Cambridge Gown

I felt quite weak at the knees when for the first time as a member of the staff of the Cavendish Laboratory I mounted the stairs of the Austin Wing to go to the Library. As a physicist I was run-of-the-mill, in no small part because, deriving from my love of music, I had become fascinated by the new field of electronics and had rather neglected the other physics subjects. It was a delightful irony that I was now in a powerhouse of Physics and in daily contact with a number of the world‛s leading physicists because they needed my electronics expertise and experience! I was proud to see my name on the Notice Board showing the University Officers of the Department of Physics and to be with Nevill Mott, Otto Frisch et al when the annual photo of staff and research students was taken.

The University of Cambridge did not recognise degrees from most other Universities so because of the seniority of my appointment I had its M.A. degree conferred on me. The impressive ceremony took place in Senate House on 15th June 1957. After Latin orations and the presentation of Medals I was the first to proceed to a degree, in my case by Grace 19 of that day. Nevill Mott, with a few Latin words which he read somewhat nervously from a small piece of paper, presented me, suitably gowned and hooded, to the Vice-Chancellor, Lord Adrian. I was in good company

I was now also a member of Regent House and of Senate House, the two plenary bodies of the University, and after a while I became interested in what was going on outside the Cavendish - for example I attended the occasional Syndicate Discussion, signed a fly sheet or two and voted in Senate House on motions put to the University.

The University Officer post to which I was appointed from January 1957 was an unusual one. It was in the Holder of Post category and was of 5 years duration - details of such posts prior to 1976 are not yet, in late 2006, in the University's Historical Register. The title of the post was Engineer in Charge of Nuclear Equipment and its status was that of Assistant Director of Research. My responsibility was to the Head of the Physics Department, Professor Nevill Mott, who pointed out when I took up my duties that the title was a "blind". He confirmed that my function was to look after the electronic activities in the Cavendish; it had been felt that the Engineering Department would have objected to the use of the word Electronic whereas they could hardly protest at a Nuclear tag in the Department of Physics. The Nuclear side was in fact running down - a cyclotron project had been abandoned and the only nuclear accelerator was an old van der Graaf machine. Early on, Department Secretary Kenneth Dibden told me that the title would be made more realistic when my appointment was renewed.

My function as Head of the Electronics Section was to organise a design, construction and maintenance service for the Department of Physics and advise staff and research students on their electronics problems. As Head of a Section I attended meetings of Section Heads in the Department, most of them FRS's and potential if not actual Nobel prizewinners. It was interesting to find that in administrative matters they were as subjective and unscientific as anyone.

Although my post was not essentially of the teaching variety, I soon became involved in undergraduate as well as postgraduate teaching. Thus, for example, I supervised physics students of Christ's and Girton and made reports on their progress to the Senior Tutors of their respective Colleges. By far the most absorbing teaching activity, however, took place in connection with the Cavendish practical classes. It must have been in October 1957 that Professor Mott asked me to help out as Demonstrator in the 2nd Year Electricity practical class. This was a major teaching activity, catering for 200 students from a variety of disciplines. To cope with the numbers, the class functioned in about ten half-day sessions per week, including Saturday mornings, during term and for part of the long vacation.

By October 1958, my section, which was located on Corn Exchange Street, had been completely refurbished. I had three or four University Assistants allocated to me and I had recruited my first Technical Officer, Dr. M.H.N. (Michael) Potok, who was shown in the Cavendish staff list as Mr. Potok due to the non-recognition of degrees of other Universities. My Assistant Director of Research status should have put me a notch up in the list.

There were some important additions to the list - such as Max Perutz who headed a Medical Research Council unit housed in the Austin Wing.

In addition to the undergraduate teaching I was asked to provide a series of lectures for staff and postgraduate students, to bring them up-to-date on the principles and applications of solid state devices, where previously only thermionic valves had been used. The series appeared in the University Lecture list.

Not long after I took up my post at the Cavendish I found other parts of the University, including Arts faculties, were seeking my advice. This led me to write on 22nd November 1958 to a number of University Departments and Sections suggesting the formation of an Electronics Lunch Club to foster close collaboration between those using electronics in their research work.

A good response was received from all contacted. John Coales, Reader in Control Engineering, wrote enthusiastically in support - I think it was he who a little later pointed out that the Royal Society had started up in a similar manner! C.W. Oatley wrote saying he hoped I would not take his absence from the first meeting too much to heart. In fact the involvement of Readers and Professors was mainly as very helpful hosts in their own Departments while it was the Lecturers, Assistant Directors of Research and the like who did the visiting.

After its Cavendish Laboratory inauguration the Club met in a variety of Departments - for example in Zoology, in which Jimmy Beament and Ken Machin were the hosts, in the Electrical Engineering Laboratory, hosted by C.W. Oatley & Ken Sander, and in the Physiology Laboratory hosted by Peter Donaldson. In each case an explanation was given of the research work in hand and the features of the electronic methods being used. In the 1959/60 year a visiting speaker from King's College London was included.

	Electronics Lunch Club : Meetings for the 1959/60 Session

	26th November, 1959 1 p.m. Cavendish Laboratory
		Dr. D.M. MacKay (King's College, London) on "Multidimensional displays on cathode ray tubes"
	29th January, 1960 1 p.m. Mathematical Laboratory
		Dr. M.V. Wilkes on "Computer circuits of the future''
	17th March, 1960 1 p.m. Department of Physical Chemistry
		Mr. G.G. Yates on "The application of electronics to the study of fast reactions".
	22nd April, 1960 1 p.m. Lord's Bridge
		Professor M. Ryle on "The synthesis of radio telescopes" (Alternative arrangements may be made at short notice if the weather is bad.)

Others outside the Cavendish I got to know through the various electronics activities in the University were Peter Fellgett, of the Department of Astronomy and Gabriel Horn of the Department of Anatomy, the latter becoming a good friend

Another action I took, aimed at reducing the gap between University and Industry, was to make the Cavendish Laboratory a member of the Scientific Instrument Research Association (SIRA). I had discussed my proposal with Professor Mott and he wholeheartedly supported it.

Indeed Professor Mott was very supportive as was demonstrated by his putting me up for election to Gonville & Caius College, of which he was Master. In the summer of 1960 he invited me to the Master‛s Lodge for a discussion - I had no idea what he had in mind but clearly my views found favour with him for at the end he told me he was going to put my name to the College Fellows. In October 1960 I heard I had been elected a Senior Member with dining rights at high table and the Master invited me to his Lodge for a celebratory sherry. It was on that occasion that when I arrived at the door of the Master‛s Lodge I had a brief encounter with Lord (C.P.) Snow.

I was also very active outside the Cavendish Laboratory. We got to know the Vicar of Holy Trinity, Stanley Betts, very well and when he was appointed Bishop to the Armed Forces and Dean of Rochester I was among members of the PCC who chose Cyril Tucker as his successor. We also got to know him, before he became Bishop of the South American Diocese. I sensed an increasing encouragement in the Church of both myself and Sheila as time went on. In my case this came especially from clerics in Freemasonry such as the Rev. Arthur Dowle, Vicar of St. Edwards, a very small church in the centre of Cambridge. It was also about this time that Sheila was asked to lead the Prayers at a major Cambridge Service.

Meanwhile I had progressed in Freemasonry, my first step onto the 'ladder' of Offices in my Lodge occurring in late 1958. In accordance with normal practice, the Master-Designate of the Lodge, who happened to be Arthur Armitage of Queens College, invited me to be one of his junior Officers. I took delight in getting to know him and such diverse and interesting members as E.T Halnan (who had been a leading researcher in animal nutrition and was Mayor when Cambridge was granted City status), Charles Fox (a Hebrew scholar), Seymour Sewell FRS (who had actually met the celebrated Wallace), Lucan Pratt (Senior Tutor of Christ‛s College), Roger Morris (Dean of Magdalen College) and Ellis Lewis (the Squire Law Librarian). By the time I left Cambridge Arthur Armitage was President of Queens College and well on his way to being Vice-Chancellor.

I also joined other branches of Freemasonry including the Order of Royal & Select Masters, for which I have an especial affection because of its moving discourse on death and its applicable teaching along the lines that "as man in his best state is subject to frailties and errors we should endeavour to cover his faults and imperfections with the broad mantle of charity and brotherly love". The only discordant note in my Masonic activities was that I got no response to my request to join an Order called Ark Mariners, which I discovered later was due to the behind-the-scenes influence of one member.

There were very few Freemasons with appointments in the University and Colleges - I once calculated that they had only 0.3% of appointments and that only 0.1% were in positions of significant influence. In due time I got to know nearly all of them and vice versa. Incidentally, my Electronics Section at the Cavendish was immediately opposite the Masonic Hall, which was then in Corn Exchange Street. Thus on some occasions I had but 10 metres to travel, through a massive arch, from office to Masonic meeting!

When our next door neighbours, Norman Rider of the Meteorological Office moved to Australia, with his family, to take up a 3-year appointment, a new family rented the house each year. From early Autumn 1959 it was the Balfours. They were from Los Angeles and were in the U.K. because Mr. Balfour, an engineer with Douglas Aircraft, was attached to a USAF base nearby.

A year later the Reeds from Houston moved in. He was Professor of Parasitology at Rice University. There occurred in the course of their stay one of those little incidents which puzzled me at the time. One day, Clark Reed asked my advice about a mathematical problem. How, he asked, would I solve it, given certain conditions. I advised the use of a computer. He persisted in his questioning in such a manner and to such an extent that I felt I was undergoing some kind of an examination. I asked him if I had given a satisfactory answer and he replied with enthusiasm that he found me one of the most knowledgeable persons over a wide range of disciplines that he knew. Incidentally, in June or July 1961 I took Clark Reed as my guest to dine in Caius College. Since it was in the vacation the meal was served in the Common Room rather than Hall and I remember how impressed he was that Joseph Needham was presiding over the small table.

The next year‛s neighbours were the Melchrissons, from Sweden. It was shortly before they arrived that Professor Danckwerts, who had the Shell Chair of Chemical Engineering, called for the key of the Rider's house, which had been left with us. My wife showed the Professor around No.50. I did not know until much later that contact had been made with yet another Elector to the Chair of Electrical Engineering. Before long, the Melchrissons told us that a Professor D.R. Cressey, a Los Angeles criminologist, was very keen for us to dine with them. So in November 1961 we and the Melchrissons spent a very pleasant evening with the Cresseys. From information on the internet it is clear that D.R. Cressey was a very distinguished criminologist.

Meanwhile I had become Secretary of the IEE‛s Cambridge Radio & Telecommunications Group, to which most of the Electronics Lunch Club hosts and members also belonged. Other members of the Group were senior engineers and managers at the Technical College, the Post Office and a number of industrial companies. The programme cards I issued twice a year make very interesting reading for many technological developments we now take for granted, such as satellite communication, were then in the idea stage.

The Cambridge Group was particularly fortunate in attracting distinguished IEE speakers from other parts of the U.K. for most were very happy to visit the University City. Thus there various kinds of meeting (e.g. lecture, discussion, colloquium) in which the principal speakers were engineers such as J.S. McPetrie of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, R.L. Smith-Rose of the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, G.W.A. Dummer of the Telecommunications Research Establishment, J. Redmond of the BBC, W.J. Bray of the Radio Research Station, Colin Cherry of Imperial College, R.J. Halsey of Post Office Research and George Millington of Marconi Wireless Telegraph. Other speakers from outside Cambridge were from the NPL, GEC, Mullard, Unilever, British Thomson-Houston, and Decca.

A great bonus enjoyed by the IEE in Cambridge was the willingness of key researchers in fields other than engineering to talk about their discoveries and about the parallels with engineering. Thus F.W. Campbell of the Physiological Laboratory gave a talk about The Eye as a Television Camera, R.L. Gregory on Engineering & the Brain, D.E. Broadbent about Speech Systems & Human Perception and A. Rushton FRS on The Nervous System as a Communication Network. Since these meetings were usually held in the Departments where the speaker worked they were accompanied by fascinating demonstrations. Sometimes the evening with these speakers was delightfully extended by a visit to The Bun Shop. University Officers in the Engineering Laboratory - such as Ken Sander, Bill Beck and Charles Oatley - also gave lectures to the Group.

All the speakers were entertained beforehand at a restaurant dinner arranged by myself as Secretary and presided over by the Chairman for the year. Thus many of the U.K.‛s and Cambridge University‛s most notable engineers and scientists got to know me in very convivial circumstances and vice versa.

To reinforce the bringing together of different University departments, I devised an IEE meeting with an unusual format, in which six speakers had a few minutes each to describe an electronic device or circuit currently under development and explain for what it was required. The speakers were Maurice Wilkes, Peter Donaldson, E. Freitag, P.E.W. Grenstead, Peter Fellgett and myself. It was vital to ensure focus and contrast (lack of which mars many science & engineering meetings) so the following was included in the guidelines sent to each speaker:-

There was a short discussion after each presentation and an open discussion at the end. The meeting was preceded by sherry in the Cavendish Tea Room for the speaker and two of his colleagues so that there was a guaranteed audience of about 20. In fact the Cavendish Colloquium Room, which held about 70 people, was packed.

A second meeting with the same format brought together speakers from local companies (Pye, Cambridge Instruments, Labgear, Marshalls of Cambridge, Newmarket Transistors) and again this was very well attended. A third highly successful meeting of this type aimed to bridge the gap between University and Industry - Jan Hugill, Eddie Shire and myself were from the University and Gibbon, Griffiths and Warrington were from Cambridge companies.

There occurred around this time one University/Industry event of which I disapproved. I was approached by John Hammond, my friend and former colleague in Cambridge Instruments, and asked not to proceed with recruiting one of his company's electronics graduates, Norman Bett, who had applied for a post in my section. My reaction was that if an applicant is suitable for a post and wishes to accept, it is entirely up to him - it is not for some behind the scenes arrangement to prevent him taking up the post. Norman Bett was suitable and I recruited him.

At the time I did not give too much thought to what had occurred but later I realised this was an early albeit relatively mild example of the curtailment of freedom to which I was subjected. John Hammond was a dear friend. In private life he was thoroughly ethical and moral in his behaviour. Our families got on well together.

As a manager in Industry, John Hammond had a different mind-set. He presumed on our friendship to ask me to do something wholly against my principles but clearly not against his, namely to go behind the scenes to negate an individual's freedom of choice. We remained friends but I was henceforth wary of his two mindsets. There are lessons here for University/Industry relationships in general.

One gap-bridging meeting did not come to fruition. This was a joint meeting of the Cambridge IEE and IERE (Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers) Groups. Some Cambridge engineers belonged to both bodies and it seemed a good idea to get together in meetings of common interest. However, such was the rivalry of the Institutions at national level that when the IEE Secretary, Mr. Brasher (father of athlete and broadcaster Chris Brasher) heard of it he stamped on it from a great height. Interestingly there was one member of the Royal family who was closely associated with IERE - this was Lord Louis Mountbatten who in the 1960s became its President.

Universities, particularly of Oxbridge calibre, have a constant flow of visiting academics from overseas Universities. As already mentioned it was through my brother Alan that we got to know Professor Gordon Newstead of Australia when around 1952 he came to England, with his wife Betty, for a sabbatical at Cambridge. Alan and Gordon had got to know each other when my geophysicist brother was working for his PhD at Canberra under J.C. Jaeger. Another academic we came to know while he was on sabbatical leave in Cambridge was Professor Jim Ham of the University of Toronto. We probably met Jim and his wife Mary through the Church. Our most notable get-together with them was when Jim asked us to join them for a restaurant meal to celebrate the publication of his first book, which was on Materials. It was probably on this occasion that Jim Ham offered me a senior post in his Department back home, which I politely declined.

After 3 years as Secretary I was elected Chairman of the IEE Cambridge Group and on 6th October 1960 I gave the customary Chairman's Address in the Colloquium Room at the Cavendish. I chose as the subject of my Address the then unusual topic of Design Processes, setting it in the particular context of electronic equipment - an abstract of my Address was published in the IEE Proceedings.

By late 1959 I was a regular visitor to the Savoy Place H.Q. of the IEE and as a member of the Electronics Divisional Board I found myself playing a significant part in the restructuring of the so-called Learned Society organisation to give more prominence to electronics and automation. As an example of the turbulence in the IEE, from 1956 to 1960 the title of the Cambridge Group changed from Radio & Telecommunication to Electronics and Communications to Electronics and Measurements. In these conditions I proposed that a new Group be set up on Electronic Measuring Instruments and to my surprise the proposal had an easy passage, the new Group (E1) being established along with an invitation for me to become its Founder-Chairman.

In April 1960 I was invited to join a small luncheon party to be given in Clare College by Sir James F. Baker. Sir James was Head of the Engineering Department and I was invited for the purpose of meeting Sir Willis Jackson, President of the IEE, who was visiting Cambridge. Charles Oatley was another of the guests and I took the opportunity of congratulating him on his recent appointment to the Chair of Electrical Engineering. It was a Chair which the IEE had sponsored.

Incidentally, Percy Dunsheath, 1st Lord Nelson and Sir Gordon Radley had been IEE Presidents in 1945, 1955 & 1956 respectively and later that Office was filled by Jack Ratcliffe (1966), 2nd Lord Nelson (1970) and John Coales (1971).

There were other Engineering Department encouragements, such as an invitation to a private dinner in Trinity College, which was Charles Oatley's. The invitation was jointly from Engineering Department lecturers and IEE members K.F. (Ken) Sander and W.C. (Bill) Nixon who with our respective ladies provided a very convivial evening. Bill Nixon had been in Phillip Bowden‛s Section at the Cavendish.