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Henry Rainsford Hulme

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Dr. Henry Rainsford Hulme
File:Hulme-awre.png
Official portrait of Dr. Hulme while working at AWRE
Born(1908-08-09)August 9, 1908
Southport, Lancashire, England
Died8 January 1991(1991-01-08) (aged 82)
Basingstoke, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materGonville and Caius College, Cambridge
OccupationScientist
Spouse(s)Hilda Marion Reavley
(1937–1955, divorced)
Margery Alice Ducker
(1955–1990, her death)
ChildrenAnne Perry (Juliet Marion Hulme) (1938–)
Jonathan Rainsford Hulme (1994–)

Dr. Henry Rainsford Hulme B.A. Ph.D. ScD. (9th August 1908 – 8th January 1991) was a British scientist who had a helping hand in the creation of the British H-Bomb and is considered one of the four major minds behind the project, but is also known as the father of Anne Perry.

Early Life

Dr. Henry Rainsford Hulme was born on the 9th August 1908 to parents James Rainsford Hulme and Alice Jane Smith, his father at the time was director of Hulme Brothers Limited which operated in and around Southport, Lancashire. He attended Southport Modern School before winning a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School in 1920. He excelled while at the Manchester Grammar School and came top of his class every year bar one. After leaving the Manchester Grammar School he went to study Mathematics and Physics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and entered on 1st October 1926. He obtained a B.A. (Maths Tripos) in 1929 and a Ph.D. in 1932, and while he was here he won may prizes and achievements relating to his studies. He also studied at the University of Leipzig.[1] [2] [3]

Early Working Life

His first job appears to be as a teacher in Mathematics at the University of Liverpool, between 1936–1938. While working here he met his first wife Hilda Marion Reavley and they married in first half of 1937. Not long after the marriage Dr. Hulme accepted a position at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich as the Chief Assistant. Even though he lists in his biography in Who's Who that he held this position from 1938 to 1945 he was really there full-time for two years. Though during this period he did write numerous papers that were published in the journals of this time.

War Work

While working at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, World War II broke out and it wasn't long before he was loaned out for war work in 1940 as Chief Scientist in the Degaussing Department (mine design department), in charge of 50 men. In 1942 he became Deputy Director of Operational Research at the Admiralty, where he was a member of Blackett's Circle, which looked at the problem of how to stop mines sticking to the hulls of ships when they have become magnetised. By the end of the war he had risen to the position of Director Operational Research at the Admiralty. It was at the end the war that he resigned his position at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and began working as a Scientific Advisor to the British Air Ministry. During this period he also visited the United States to view the on goings of the Manhattan Project and the construction of the US nuclear bomb. Even though he had been loaned out on war work he tried to keep contact with the Royal Observatory and in 1942 Dr. Hulme became the secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society.

New Zealand 1948–1954

In 1947 an advertisement was placed in numerous newspapers in the British Commonwealth it was dated May 30th 1947 and was asking for people to apply for the position of Rector at Canterbury University College in New Zealand. Dr. Hulme's name was put forward for this position. On the 25th November 1947 Dr. Hulme had been offered and on the 22nd December he sent a telegraph stating: "Confirm acceptance - expect to sail late June - Hulme." Before Dr. Hulme left for New Zealand he was given a ScD. by Gonville and Caius College.

Dr. Hulme and his family left England on the 30th August 1948 heading to New Zealand so that he could take up the position of the first Rector of Canterbury University College. They arrive in New Zealand on the 13th October and were welcomed by staff at CUC on the 16th October 1948 at a party thrown for him. Though soon after his arrival Dr Hulme alienated many of his colleagues at CUC by voting against his own College Council regarding the site of a proposed School of Forestry. His relationship with the College deteriorated steadily as other issues arose until finally, in mid March 1954, he was asked by his colleagues to resign. A vote of no confidence in the Rector was held on the 3rd March 1954, and Dr. Hulme formally handed in his resignation on the 4th March, with it being accepted on the 15th March. Dr. Hulme's resignation stated that he would stay in the position until the 1st January 1955, but the event of the 22nd June 1954 changed his plans, meaning that he would be back in England before he had planned.[4] On the 22nd June 1954 his daughter and Pauline Parker killed Pauline's mother, Honorah Mary Parker in the hills of Victoria Park, Cashmere. (See: Parker-Hulme).

1954–1973

File:Dr. Henry Rainsford Hulme, July 3rd 1954.png
Dr Hulme leaving for England on July 3rd 1954

Dr. Hulme left New Zealand on the 3rd July 1954 with his son Jonathan, before the trial of his daughter had begun. He was photographed on the deck of Himalaya, that was docked in Adelaide. “The world must just consider me an unnatural father,” Hulme was reported as saying, and gave a statement to the press denouncing his daughter and that his priority at that time was his son Jonathan. This would be the only statement that he would ever make regarding what happened. When Dr. Hulme and his son hit landfall in Marseilles they disembarked and disappeared from public view.[5] His divorce to his first wife was final by March 10th 1955 [6] and soon after he married Margery Alice Ducker.

After returning back to England Dr. Hulme accepted a position at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment and would work here until his retirement in August 1973. He started employed as a scientist, but by 1959 had become Director of Nuclear Research a position that he held until his retirement. [3] During his time at AWRE he was the UK representative at the Nuclear Weapon Test Verification talks in Geneva. At the end of January 1956 Henry Hulme wrote a paper spelling out his ideas on Green Granite, a three stage nuclear bomb. He wrote: "We are confident...that the bomb is a three-stage one in which the first bomb is imploded by ordinary explosive and the second by energy from the first bomb. The thermonuclear material which constitutes the third stage is ignited by energy and neutrons from the second bomb. We shall refer to the three components as Tom, Dick and Harry..." [7] He was present at many of the British H-bomb tests after 1955 and has been considered one of the most creative minds whoever worked at AWRE.

As none of the people who worked at Aldermaston wrote personnel accounts on their work we will not know fully what they did and didn't do, as when Aldermaston discovered the three essential ideas of the H-bomb is still, and probably will always be something of a mystery. When Lorna Arnold wrote her book Britian and the H-Bomb she was unable to talk to the four members of the term who were at the heart of the project, which included Hulme. [7]

Publications

Journal Articles

  • 1939 - "A comparison of the declinations of the Boss General Catalogue with those derived from the observations with the Cookson floating telescope to determine the variation of the latitude at Greenwich during the years 1911-1936"; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Vol 99; January 1939; Pages 199-201
  • 1939 - "Preliminary values of the variation of latitude at Greenwich during 1936-1938, together with an account of the new observing programme"; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Vol 99; January 1939; Pages 202-5
  • 1939 - "On the motion of solar prominences and streamers"; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Vol 99; June 1939; Pages 634-41
  • 1939 - "The law of error and the combination of observations"; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Vol 99; June 1939; Pages 642-29
  • 1939 - "Note on the integration of the equation of the formation of absorption lines"; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Vol 99; June 1939; Pages 730-2
  • 1940 - "The statistical theory of errors (Council Report on the progress of astronomy)"; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; Vol 100; February 1940; Pages 303-14
  • 1940 - "On the reality of periods determined by Fourier analysis, with an application to the problem of the solar constant"; The Observatory; Vol 63; April 1940; Pages 101-5

Books

  • 1969 – Nuclear Fusion; Wykeham Publications (London) (ISBN 10: 0851090508 / ISBN 13: 9780851090504)

Representations

Dramatic

Further reading

  • Arnold, Lorna; Britian and the H-Bomb; 2001
  • Lewis, Julian; Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-war Strategic Defence, 1942-1947; 1988 (1st Edition), 2003 (2nd Edition)
  • Walker, John R.; British Nuclear Weapons and the Test Ban 1954-1973: Britain, the United States, Weapons Policies and Nuclear Testing: Tensions and Contradictions; 2010

See Also

References

  1. ^ Hulme, Dr. Henry Rainsford; Who's Who, 1954-1991
  2. ^ The Times (London), Wednesday January 23, 1991. p. 16
  3. ^ a b The Guardian, Wednesday January 23, 1991. p. 39. "Scientist in the service of Aldermaston" by Sir Samuel Curran.
  4. ^ Gardner, W.J., Beardsley, E.T. and Carter, T.E. (ed. Phillips, N.C.), "A History of the University of Canterbury, 1873-1973," Christchurch, University of Canterbury, 1973
  5. ^ The Argus, "Father tragic lonely figure", 30th August 1954, Page 6.
  6. ^ The Sydney Morning Herald, July 24, 1955, "Parents of N.Z. Killer Divorced" https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19550724&id=LnZWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8uQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6405,2251198&hl=en
  7. ^ a b Lorna Arnold, Britain and the H-bomb, 2001


Category:1908 births Category:1991 deaths

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