Places of Ernest Rutherford's life
Manchester
Pictures:
Entrance to the University of Manchester on Oxford Street. Source: Visitmanchester.com
Oxford street around 1910. Source: repro-tableaux.com
The physics pavilion in 1908. Source: The Manchester University
Manchester University - Whitworth hall. Source: Handbook and guide to Manchester , Charles W Sutton, 1907
Ernest Rutherford outside his home on Wilmslow road in Withington. Source: The Birth of the Atomic Nucleus , Robin Marshall
Presentation of the city of Manchester
"Cottonopolis" was the nickname Manchester received in the 19th century. This plant fiber in fact ensured the prosperity of the city and made it the second largest metropolis in England. Museums, theaters, concert halls flourished... at the same time as the increase in pollution and the working population for whom whole districts of small townhouses sprang up. The city then became a leading cultural center, animated by artists, press magnates, scientists, political figures, not to mention the rich industrialists who presided over the development of the region (all housed, of course, in villas or mansions scattered in tree-lined and quiet sectors that are difficult to compare with parallel alleys lining up hundreds of identical shacks occupied by the less fortunate Mancunians).
Under the impetus of all these characters, the capital of Lancashire then became such a benchmark in all intellectual fields that it gave birth to the following adage: "what Manchester says today, the rest of England will say tomorrow."
Rutherford's workplace in Manchester:
the Physics Department at Victoria University
Arrived at the end of May 1907 to replace Arthur Schuster (who did everything to motivate him to take this position), Ernest set to work before the summer. He then took some vacation but at the start of the academic year, he attacked the paths of research he had already defined in Montreal.
His closest collaborator for the next five years will be Hans Geiger .
"Blue Plaque" affixed to the Manchester University building in which Ernest Rutherford worked and which today bears his name.
Source: Wikipedia
In October, he joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society , the second oldest British learned society.
Several of his great discoveries will be announced in this context, before being disseminated more widely throughout the world.
Inaugural address given on October 1, 1907 by Harold Dixon,
President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for the year 1907-1908.
Source: Memoirs and proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society. Volume 52 (1907-1908)
Translation for french speaking readers :
<< Les travaux sur la radio-activité ont avancé principalement sur les lignes de la théorie de la désintégration, qui s'est avérée très utile non seulement en suggérant l'origine du radium lui-même, mais en reliant ensemble la série de substances résultant des changements spontanés dans les radio-éléments. Et si par le passé nous n'avons pas été meneur, ici à Manchester, dans les recherches radioactives, nous pouvons être convaincus qu'aucun reproche à ce sujet ne pourra nous être adressé dans le futur ; car ce soir, nous accueillons très chaleureusement le professeur Rutherford en tant que candidat à l'adhésion à notre société. Le lieu de naissance de la théorie atomique ne doit ressentir aucun choc désintégrant. Les lois de la combinaison chimique, les lois des gaz, l'isomérie, la stéréochimie et d'autres généralisations exigent la molécule chimique et l'atome. Nous ne nous sommes pas débarrassés des atomes de Dalton, nous commençons à voir à quel point ils sont construits de façon merveilleuse ! >>
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(Dixon refers to John Dalton(1766-1844) who promoted the atomic theory in very early 19th century and who was himself from Manchester (and a member of the Lit&Phil)
Dixon, himself a chemist, asserted that chemical reactions and laws could not forsake Dalton's conceptions, as it was indeed atoms that were used at this level. Rutherford does not sweep these ideas aside: he just tries to explain what is inside the atoms that chemists manipulate to make up molecules).
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Rutherford's house in Manchester
Ernest, May and Eileen move into a house south of Manchester, in a village called Withington.
Map showing the location of Victoria University and the Rutherford House in relation to central Manchester.
Ernest had just over 2 miles, or 3.5 km (by tram) to get to work from home.
(Source: GoogleMap )
Ernest, in front of the entrance to his house in Withington
(note the Wolesley-Siddeley , visible on the left).
Wilmslow Road in Fallowfield in 1908.
Fallowfield was a village that had to be crossed to reach Withington from Victoria University and central Manchester. Ernest was therefore for 12 years one of the passengers of the tram visible in this image.
Source: Manchester Evening News
Neighbors
It is no coincidence that the Rutherford family moved to Withington.
Many other members of the University or of the Lit & Phil (or both), lived in this district (apart from the more fortunate, such Arthur Schuster, who lived a little further north, in Fallowfiled or Rusholme).
More than 20 years earlier, moreover, JJ Thomson, then a student at Victoria University, also lived in Withington (blue dot marked "Linden House" on the map).
Among the various families living nearby, that of Albert Hopkinson, general practitioner and member of a famous line in Manchester, developed special links with the Rutherfords.
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To be continued ...
Sources:
Map: Ordnance Survey 25 inch, 1892-1914, National Library of Scotland
Addresses: Slater's Manchester, Salford & Suburban Directory, 1909. [Part 4: Suburban Directory]
Details about the members of the Lit & Phil: Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society.
Eileen's school
It is also no coincidence that Eileen went to school at Lady Barn House School. The location must have played a part, of course: Lady Barn was at the end of Mauldeth Road , the nearest street, south of the Rutherford house.
But the teaching methods also had good reason to appeal to Ernest Rutherford.
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To be continued . ..
