Atomic Energy Research Establishment
| Established | 1 January 1946 |
|---|---|
| Location | Didcot, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom Coordinates: 51°34′51″N 1°18′19″W / 51.580898°N 1.305238°W |
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment, known as AERE or colloquially Harwell, near Harwell, Oxfordshire, was the main centre for atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1990s.
In 1945 John Cockcroft was asked to set up a research laboratory to further the use of nuclear fission for both military purposes and generating energy. The criteria for selection involved finding somewhere remote with a good water supply, but within reach of good transport links and a university with a nuclear physics laboratory. This more or less limited the choice to the areas around Oxford or Cambridge. It had been decided that an RAF airfield would be chosen, the aircraft hangars being ideal to house the large atomic piles that would need to be built. Although Cambridge University had the better nuclear physics facility (the Cavendish Laboratory), the RAF did not want to abandon any of its eastern airfields because of its potential involvement in the Cold War, therefore Harwell was chosen when the RAF made the airfield available. RAF Harwell was sixteen miles south of Oxford near Didcot and Harwell (at this time in Berkshire), and on 1 January 1946 the Atomic Energy Research Establishment was formed, coming under the Ministry of Supply. The scientists mostly took over both accommodations and work buildings from the departing RAF.
The early laboratory had several specialist divisions: Chemistry (initially headed by Egon Bretscher, later by Robert Spence), General Physics (H.W.B. Skinner), Nuclear Physics (initially headed by Otto Frisch, later E. Bretscher), Reactor Physics (John Dunworth), Theoretical Physics (Klaus Fuchs, later Brian Flowers), Isotopes (Henry Seligmann), Engineering (Harold Tongue, later Robert Jackson), Chemical Engineering (A.S. White), and Metallurgy (Bruce Chalmers, later Monty Finniston, FRS). Finniston was later to become chairman of the British Steel Corporation. Directors after Cockcroft included Basil Schonland, Sir Arthur Vick and Walter Marshall.
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