RUTHERFORD, SIR ERNEST (1871-1937), 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was born at Brightwater, Nelson, the fourth son of a wheelwright, James Rutherford who came to Nelson from Scotland in 1842. His mother, Martha Thompson, came to New Plymouth in the early fifties. They were married in 1866, and had a family of 12. Mrs Rutherford was a woman of good education and high character, a good organiser and musician. Ernest attended the schools at Foxhill and Havelock, and from the latter won a Marlborough education board scholarship, gaining 580 marks out of a possible 600. This took him to Nelson College (1884), where he came under the influence of W. S. Littlejohn (q.v.), who took a great interest in his progress and gave him a thorough grounding in mathematics. He won all the prizes and scholarships in classics, French, English and mathematics, and in 1888 was dux of the College. He was a keen footballer and a popular boy. In 1889 Rutherford won a junior university scholarship, being third on the list. W. S. Marris (later his rival at Canterbury College, and now Sir William Marris, principal of Armstrong College, Newcastle), was first. At Canterbury College Rutherford came under the influence of C. H. H. Cook (professor of mathematics) and A. W. Bickerton (professor of physics). He graduated B.A. in 1892 with a senior scholarship in mathematics and M.A. in 1893 with first-class honours in both mathematics and physics (a very rare event). In 1894, while teaching at the Christchurch Boys' High School, he carried out researches on a magnetic detector of Hertzian waves, which he described before the Canterbury Philosophical Institute (29 Nov 1894). These researches were carried out in a rough basement cellar with a battery made by Rutherford during his holidays on his father's farm at Pungarehu (Taranaki). The detector was highly sensitive and led to many other magnetic detectors of wireless waves (for one of which Marconi took out a patent in 1902). In 1894 he graduated B.Sc. and was awarded the 1851 Exhibition science scholarship (which had been offered to J. C. Maclaurin, q.v.). He had to this point assisted his father during his holidays and helped to finance the education of his sisters.

In 1895 Rutherford entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as one of the first graduates of oversea universities admitted as research students. He entered upon his work at the Cavendish Laboratory with great enthusiasm under Professor J. J. Thomson, who was then at the zenith of his powers, and had for 10 years been concentrating on problems associated with the passage of electricity through gases in a partially evacuated chamber. In Nov 1895 Röntgen discovered that electricity passed through at high voltage with a high degree of vacuum produced invisible rays which could pass through the glass walls of the vessel and through outside opaque objects and could affect a photographic plate. Working under Thomson, Rutherford "devised very ingenious methods for measuring various fundamental qualities and obtained very valuable results which helped to make the subject metrical, whereas before it had been only descriptive." They published their results in Nov 1896 in a paper which was the foundation of the ionisation theory of conduction of electricity through gases. These experiments attracted wide attention. After Madame Curie's discoveries with uranium ore, Rutherford applied his knowledge and technique to radiation from uranium and thorium, and in 1898 completed an analysis with a complete verification of the ionisation theory. The most important result was the identification of alpha, beta and gamma rays. The first named (which were doubly charged atoms of helium) specially appealed to Rutherford and later proved effective in unravelling many atomic secrets. With his reputation based on such promising investigations, he was in 1898 offered the research professorship at McGill University, Montreal, where, through the generosity of Sir William Macdonald, he enjoyed exceptional facilities for research. He soon gathered about him a band of workers from Canada and elsewhere, and prosecuted with enthusiasm his researches into the radio-activity of thorium. In association with Professor Soddy, who undertook the chemical work, he investigated the nature of various radio-active substances. Together they discovered thorium X, and in 1902 enunciated the bold disintegration theory of radioactivity, according to which atoms were no longer regarded as permanent and indivisible, and radioactive elements disintegrated spontaneously.

In 1901 Rutherford was made D.Sc. by the University of New Zealand. In 1903 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, which awarded him the Rumford and Copley medals, and in 1904 he outlined the science of radioactivity in the Bakerian lecture. He lectured at many American universities. In 1907 a chance came for his return to Britain when he accepted the Langworthy professorship of physics in the University of Manchester. There he continued his researches into radioactivity and the structure of the atom and developed his third great theory, the nuclear theory of atoms, in which he pictured the atom as a miniature solar system. This was developed by Rutherford in association with many brilliant co-workers, including Moseley and Niels Bohr. Throughout his work his aim was to elucidate the complete structure of the atom, and, having discovered the radioactive properties of particular atoms, he proceeded to investigate the general structure of all atoms; next, the constitution of the nucleus of the atom; and lastly the methods and results of transmuting atoms from one form to another, which he described in the process of transmutation of matter and artificial disintegration. In his work on the atom Rutherford was the first to point the way to the vast possibilities of atomic energy. Although as a scientist he stressed experimentation as opposed to speculation, he suggested many brilliant theories; he favoured quantitative physical methods of investigation and selected electrical methods, which are capable of great refinement in experienced hands. Some years before Rutherford's death Sir William Bragg wrote: "He possesses a keen love of research for its own sake. He has a fine judgment of the essential, and goes to work in a way which when the end is reached, is seen to have been obviously direct. He has the courage to break with precedent and to try out his own ideas. Rutherford has upset many theories, but he has never belittled anyone's work. He has added new pages to the book of physical science, and has always taught his students to venerate the old, even when the writing has become a little old-fashioned." In 1908 Rutherford was awarded the Nobel and Bressa prizes, and in 1914 he was knighted. In 1919 he was created a Fellow of Trinity College and in the same year succeeded Sir J. J. Thomson as head of the Cavendish Laboratory and professor of experimental physics. Throughout the war of 1914-18 he was a member of the board of inventions and research, which he represented on the French naval and military mission to the United States of America. In 1921 he was made professor of natural philosophy in the Royal Institute. From 1925-30 he was president of the Royal Society, and in 1930 he acted as chairman of the advisory council of scientific and industrial research. Rutherford received 20 honorary degrees from universities of high scientific standing. In 1925 he was elected to the Order of Merit, and in 1931 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Rutherford of Nelson. Shortly afterwards the University of New Zealand conferred on him the honorary degree of D.Sc.

His publications include Radioactivity (1904), Radioactive Transformations (1906), Radioactive Substances and their Radiations (1913), Radium and the Electron (1921), Electrical Structure of Matter (1925), Radiations from Radioactive Substances (1930), Artificial Transmutation of the Elements (1933), and The Newer Alchemy (1937). In 1900 Rutherford married Mary Georgina, a daughter of Arthur Charles Newton, of Christchurch. He died on 19 Oct 1937.

Who's Who NZ., 1908, 1924, 1932; C. M. Focken, Lord Rutherford of Nelson; A. S. Eve, Rutherford (1939); E. Marsden in Trans. Roy. Soc. NZ., vol 68 (p); Nelson Coll. O.B. Reg.; The Nelsonian, Dec 1937 (p); Hight and Candy; NZ. Railways Magazine, Dec 1937; Otago Witness, 28 Jul 1931; The Dominion, 10 Jan 1938; The Times, 20 Oct 1937 (P).

Reference: Volume 2, page 137

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