The British physicist Sir John Douglas Cockcroft was born at 154 Halifax Road, Todmorden [27th May 1897], the eldest of five sons of cotton manufacturer John Arthur Cockcroft.
He was educated at Todmorden Secondary School.
2 of his brothers entered the family business, but he studied mathematics at Manchester University.
He joined the Royal Artillery in World War I.
After the War, he joined Metropolitan-Vickers and took his MSc.
He went to read for a Maths Tripos at St John's, Cambridge, and gaining a First, Ernest Rutherford admitted him to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1924 as a research student – where he worked alongside Thomson, Appleton, Blackett, Oliphant, and other prominent physicists.
On 26th August 1925, he married Elizabeth Crabtree at Bridge Street United Free Methodist Church, Todmorden.
Elizabeth was the daughter of Herbert Crabtree and a childhood friend of John
Children:
In 1929, with Professor Ernest Walton, he built the first particle accelerator – costing £500 – and bombarding lithium nuclei with hydrogen protons, transmuting them into helium they succeeded in splitting the atom [14th April 1932], for which the pair were made Fellows of the Royal Society in 1936, and they received the Nobel prize for Physics in 1951. In 1939, he became Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge, and Director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory.
During the Second World War, he was moved to radar research, looking at the defence of naval vessels. In 1944, he was moved to atomic research.
Cockcroft believed that the use of nuclear power was for peaceful rôles and after World War II, he was appointed Director of the Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment [1946-58].
He was made an Honorary Freeman of the Borough of Todmorden.
He was knighted in 1948. He was awarded the KCB in 1953, and the OM in 1957.
He was Master of Churchill College Cambridge.
He was found dead at the Master's Lodge there [18th September 1967]
This & associated entries use material contributed by Glynn Helliwell & Kenneth Tidswell
Page Ref: X1903
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