WILLIAM HUME-ROTHERY: HIS LIFE AND SCIENCE

摘要

William Hume-Rothery was born just over one hundred years ago on 15 May 1899. He owed his double-barrelled surname to his paternal grandfather, William Rothery, marrying Mary Hume, the daughter of a well-known Radical Member of Parliament and Fellow of the Royal Society (2). His father, Joseph, took First-class Honours degrees in Physics at London University and Mathematics at Trinity College in Cambridge before reading law and being called to the Bar in 1893. After marriage to Ellen Maria Carter and the birth of their son William, the family moved to Cheltenham where H-R (3) went to Suffolk Hall Preparatory School before winning an Entrance Scholarship to Cheltenham College in 1912. His family envisioned a military career for their son, H-R reaching the rank of Cedet Lieutenant in the School's Officer Training Corps. In 1916 he was placed fifth out of more than one-thousand in the Army Entrance Examination for officer training at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and entered as a Gentleman Cadet. However, in early 1917 he contracted cerebrospinal meningitis that left him totally deaf. A military career was now out of the question. As Jack Christian writes: 'Whereas the army lost a future general, Oxford ultimately gained a Department of Materials' (4).