979), 42–49.

Observations by Dr William Garnett and Professor Armstrong on the Regulations for the Scholarships, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, ff. 41–43.

“Lockyer, Sir Joseph Norman (1836–1920)”, in Dictionary of national biography, 1912–1921, ed. by Davies H. W. C. Weaver J. R. H. (Oxford, 1927), 343–5; Days of judgement: Science, examinations and the organization of knowledge in late Victorian England, ed. by MacLeod Roy (Driffield, 1982), 10, 14.

J. Norman Lockyer to Lord Playfair, 26 June 1894 and Lord Playfair's minute on Professor Lockyer's letter, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 58.

L. C. Sayles to Lord Playfair, 13 November 1895, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1.

Comments on various Scholars having complete second or third year in 1894, 3 December 1895, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, ff. 47–50.

RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 42.

Special charter incorporated the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 in December 1851. MacLeod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1012.

For schoolmasters and academics, see RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, ff. 11–19.

For a case where the Scholar was not employed in his field of research training, see The British Thomas Houston Co. Ltd, 13 June 1898, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 28.

Donelly James , “Industrial recruitment of chemistry students from English universities: A revaluation of its early importance”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiv (1991), 3–20.

For a case where employers felt it was too soon to form an opinion, see Siemens Bros and Co. Limited, 13 June 1898, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 35.

Brunner J. F. L. to Sir Anthony Ellis, 9 June 1898, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 29. For employment of chemists at Brunner, Mond & Co., see Donnelly James , “Consultants, managers, testing slaves: Changing roles for chemists in the British alkali industry, 1850–1920”, Technology and culture, xxxv (1994), 100–28.

Levinstein Ltd to Sir Anthony Ellis, 8 June 1898, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 31.

For scientific benefit to the nation, see letters from The Chiswick Soap Company, 11 June 1898, and Mather & Platt Ltd, Salford Iron Works, Manchester, 17 June 1898, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, ff. 30, 32.

For Voelcker, see RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, ff. 22–25.

Memorandum addressed by the Science Scholarships Committee to the Board of Management, 10 July 1899, RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 10.

Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, Record of the science research scholars of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (London, 1961), 99.

MacLeod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1015.

Fox Robert Guardini Anna , “Laboratories, workshops and sites: Concepts and practices of research in industrial Europe, 1800–1914”, Historical studies in the physical and biological sciences, xxix (1999), 191–294.

Smith Crosbie Wise Norton , Energy and Empire (Cambridge, 1989).

For a recent equation of provincial with colonial, see Pyenson , op. cit. (ref. 3, 1985), 9.

Laby conceded this point in his program for university reform in New Zealand: University Reform Association, University reform in New Zealand (Wellington, 1911), 105.

By 1910–11, of all the inhabitants of the British Empire, three-quarters lived in India. Headrick Daniel , The tentacles of progress (Oxford, 1988), 14.

RCE of 1851, correspondence and papers 1890–1937, Box 1 (80), folder 1, f. 10.

RCE of 1851, Science Scholarships Committee, 19 June 1900.

RCE of 1851, Science Scholarships Committee, 18 July 1907.

Burroughs Peter , “Imperial institutions and the government of Empire”, The Oxford history of the British Empire: The nineteenth century, ed. by Porter Andrew (Oxford, 1999), 170–97, p. 171.

RCE of 1851, Evelyn Shaw to Laby, 23 February 1916, Laby, Science Research Scholar [hereafter: SRS] 242, Part 2.

While memorial activities of scientists have attracted recent historical interest, archives have not featured in this work. For example, see Abir-Am Pnina , “Introduction”, Osiris, xiv (1999), 1–36.

Creswick is near Ballarat, Victoria. New South Wales was a separate colony at the time of Laby's birth and, since federation in 1901, has been a separate state of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Obituary , The Times, 24 June 1946, RCE of 1851, Laby, SRS 242, Part 2.

Except where otherwise indicated, all information in this section is from RCE of 1851, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

Laby T. H. Gurney E. H. , “Analyzes of commercial fertilisers obtainable in New South Wales”, Agricultural gazette of New South Wales, xi (1900), 290–4; Laby T. H. Guthrie F. B. , “Analyzes of commercial fertilizers in New South Wales”, Agricultural gazette of New South Wales, xii (1901), 467–72. For a comparison with agricultural research in India, see Kumar Deepak , Science and the Raj (Oxford, 1997).

Wrigley C. W. , “Frederick Bickell Guthrie (1861–1927), agricultural chemist”, in Australian dictionary of biography, ed. by Nairn Bede Serle Geoffrey (Melbourne, 1983), 143–4.

For 1900/1901, agriculture alone (not including pastoral or other primary industries such as dairying, forestry and fisheries) accounted for 6% of Australia's GNP. All rural industries taken together employed 24% of the workforce. Macintyre Stuart , The Oxford history of Australia: The succeeding age, 1901–1942 (Melbourne, 1993), 28.

Liversidge was a graduate of the Royal College of Science in London, and a chemist, geologist, and scientific publicist in Australia; he convinced the University of Sydney to establish a science faculty, revived the local Royal Society, and helped found the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (1888). Torney Kim , “Liversidge, Archibald (1846–1927)”, in The Oxford companion to Australian history, ed. by Davison Graeme Hirst John Macintyre Stuart (Melbourne, 1998), 395.

Laby to H. C. Banff [Registrar, Sydney University], 22 February 1905, RCE of 1851 Laby, SRS, 242, Part 1.

University of Melbourne Archives [hereafter: UMA], Thorpe to Laby, 8 June 1904, Laby papers, Box 1.

Poynting studied and worked at the Cavendish under Maxwell and Rayleigh between 1878 and 1888.

Woodruff A. E. , “Poynting, John Henry (1852–1914)”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, xi, 122–3; Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2), 209.

RCE of 1851, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

Laby T. H. , “Separation of iron from nickel and cobalt by lead oxide (Field's Method)”, Journal and proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, xxxvii (1903), 157–64.

RCE of 1851, Laby to Banff, 22 February 1905, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

Recommendation to Science Research Scholarships, RCE of 1851, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

For Royal Society, UMA, Thorpe to Laby, 8 June 1904, Laby papers, Box 1. For Poyting, see RCE of 1851, Laby to Banff, 22 February 1905, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

Laby to Shaw, 27 October 1905, RCE of 1851, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

Laby T. H. Mawson D. , “Preliminary observations on radioactivity and the occurrence of radium in Australian minerals”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, xxxviii (1904), 382–9.

RCE of 1851, Laby to Banff, 22 February 1905, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

Laby T. H. , “The total ionization of various gases by the α-rays of uranium”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, A, lxxix (1907), 206–19; Le radium, iv (1907), 439–40. For radium economy, see Boudia Soraya , “The Curie Laboratory: Radioactivity and metrology”, History and technology, xiii (1997), 249–65; Hessenbruch Arne , “The commodification of radiation: Radium and x-ray standards, 1896–1928”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1994.

RCE of 1851, Laby to the Commissioners, 10 June 1907, Laby, SRS 242, Part 1.

UMA, Laby T. H. , Application for the professorship of chemistry in the University of Sydney (1907), 10, Laby papers, Box 3.

Cambridge University Library, Cambridge University Archives [hereafter: CUL, CUA], Cavendish Laboratory, The post-prandial proceedings of the Cavendish Laboratory, 1 January 1906, 7/3/2.

Kaye E. F. F. Laby T. H. , Physical and chemical constants and some mathematical functions (London, 1911); UMA, Laby papers, Box 6.

UMA, Laby T. H. , Application for the Chair of Natural Philosophy in the University of Melbourne (1915), Laby papers, Box 3, 5.

Ibid., 4.

Laby T. H. , “A string electrometer”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Physical Society, xv (1909–10), 106–13.

Royal Institution Manuscripts, E. Rutherford to Bragg W. H. , 26 January 1908, William Henry Bragg Papers, 26A/15.

Dale Henry Sir , speech at Canterbury College, 1949, “Some personal memories of Lord Rutherford of Nelson”, printed in pamphlet form, Nelson, 1950; cited in Wilson , op. cit. (ref. 5), 59.

RCE of 1851, Opinion on the Reports submitted by Mr Ernest Rutherford, Rutherford, SRS 78, Part 1.

RCE of 1851, Andrew Gray to Thorpe T. S. , February 1895, and H. W. Eve to Lord Playfair, 6 March 1895, Rutherford, SRS 78, Part 1.

MacLeod Andrews , op. cit. (ref. 7), 1015. See also Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2), 211.

Falconer , op. cit. (ref. 2), 112–13, 116; Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2), 212, 217.

Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2), 191, 208; Falconer , op. cit. (ref. 2), 112.

Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2), 214.

Cambridge University Reporter , 20 February 1894, 425; Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2), 213.

RCE of 1851, Recommendation to Science Research Scholarship, 1895, Rutherford, SRS 78. Wilson , op. cit. (ref. 5), 58–60, 95, 201–3.

Rutherford to Mary Newton, 3 October 1895, in Wilson , op. cit (ref. 5), 64.

Thomson to Rutherford, 24 September 1895, in Eve A. S. , Rutherford: Being the life and letters of the Rt Hon. Lord Rutherford, O.M. (Cambridge, 1939), 13.

RCE of 1851, Rutherford to Sayles, 11 May 1898, Rutherford, SRS 78, Part 1.

For earlier research cultures in Cambridge physics, see Wranglers and physicists: Studies on Cambridge physics in the nineteenth century, ed. by Harman Peter (Manchester, 1985); Schaffer Simon , “Late Victorian metrology and its instrumentation”, in Invisible connections, ed. by Bud Robert Cozzens Susan (Bellingham, WA, 1992), 23–56; Warwick Andrew , “The worlds of Cambridge physics”, Physics of Empire, ed. by Staley Richard (Cambridge, 1994), 57–86; Falconer , op. cit. (ref. 2), 113.

Falconer , op. cit. (ref. 2); Kim , op. cit. (ref. 2).

Laby was constantly short of money and relied entirely on scholarships. He also did research work at night and during the holidays. See RCE of 1851, Laby to Shaw, 23 October 1905, and Laby to Shaw, 13 October 1908, Laby, SRS 242; First Annual Report May 1906, Laby, SRS 242. Rutherford was also anxious about money, and considered remuneration his due for researches performed. See RCE of 1851, Rutherford to Sayles, 18 June 1897, Rutherford to Sayles, 18 May 1898, Rutherford, SRS 78. Also see Wilson , op. cit. (ref. 5), 100–2; Eve , op. cit. (ref. 93), 14.

For Rutherford, see Wilson , op. cit. (ref. 5), 168–70. For Laby see RCE of 1851, Laby to Shaw, [between 31 August 1906 and 1 July 1907], Laby to Shaw, 13 July 1908, Laby, SRS 242.

RCE of 1851, Thomson to Sayles, 18 June 1897, Thomson to Sayles, 10 June 1897, Rutherford, SRS 78.

See also Falconer Isobel , “Corpuscles to electrons”, in Histories of the electron, ed. by Buchwald J. Warwick A. (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 77–100, p. 92; Morton A. , “The electron made public: The Exhibition of Pure Science in the British Empire Exhibition, 1924–5”, in Exposing electronics, ed. by Finn Bernard (Amsterdam, 2000), 25–44.

CUL, Laby to Rutherford, 27 July 1911, MSS Add 7653/L4.

University Reform Association, op. cit. (ref. 48), 43.

CUL, Laby to Rutherford, 11 October 1910, p. 5, CUL MSS Add 7653/L4.

For a history of coaching, see Warwick Andrew , “Exercising the student body: Mathematics and athleticism in Victorian Cambridge”, in Science incarnate: Historical embodiments of natural knowledge, ed. by Lawrence Christopher Shapin Steven (Chicago, 1998), 288–326, p. 293.

University Reform Association, op. cit. (ref. 48), 44.

Ibid.

Kaye and Laby, op. cit. (ref. 78).

UMA, Rutherford to Laby, 10 January 1911, Laby Papers, Rutherford letters, Box 2.

CUL, Pope and Rutherford, “A Memorandum addressed to the Royal Commission (1920) on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge”, Cam.a.922.5/24, 2.

Ibid., 2.

Ibid., 3.

Ibid., 7.

For example, see RCE of 1851, Laby to Shaw, 3 July 1936, Laby, SRS 242, Part 2.

RCE of 1851, Board of Management, members' correspondence, Lord Rutherford, 1924–38, ff. 30–34.

RCE of 1851, Shaw to Rutherford, 24 April 1936, Board of Management, members correspondence, Lord Rutherford, 1924–38, ff. 14–15.

RCE of 1851, Board of Management, members' correspondence, Lord Rutherford, 1924–38, ff. 30–34.

RCE of 1851, Bragg W. H. , final examiners' report, December 1938, Bower J. C. , ORS 108.

Laby , Lord Rutherford (ref. 6), “Preface”.