Before winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908 and becoming the first person to split the nucleus of an atom, Ernest Rutherford graduated three times from Canterbury College (as the University of Canterbury was known until 1933). In 1892, while still a student, Rutherford added his imposing signature to a tribute book to Professor Macmillan Brown, shortly before the latter left for England. When Macmillan Brown died in 1935, he gifted his 15,000-volume library to the University and made a bequest that half a century later enabled the foundation of Canterbury’s Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies.
From Christchurch to the Nobel Prize
20 November 2023
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John Macmillan Brown was the University’s first professor of English and Classics. In 1892 he was granted leave to travel to Europe with his wife Helen. Part of the reason for the trip was to seek medical advice on the headaches, insomnia and eyestrain that were taking a toll on his health and his ability to do a very demanding job. To mark the occasion, he was given a tribute book signed by his students, including Ernest Rutherford. In this book they acknowledged the contribution he had made to their lives and gave their heart-felt sympathies for his failing health. Unfortunately, Macmillan Brown’s deteriorating health forced him to resign from his position in 1895.
Tribute Book to John Macmillan Brown
Christchurch, University of Canterbury, Macmillan Brown Library, John Macmillan Brown papers, 1041 (1892)
Small boy's red tartan frock worn by Ernest Rutherford (later Lord Rutherford) as a child, circa 1870 - Canterbury Museum, 1949.148.231
In 1874, soon after Ernest Rutherford turned three, his future mentor and friend, Macmillan Brown was appointed as one of the founding professors of what would become the University of Canterbury. Rutherford would go on to become the University’s most famous student and a future Nobel prize winner. Although they would not meet until Rutherford started as a student in 1890, Ernest unwittingly paid homage to Macmillan Brown’s Scottish roots by wearing, as a young child, this red tartan frock. His mother, Martha Rutherford, arranged for the frock to be made for him by a local Nelson girl.
Want to know more?
John Campbell, ‘Rutherford, Ernest – Biography’, in Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand (updated 1 September 2010)
