The Nobel Prize which Ernest received in December 1908 was matched with an endowment of seven thousand six hundred and eighty pounds, the equivalent of nearly eight years of Professor Rutherford's salary.

As Ernest was absolutely not a spendthrift - and neither was May, for that matter - he invested in prudent investments, bought radioactive materials for the physics department, financed the treatment of an assistant who could take care of a part. of his administrative tasks at the University and finally decided to make some donations to members of his family: fifty pounds to his father, the same amount to his mother , and thirty pounds to each of his three brothers and five sisters. He also sent a sum of twenty pounds to Jacob Reynolds, the schoolmaster he had had in New Zealand, at Havelock. Despite his blatant alcoholism - which had caused him some trouble with the school board and prompted him to resign after seventeen years of loyal service - Reynolds had also been a guide for Ernest.

“I never thanked you for the way you introduced me to Latin, algebra and geometry in my younger years. I have fond memories of it and I know that my beginnings with you helped me greatly afterwards, when I left for Nelson High School. "