So surely, almost 100 years to the day since the presentation of that award, it would be appropriate to finish the year by reminding ourselves once more of the scientific work of this remarkable man?Or would it?So much has been written about Rutherford's scientific achievements, and there is no doubt that his was one of the finest intellects ever to grace the human race.
But there was more to Rutherford than scientific achievement.
There was also humanity.
And it is this that we should celebrate today.
Following Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, the Nazi government introduced the "Law for the restoration of the professional civil service", the upshot of which was that only persons of Aryan descent could hold positions at German universities.
This meant that academics with Jewish backgrounds (classified as being anyone with a single Jewish grandparent) were instantly dismissed from their positions; by May 1933, these numbered around 1500.
News of this was brought to England by William Beveridge, the director of the London School of Economics, following a conference in Vienna.
As a result, he formed the Academic Assistance Council (AAC), an organisation designed to assist the displaced academics in obtaining university positions outside Germany, and, recognising Rutherford's standing in the academic world, persuaded him to become its first president.
Beveridge wrote of his first meeting with Rutherford: "As we talked he exploded with wrath at Hitler's treatment of scientific colleagues whom he knew personally ... he did everything and more to make our going ahead possible."
The AAC was publicly launched through a press release on May 24, 1933.
This document set out the aims of the council as being to assist "... university teachers and investigators of whatever country who, on grounds of religion, political opinion or race, are unable to carry on their work in their own country".
On October 3, 1933, Rutherford chaired a meeting of 10,000 people in the Royal Albert Hall to raise funds for the council, at which Einstein was the main speaker.
By May of the next year, Rutherford was able to write in The Times that 178 displaced scholars had been found positions in the United Kingdom and that the council had received more than 13,000 (somewhere between 600,000 and 3 million in today's money, depending on the measure used) in donations in its first year.
Altogether it is estimated that by 1936, the AAC, with Rutherford at its helm, had helped more than 1300 scholars.
By this time, the flow of academic refugees had slowed significantly and the council was wound up, to be replaced by the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL), with the famous Danish physicist (and Rutherford's co-worker) Niels Bohr as chairman.
We should hope that, in these apparently more enlightened days, there would be no need of such organisations.
However, it is sad to note that the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA), the renamed successor of the AAC and SPSL, does still exist.
Therefore, perhaps one of the better ways of celebrating the final few days of the year in which we remember the centenary of Rutherford's incredible achievements might be to visit their website (www.academic-refugees.org) and ponder Rutherford's humanitarian legacy.
- Allan Blackman
• Dr Blackman is an associate professor in the chemistry department at the University of Otago
