Objects of Rutherford's Life
Tobacco
On leaving New Zealand in the fall of 1895, Ernest Rutherford made three promises to his fiancee: fidelity, alcoholic temperance and smoking abstinence.
The first was easily explained: May Newton was the first girl Ernest met, they were secretly engaged and the junior physicist was joining England indefinitely. But marriage remained their goal.
The second was rooted in the unwavering attachment of May and her mother, Mary Newton, to the fight against alcoholism. The little girl and young mother had suffered for years from the addictions of their father and husband... until the said Charles Newton died of his excesses. He was 35 years old; May was only 12. Since then, mother and daughter had been active members of the New Zealand branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
With regard to tobacco, the young woman did not have such clear motives for demanding that her fiancé stay away from it. Many years later, as reported by Rutherford's official biographer, Arthur Stewart Eve, she told him: "Ernest suffered from persistent throat irritation causing a slight cough which worried me because his older sister was delicate. and that we were always afraid of tuberculosis. "
In reality, this fear of illness never materialized. Even if, at times, Ernest's fragile throat gave him some unpleasant surprises...
But how did the young physicist manage with his three promises?
Rather well, overall, considering that a contract that is 66% fulfilled is still honorable.
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Regarding loyalty, there was no hitch. Ernest had in any case a way of looking at women that had everything to reassure May, as shown in a letter he wrote to her at the end of 1896.
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May Rutherford, née Newton.
(Source: Nelson Museum)
and New Zealand WCTU logo. (Source: New-Zealand History).
Ernest Rutherford in 1896 (25 years)
Eastbourne: Christmas 1896.
At the dinner I mentioned, some of the dresses were very décolletté. I must say I don't admire it at all. Mrs X., wife of a professor, wore a "Creation", I daresay she would call it, which I thought very ugly, bare arms right up to the shoulders, and the rest to match. I wouldn't like any wife of mine to appear so, and I am sure you wouldn't like to either... Mrs. JJ is generally about half and half and looked very well indeed.
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Source: Rutherford: being the life and letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, OM , Arthur Stewart Eve, 1939. Page 42
Regarding alcohol, no worries either: despite the invitations to various personalities of Cambridge or the participation in scientific conferences embellished with the richest dinners, Ernest knew how to remain wise.
The only breach he allowed himself from the pact he made with May ultimately had to do with tobacco. But it was for a good cause.
Here is what he wrote to his fiancée in August 1896, almost a year after leaving her to cross the oceans:
All his life Ernest will remain impatient, restless, running a thousand ideas at once and overflowing with energy.
And all his life, he will smoke ... excessively.
Here are some testimonials from his collaborators.
Trinity College: August 1896.
A long time ago, I gave you a promise I would not smoke and I have kept it like a Briton, but I am now seriously considering whether I ought not, for my own sake, to take to tobacco in a mild degree. You know what a restless individual I am, and I believe I am getting worse. When I come home from researching I can't keep quiet for a minute, and generally get in a rather nervous state from pure fidgetting. If I took to smoking occasionally, it would keep me anchored a bit, and generally make me keep quieter. I don't think you need be the least bit alarmed with regard to yourself. For I don't think I will ever become a confirmed smoker, but seriously I bellieve it would be a very good thing for me in many ways. Every scientific man ought to smoke, as he has to have the patience of a dozen Jobs in research work.
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Source: Rutherford: being the life and letters of the Rt. Hon. Lord Rutherford, OM , Arthur Stewart Eve, 1939. Page 39
Otto Hahn
Hahn, Boltwood and Rutherford
in 1910 in Munich.
Rutherford was a heavy smoker, switching from pipe to cigarettes and back without much interruption. Smoking was discontinued only when the donor of the Macdonald Physics Building, a very wealthy tobacco dealer, visited the Institute. In Macdonald's presence nobody was permitted to smoke, not even Rutherford. Although Macdonald had grown rich on tobacco, he was a violent enemy of smoking. "
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Source: Otto Hahn: a scientific autobiography, page 33
( For more on William Macdonald and his relationship to the lab, to Rutherford, and to smoking, read another testimonial on the Macdonald Physics Building page ).
Rutherford and Hahn
in 1932 in Munster.
Harold Robinson
Harold Robinson
in 1913 in Manchester
“Similarly in his appearance and in his life outside his work, there were many things to suggest the same kind of deceptive simplicity - such as his large build, suggestive rather of latent than active power, his faintly bucolic appearance, his almost schoolboyish sense of fun, and even, in those days, his habitual pipe-smoking. He was a heavy smoker, and it was noticeable that, like many men who work constantly at high pressure, he burnt a great deal more tobacco than he smoked. He was also an inveterate borrower of matches (a venial sin in days when safeties could be purchased almost anywhere at a penny a dozen boxes), and his habit of pocketing the borrowed box was, so far as I can remember, his sole concession to the popular legend of professorial absent-mindedness. "
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Source: Rutherford: life and work to the Year 1919, with personal reminiscences of the period Manchester, Harold Robinson in Rutherford at Manchester , by Birks, JB, page 85.
Mark Oliphant
"I was received genially by a large, rather florid man, with thinning fair hair and a large moustache, who reminded me forcibly of the keeper of the general store and post office in a little village in the hills behind Adelaide where I had spent part of my childhood. Rutherford made me feel welcome and at ease at once. He spluttered a little as he talked, from time to time holding a match to a pipe which produced smoke and ash like a volcano. Later on, I found that he reduced his tobacco to tinder dryness on a newspaper spread out before the fire at his home, or on a radiator in the laboratory , before putting it in his pouch. "
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Source: Rutherford recollections of the Cambridge days , Mark Oliphant, page 19.
Marcus (aka Mark) Oliphant
in 1939 in Birmingham
Rutherford and Oliphant in Cambridge in the 1930s
Source: Nightlife with Philip Clark , ABC radio Asutralia