Rutherford and the Cavendish Laboratory

Ernest Rutherford carried out his post-graduate research in the Cavendish Laboratory as one of the first generation of graduate students from outside Cambridge to study for a higher degree by research. His first experiments in radioactivity were carried out in the period 1896-1898. He returned to Cambridge as Cavendish Professor in 1919, following a remarkable period of discovery in nuclear physics at McGill University in Canada and at Manchester University. He was appointed Cavendish Professor in succession to J.J. Thomson and Director of the Cavendish Laboratory during these 'golden years' of nuclear physics until his sudden death in 1937. His achievements and those of his numerous colleagues, students and collaborators during these tumultuous years are described, much of their work under Rutherford's personal direction. These included the transmutation of nuclei by alpha-particle impact with Chadwick, the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick and the splitting of the atom by Cockcroft and Walton. At the same time, others were sowing the seeds for the remarkable expansion of physics research in the post-War era.