FROM NELSON TO THE ABBEY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 7

FROM NELSON TO THE ABBEY

LATE LORD RUTHERFORD TRIBUTE FROM AUSTRALIA A tribute to the late Lord RutherI ford as New Zealand's greatest man of I science is paid by a writer in the ' Melbourne “Age.” I What is the secret of the success of | the Fortunate Isles in the realm of j pure science? asks the writer. The celebration last year of Now Zealand s Centenary and the publication by its Government of a series of remarkable volumes dealing with the event and its meaning have raised this question in an interesting form. “FORTUNATE ISLES” Here is a group of islands in the South Pacific separated by many thousands of miles from the traditional centres of ancient and modern learning; yet within 100 years it has contributed so much to pure and applied

science that all thinking men and women marvel. The natural history of the Fortunate Isles has something to do with the matter. New Zealand’s marvels swiftly attracted man’s curiosity after its islands, stretching for more than 1000 miles, had been in splendid isolation for aeons: and they were discovered in a century in which science was winning a terrible battle with scholasticism, purely literary education and restricted inquiry. BRILLIANT RECORD The greatest scientific son of the Fortunate Isles was Ernest, Lord Rutherford; born at Spring-grove, Nelson, on 30th August, 1871; educated at Nelson and Canterbury colleges; Nobel Prize winner in 1908, died suddenly on 19th October, 1937; and buried in Westminster Abbey. The son of a flax miller and small farmer, he attended primary schools at Foxhill and Havelock, winning a scholarship for Nelson College at the age of 15, and from that stage marching steadily to world pre-eminence, without losing a friendly sympathy with his fellow man and a healthy outlook on all the sound normalities of a good life. His work in his native land, in England and America led him onwards and upwards to unchallenged supremacy in the study of the atom and the radiations from radio-active bodies. He invented a magnetic detector for electric waves and began what Marconi completed. His discovery that uranium gave off two types of rays, that beta rays were particles of negative electricitity (electrons) and that alpha rays were atoms of helium, revolutionised scientific thought and led to results probably not yet fully explored. In 1911 he “discovered that the atom consisted of a dense, minute and positively charged centre or nucleus, round which lighter negatively charged particles (electrons) revolved as planets round the sun. In the war of 1914-18 Rutherford served the Admiralty and visited the United States to make that country acquainted as speedily as possible with then recent advances in antisubmarine technique. He made no money, writes Mr Jenkinson, out of his valuable war services. Honours, medals, presidentships poured upon this single-eyed scientist. In 1925 when recognised as an international figure, he visited Australia and his homeland to lecture and renew happy, personal contacts. In 1933-34 he assisted in the humane work of finding positions for German scientists driven abroad by the Nazi racial and political tyranny. Three years earlier he was created Baron Rutherford of Nelson, thus becoming the first son of New Zealand to enter the British House cf Lords.