Sir John Douglas Cockcroft (1897-1967)

Awarded the Prize “for his pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles.”

British physicist. Cockcroft was born at Todmorden in northern Engl on May 27, 1897. He was educated at Manchester University Manchester College of Technology. Later he entered Cambridge worked in the Cavendish Laboratory. 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 became successively University demonstrator, lecturer in 1939 Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy. He was Director of the Anglo-Canadian Atomic Energy Commission, Montreal Director of Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment. In 1959 he was elected to Master of Churchill College, Cambridge. Cockcroft died at Cambridge on September 18, 1967.