FOUR NEW PEERS CREATED BY KING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19267, 2 January 1931, Page 4

FOUR NEW PEERS CREATED BY KING.

HIS MAJESTY BESTOWS HONOURS ON SUBJECTS. (United .Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) RUGBY, December 31. Four peerages are included in the New Y’ear honours which have been conferred by the King in recognition of distinguished services. They include Sir Ernest Rutherford, the eminent New Zealand scientist, whose work has brought him into prominence throughout the world. Peerages have been conferred on: SIR JOHN HIXDLEY, Commercial Adviser to the Mines Department. SIR ERNEST LAMB, a former member of Parliament, and a member of the Corporation of the City of London. SIR WILLIAM PLENDER, past president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, who has presided over many committees and Royal Commissions on commercial and financial questions. SIR ERNEST RUTHERFORD, the well-known physicist and authority on radio-activity, and a former president of the Royal Society. Privy Councillors. MR THOMAS KENNEDY', chief Labour Whip. - MR HERBERT MORRISON, Minister of Transport. SIR GEORGE PERLEY, formerly Canadian High Commissioner, and now Minister without portfolio in the Canadian Government. Baronets. SIR JOHN BRADFORD, president of the Royal College of Physicians. MR ERNEST DEBENHAM, a director of Llovds Bank. SIR RICHARD GREGORY, the astronomer. SIR GEORGE MAY', a member of the Council of the Institute of Actuaries. MR GEORGE ROBERTS, who, under the pseudonym of “ Audax,” gave £IOO.OOO to the hospitals as a thanksgiving offer for the recovery of his Majesty the King. Order of Merit. Admiral Sir Charles Madden and Mr Philip Sheer receive the Order of Merit, the'former for distinguished services in peace'and war, and the latter in recognition.of his position as a painter and teacher-'-in* the art world. Knights. The new Knights include:—Norman Angell, the writer:. William Goodchild, secretary of the British delegation to the Reparations Commission; Dr Graham Little, member of Parliament for ITondon University; John M’Ewen, principal of the Royal Academy of Music: Conrad Naef, Accountant-General to the Navy; David Owen, general manager of the Port of London Authority; Hugh Robinson, founder of the Glasgow Orpheus Choir; Professor Rothenstein, principal of the Royal College of Art: James Sextin. Labour member of Parliament; Robert Young, Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons; and Colonel Weston Jarvis, chairman of the Council of the Royal Empire Society. In the general list, there are over twenty..-other.knighthoods for the dominions, India and the colonies. Order of the Bath. Other honours include the following in the Order of the Bath: — Knights Grand Cross—General Sir Robert Whingham, the King’s Aide-de-Camp General, and Sir Oswyn Murray, Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty. Knights Commander—Vice-Admiral Kelly, Engineer Vice-Admiral Skelton, and Frank Smith, secretary of the Royal Society. Star of India. " Knights Grand Commander—The Maharajah of Udaipur, the Maharajah of Kolhapur. Honorary Knight Commander—The Prime Minister of Nepal. Order of St Michael and St George. Grand Cross—His Highness Tuan-ku Muhammad, Federated Malay States; Sir Francis Lindley, British Ambassador at Lisbon; and Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Knight Commander—Arthur Hill, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Companion;—Montague John Rendall, chairman of r the School Empire Tour Committee. There are between forty and fifty appointments to the Order of the Indian Empire. Royal Victorian Order. Knights Grand Cross—The Earl of Albemarle, and Lord Woolavington, who won the Derby in 1922 and 1926. Order of British Empire. Dame Grand Cross —Lady Aberdeen, president of the International Council of Women. Knight Commander —Wilmott Lew-is, correspondent of “ The Times ” at Washington. Commanders —Miss Major, head of Girton College. Cambridge: Miss Martindale, vice-president of the Medical Women’s International Association; Prebendary Rudolf, founder of the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society: Professor Sidney Russ, for work on radium; Lady M’Millan, for philanthropic services in Kenya. Companions of Honour. Mrs Swan wick, a former British delegate to the League of Nations, and president of the Women’s International League; and Miss Walker, founder of the Medical Women's Association. AN EVENTFUL CAREER. Few people can look back on a career of achievement equal to that of Sir Ernest Rutherford, who has advanced himself in a remarkable way from a modest beginning to the highest position a scientist can attain in the British Empire. Sir Ernest was born on August 30, 1871, at Spring Grove, Nelson, New Zealand. He was educated at Nelson College, and subsequently went on to Canterbury College. His aptitude for the pursuit of science soon became apparent, and in 1893, at the age of twentytwo 3-ears, he gained his M.A. degree with first-class honours in mathematics and physics. A year later he won the 1851 exhibition science research scholarship. From the time he entered the great English university his career was one long succession of accomplishments. Pursuing his studies at Trinity College, he also prosecuted research work in the Cavendish laboratory. In 1897, three years after entering Cambridge,

he obtained his B.A. research degree and also the Coutts-Trotter studentship. Soon after he returned to New Zealand, and in 1900 he married Miss Mary G. Newton, only daughter of Mr A. R. Xewton, Christchurch. In 1901 he gained the degree of Doctor of Science (N.Z.). Sir Ernest Rutherford was appointed Langw r orthy Professor of Physics in the University of Manchester in 1907 and occupied the position until 1919, when he succeeded Sir J. J. Thomson as Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908, ; following a great experimental triumph. He has concerned himself jn his later work almost wholly w’ith the phenomena accompanying the passage of alpha rays through matter, and by these investigations he has made most valuable contributions to the knowledge of atomic structure. One of the most important and spectacular achievements in recent years, from the physicist's point of view, is his success in breaking up nuclei of atoms of certain elements by bombardment with alpha particles. He showed that from atoms of nitrogen, aluminium, and several other substances, occasionally a particle identified with the nucleus of a hydrogen atom was detached, the remaining part of the atom presumably forming some other element. These, it is stated, are the first experiments in which by artificial means there is produced a transmutation of the elements. For his work in this direction he was knighted in 1914. Later he was given the Order of Merit. Among his early important contributions in the field of radio-activity may be mentioned his discovery, in 1899, of radiations from uranium of two kinds, distinguished first by marked difference in penetrating power, the alpha and the beta rays. For the knowledge of the properties of the former, that they consist of particles, positively charged, of about four times the mass of a hydrogen atom, projected with enormous velocities and eventually, after their speed has fallen, becoming recognised as atoms of helium, the world is mainly indebted to Sir Ernest Rutherford’s experiments. In 1900 he discovered the first known of the radio-active emanations, that of thorium, and later showed the production of active deposits from this gas upon surfaces of solids in contact with it. Prolonged and exhaustive investigations of the changes in activity of this gas and of the constituents of the active deposit enabled him, with Soddy, who collaborated in this work, to conclude that in radio-active processes the w’orld is concerned with changes in the atoms themselves—with a true transmutation of the elements. Their theory of successive transformations was revolutionary, but it is fully confirmed by subsequent work. These researches were carried out in Montreal, where Sir Ernest Rutherford was Macdonald professor of physics in M’Gill University from 1898 to 1907. During this period his work was recognised by the conferring of numerous distinctions from British, and foreign scientific bodies. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1903. and further honoured by that body in his appointment as Bakerian lecturer in 1904, and by the award of the Rumford Medal in 1905. NONE FOR AUSTRALIA. CANBERRA, December 31. In conformity with the Labour Government’s policy, no Australians have been recommended for New Y ear honours.