Sound Guidance From Parents Great Influence In Shaping Career Of Lord Rutherford

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27266, 17 December 1949, Page 7

Sound Guidance From Parents Great Influence In Shaping Career Of Lord Rutherford

NZPA Special Correspondent

Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 16. Among the greatest influences m shaping the scientific career of Lord Rutherford, of Nelson —a career comparable in importance to that of Sir Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday—was his early environment in New Zealand, the education he received there, and above all, the sound training and guidance he received from his pioneer parents, said Dr Ernest Marsden, scientific adviser in London to ‘the New Zealand Goverment, delivering the fourth of a series of biennial Rutherford Memorial Lectures inaugurated by the Physical Society. The story of Lord Rutherford’s early life and training was interwoven i with the epic story of the colonisation of New Zealand, and particularly of the province of Nelson, said Dr Marsden. Lord Rutherford’s grandfather arrived in the infant colony in 1842 from Dundee, and Lord Rutherford’s father, James, grew to manhood in the primitive conditions then existing in New Zealand. Both James Rutherford and Martha Thompson Brightwater, the school teacher whom he married, were the j best type of pioneer settlers—hard | working, God fearing and determined to give their children the best possible education open to their limited means and having regard to the opportunities then available in the colony. Example of Parents “The Rutherford family was at no stage a divided house,” said Dr Marsden. “ Sunday was a day of complete manual rest when the mother would regularly assemble her family for religious exercises and for general mutual education such as spelling bees and geography, which was accompanied by the use of maps to illustrate current events and news of the outside world .contained in the newspapers to hand. Thus, while Lord Rutherford inherited from his forebears a rich physical and mental endowment, he was even more fortunate in the qualities and habits of work acquired from the example of his parents and the atmosphere of his home.” Lord Rutherford’s father, continued Dr Marsden, as all evidence of those who knew him testified, was a man of great character and fine disposition, while his mother was a truly remarkably woman of good education and character, very musical, a good organiser, thrifty and hardworking, yet above all human and happy in her relations with others. The First Scholarship Although he early showed remarkable aptitude, Ernest Rutherford’s first scholastic triumph was the scholarship worth £4O per annum he gained in 1866 and which enabled him to enter Nelson College. He was then, as Dr Marsden put it, “the pride of the Havelock Primary School,” and when the three local candidates sat the examination in a single room which comprised the Havelock School building,

interested residents presented themselves at the door to inquire about their progress.

As young Rutherford’s answers were handed up to the supervisor he passed round word that Ernest was doing well but had made a bloomer in such and such a question. “ This news duly circulated in the hamlet and gloom ensured,” said Dr Marsden, “ but Ernest was a quick worker and he had time to look over his answers again and rectify the error, with the result that he won the scholarship with record marks.”

Ernest Rutherford’s period at Nelson College must have created lasting and pleasant memories, added Dr Marsden, for not only did he incorporate the name Nelson in his title but an hour before his death in 1937 he said to his wife: “ I wan.t to leave £IOO to Nelson College. You can see to it”; and then loudly: “Remember, a £IOO to Nelson College.” He hardly spoke after that. After tracing Lord Rutherford’s further progress from Nelson College to Canterbury University College and the subsequent much better-known 'details of his career in Britain and Canada, Dr Marsden concluded: “I have tried, and I hope objectively, to indicate that for much of Lord Rutherford’s methods in his life work we are indebted to the influence of his parents and home life and the environment in which he was raised. That is to say. his mental equipment, his sterling character, his abounding energy and enthusiasm, his direct approach to the problems confronting him, and above all, his human characteristics which enabled him to attract and retain the happy and walling band of co-workers. “ I feel we need take note of these things in their relation to the development of our educational and social systems, since the great need of our age is the production of inspiring leaders, of which he Is an outstanding example in our generation.” The Rutherford Memorial Lectures were inaugurated by the Physical Society in 1942, in which year the first of the series was delivered by Professor H. R. Robinson, F.R.S., of Queen Mary College, University of London. The second of the series, in 1944, was given by Sir John Cockcroft, director of Britain’s atomic research establishment at Harwell, and the third, in 1946, by Professor M. L. E. Oliphant, professor of physics at Manchester, and later Birmingham, Universities. No lecture was delivered in 1948. All three of these distinguished scientists have carried on Lord Rutherford’s work in atomic research and were associated with him in his early experiments. So also was Dr Marsden. who though not New Zealand-born, has had a notable career in the New Zealand Government service, in which he rose to the position of secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research before accepting his present appointment in London.