JOHN DOUGLAS COCKCROFT
John Douglas Cockcroft was born at Todmorden, England, on May 27th,
1897. His family had for several generations been cotton manufacturers.
He was educated at Todmorden Secondary School and studied mathematics at Manchester
University under Horace Lamb in 1914-1915. After serving in the First
World War in the Royal Field Artillery he returned to Manchester to study
electrical engineering at the College of Technology under Miles Walker.
After two years apprenticeship with MetropolitanVickers Electrical Company
he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, and took the Mathematical Tripos
in 1924. He then worked under Lord Rutherford in thc Cavendish
Laboratory.
He first collaborated with P.
Kapitsa in the production of intense magnetic fields and low
temperatures. In 1928 he turned to work on the acceleration of protons by
high voltages and was soon joined in this work by E. T. S. Walton. In 1932
they succeeded in transmitting lithium and boron by high energy protons.
In 1933 artificial radioactivity was produced by protons and a wide
variety of transmutations produced by protons and deuterons was studied.
In 1934 he took charge of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory in Cambridge.
In 1929 he was elected to a Fellowship in St.
John's College and became successively University demonstrator,
lecturer and in 1939 Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy.
In September 1939 he took up a war-time appointment as Assistant Director
of Scientific Research in the Ministry of Supply and started to work on
the application of radar to coast and air defence problems. He was a
member of the Tizard Mission to the United States in the autumn of 1940.
After this he was appointed Head of the Air Defence Research and
Development Establishment. In 1944 he went to Canada to take charge of the
Canadian Atomic Energy project and became Director of the Montreal and
Chalk River Laboratories until 1946 when he returned to England as
Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell.
For the period 1954-1959 he was scientific research member of the U.K.
Atomic Energy Authority and has since continued this function on a
parttime basis. Election to Master, Churchill
College, Cambridge, followed in October 1959. In addition he is
Chancellor of the Australian National
University, Canberra, and a past President of the Institute of
Physics, the Physical Society (1960 to 1962) and the British Association
for the Advancement of Science (1961 to 1963).
He has received honorary doctorates from some 19 universities and is a
fellow or honorary member of many of the principal scientific societies.
In addition, numerous honours and awards have also been bestowed upon him.
He married Eunice Elizabeth Crabtree in 1925 and has four daughters and a
son.
Professor Cockroft died in 1967
|
IF
YOU SEE A YELLOW "ENTER" BUTTON ABOVE, PLEASE DO NOT "CLICK" ON IT.
THIS WILL TAKE YOU TO A GAMBLING SITE WHICH WAS ADDED TO OUR WEB SITE
WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION!
This web site is growing by 150 pages per month - Click
