In the summer of 1949 I received my first honorary degree - Doctor of Laws - from the University of Glasgow. I was deeply touched, for not only was it my first academic honour, but it was bestowed by my own university where I began my career. Just a year later I received a second - the honorary degree of Dr. rer. nat. from the University of Kiel. This I also esteemed greatly, since it was bestowed, I suspect, partly in recognition of what I had done for the German universities, and especially for German chemistry, in the dark days just after the war. The spring of 1950 was also the occasion of a hilarious visit to Spain, with Harry Emeleus, to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (of which body we were both Consejeros de Honor). The celebrations were on a lavish scale, but two particular functions were especially memorable. The first was the commemorative act in Madrid where the handsomely bound volumes containing the work of each of the numerous institutes of the Consejo were presented to General Franco. This was held in a large hall fitted up with floodlights trained on a platform on which was a long table with a reading desk in the centre and a semicircle of chairs behind it. We were all assembled in good time, and were kept amused by the efforts of the electricians who were clearly having trouble with their lighting arrangements. About half an hour after the advertised time for the ceremony the Caudillo and his cabinet - all in magnificent white uniforms - arrived in a fleet of cars, flanked by an escort of about a hundred soldiers or police on motor-cycles. The bands struck up, and Franco and his ministers processed into the hall. Unfortunately, just as the floodlights were turned on the main fuse blew, and for a minute or two chaos supervened. When they were turned on again, all the white uniforms had got on to the platform, but the effect was rather spoiled by the fact that some of the ministers seemed to be waving to friends in the audience, the main spotlight was slightly off-centre, and the platform was swarming with photographers all pushing and jostling to get a good picture of the Caudillo. It was all rather like a comic opera version of a Nazi rally. Order was finally restored, the Caudillo took up his stance at the reading desk, and, one by one, the institute directors came forward, each with one or more attendants bearing stacks of books which were deposited on the table in front of the General. Now, Franco was not very tall and the pile of books grew rapidly - so much so that by the time we were about half way through the ceremony, Franco could no longer be seen from the part of the hall in which I was seated; it really was a hilarious meeting. The second highlight of the Consejo celebrations was the excursion to Segovia. I do not think General Franco himself was there - at least I do not recall seeing him - but quite a substantial number of his ministers took part. We were all loaded into large black cars in Madrid, and drove in procession to Segovia. All along the route, at intervals of about a kilometre, there were pairs of civil guards who presented arms. When we got to Segovia we were received by the provincial governor and the mayor, and drove up to the Alcazar which had been specially beflagged for the occasion. On alighting, we entered the great courtyard, each being presented on the way in with an alforja (a kind of brightly coloured saddle bag) containing in one pocket a sheep's milk cheese, and in the other some bread, a knife, and a glazed earthenware jug of about a pint capacity. The reason for this was soon apparent. Along two sides of the courtyard were rows of sucking pigs roasting gently on spits, and on the third were skins of wine suspended over large horse or cattle troughs. The centre of the courtyard was occupied by troupes of regional dancers from different parts of the country. The wine skins were slashed, the dancers danced, and we all got busy on the wine and bread and cheese. I suppose this went on for about half an hour, by which time all inhibitions had been removed, and we all tottered (literally) into the great hall where lunch - vast quantities of barbecued sucking pig and still more wine, was consumed. Thereafter, we got back into our cars, and slept peacefully until we arrived at the Escorial where, believe it or not, we were met with copious draughts of brandy. My recollections of the rest of the trip back to Madrid are a bit hazy.
The incidents I have described were amusing, but in no way detracted from a most impressive celebration of the Consejo Superior's birthday. In my experience, the Spaniards are extremely friendly and hospitable people, and, when they decide to have a celebration, it is always on an impressive scale. A further example occurred in 1953 when my wife and I attended the Jubilee (Bodas de Oro) of the Spanish Chemical Society in Madrid, and again later, when I received an honorary doctorate from the University of Madrid in 1959.
I spent a good deal of time overseas in 1950 for, apart from the short trips to Spain and to Germany which I have mentioned, it was in that year that I made my first visit to Australia. I received an invitation from the Royal Australian Chemical Institute to lecture in the state capitals, and also one to be Visiting Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sydney for the Australian spring term (September-December 1950). I had always wanted to visit Australia, and, although, unfortunately, Alison was unable to accompany me, I accepted the invitation and set out by air in mid-August. The flying-boat service had ceased by then, but I had a marvellous trip out on a Qantas Constellation. From London we flew to Rome, where we were provided with picnic lunches, put on a bus, and given a tour of the city before re-embarking for Cairo, where we arrived late in the evening. We had late dinner, and it was such a beautiful moonlit night that, instead of going to bed, I, with one or two fellow passengers, hired a car and visited the pyramids, where we spent a marvellous couple of hours. At dawn we took off again, and with a couple of intermediate stops came down very late at Singapore where we were Qantas guests until a day and a night later we took off again early in the morning for Darwin. The weather was fine, and the volcanic peaks of Java, the tips of which seemed almost level with the plane, were quite magnificent. Shortly after leaving Singapore the captain announced that, after much haggling, an agreement about landing rights had been signed by Australia and Indonesia the previous day, and that he had been asked to be the guinea-pig and call at Jakarta. This we did; I would hardly describe our welcome as warm, and we were all locked up in a kind of shed with an armed guard outside until summoned to re-embark about an hour or so later. All I saw of Jakarta from our shed was the airport road; what impressed me most was that it was swarming with people, and that almost every woman of child-bearing age appeared to be either pregnant or carrying an infant on her back. At Darwin we stopped only to refuel, and went on overnight to Sydney where we touched down at Mascot airport at precisely the time stated in the Qantas timetable - 7.30 a.m. I have given a rather detailed account of the trip, partly because the air trip to Australia was then a very gentlemanly voyage, contrasting strongly with the rushed trip one has nowadays.
I fell in love with Australia at once, and, although I have visited it many times since, I still remember my first contact -the vastness, the uniform grey green of the vegetation, the strangeness of both flora and fauna, and the eerie silence of the bush. I liked the people, too, and got on very well with all types, and not merely with the academics. I moved around so much that I did not spend a great deal of time in the University of Sydney, and, although I delivered a few lectures, I did not give a formal course. R. J. W. Le Fevre, the head of the chemistry department, and his wife Cathie were extremely hospitable and helped make my stay a happy one, but he was having a difficult time. He had come to Sydney from London at the end of the war to inherit a department whose members were at loggerheads with one another, and, in some cases, resentful of Le Fevre's appointment. This sad state of internal strife seems to have dogged Sydney chemistry ever since I have known it, and it has, in my view, prevented what could easily have become a great school from realising its true potential; it has produced some really outstanding men like Cornforth and Birch, but they have all made their triumphs elsewhere. Even today, I have the impression that tension still exists there. I visited all the capital cities and, with my hosts in each of them, saw quite a bit of the surrounding country, from the sugar cane f
ields and rain forests of Queensland to the desert, aflame with wild flowers, in Western Australia. I think that, on the whole, I was most attracted by Perth and Adelaide, and I was particularly impressed by the University of Adelaide which, unlike most of the others, seemed to have achieved some kind of rapport with the state government, whereas there appeared (to me at least) to be little sympathy between state and university elsewhere, although all of the universities were state organisations. In Adelaide I stayed with the professor of chemistry, that friendly, talkative Ulsterman, A. K. Macbeth, and spent quite a bit of time moving around the vineyards with that rumbustious character, Hedley Marston, who did so much for agriculture and the livestock industry in Australia, through his trace metal studies. He was something of a bon viveur - I recall that, when I stepped off the plane at the old Parrafield airstrip, he lurched towards the plane brandishing a walking stick and bellowing 'Look Alex - I've managed it at last - gout!' Dear old Hedley; he was always a thorn in somebody's flesh, but was, none the less, a great Australian. I still remember vividly trips through the bush country beyond Victor Harbour with Hedley and Mark Mitchell, the professor of biochemistry at Adelaide, where flocks of galahs used to swoop through the ghostly twisted gum trees, and leave behind them a bush which seemed even more silent than it was before. I learned a lot about Australia and its scientific and technical problems on these excursions.
In 1950 Australia was, in many ways, a fascinating country. It made me think of a giant who had for long been fast asleep, but was now beginning to stir before waking up. Architecturally and socially its cities were like transplants from pre-war Britain, although in politics and in labour relations they seemed to me much more raw and aggressive. It was an interesting time from an academic viewpoint, for the university scene was on the threshold of great changes. The creation of a university of technology in Sydney had been agreed, and some staff appointments had been made in 1949 although the new university (now the University of New South Wales) had as yet no buildings of its own, and, when I was there in 1950, most of its work was being carried on in the Sydney Technical College, which was (and, I believe, still is) located in Ultimo, not very far from the University of Sydney. Philip Baxter (now Sir Philip), the professor of chemical engineering in this new university, had taken up office about a year before I visited Sydney; I had known him in England, where he was Research Director at I.C.I. Ltd General Chemical Division at Widnes. We had been associated, partly through chemical defence work during the war, and subsequently in my capacity as consultant for several years to the General Chemical Division. He and his wife were very kind to me in Sydney, and I was greatly impressed by the way in which he was getting a grip on things, not only as regards chemical engineering in the new university, but through his development, even at that early stage, of good relations with the government of New South Wales, and the way he appeared to be taking a leading part in matters relating to atomic energy. At the time of which I write, the Vice-Chancellorship of the infant university was temporarily occupied by a civil servant from the New South Wales Department of Education, but it was clear that he was, in effect, just a stop-gap until the university had premises of its own. That, I confess, seemed to me a long time off. Philip Baxter took me one warm and sunny morning to see the university site at Kensington, where building was said to have begun. It consisted of a large open space with, somewhere near the middle, a brick wall about thirty feet long by ten feet high, evidently the beginning of a larger structure; at the base of the wall, on its shady side, reclined half a dozen builder's men apparently asleep. Such hives of activity seemed to me to be not uncommon on construction sites in Sydney, so I reckoned (erroneously, as it turned out) that the University of New South Wales would take a long time to develop. One thing was clear to me, however - Philip Baxter would surely take over as Vice-Chancellor; this he did, in due course, and the impressive new university is in effect a monument to his ability and drive.
In general the universities were in a poor way. They were swamped by elementary teaching and frequently at loggerheads with the state governments on which they depended for support. Research was at a rather low ebb; most of the best people they produced went abroad to study for a doctorate, and usually did not return. The situation, at least in chemistry, was not helped by the low level of industrial activity, with a consequential paucity of openings for graduates outside the institutes of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which were doing an excellent and very necessary job in supporting agriculture and livestock production on which the country's welfare mainly depended. Shortly before my visit, it had been decided, on the advice of some leading expatriate Australian scientists, spurred on by Sir David Rivett, the head of CSIRO, to create an Australian National University at Canberra - a decision which, not surprisingly, was greeted with no great enthusiasm by the existing state universities. I recall being at a dinner in Melbourne given, if I remember aright, by the board of I.C.I. (ANZ) Ltd at which Rivett and I were guests. He expounded his views on the national university scheme indicating that it was to be essentially a research university, where all the best Australians would be able to develop work which would achieve international recognition. I asked whether it might not be wiser at this stage to do something that would put the state universities in order and enable them to develop into world-class institutions, rather than embark on the national university scheme. With this view he disagreed vehemently, saying that the state universities were quite hopeless and could never develop in the way I suggested. In reply I said that, if the state universities were neglected, reliance on a national university would be no solution, and that, if the state universities were not properly supported and encouraged, the long-term outlook for science in Australia would be bleak indeed; to my mind, one should build up the state universities and create a national postgraduate university later on. We had quite a set-to that evening. In the event, of course, I was proved right in one respect by the development which has since occurred in the state universities, which are now flourishing both in teaching and research. On the other hand, as Rivett hoped, the national university - although I still think it was founded earlier than it should have been - has settled down and is now a fine institution.
A few days before I was due to leave Australia for home I received a telegram from my old friend and former Vice-Chancellor, Sir John Stopford, in his capacity as deputy chairman of the Nuffield Foundation. It informed me that I would find at home a formal invitation to become a Nuffield Trustee and finished with the words 'and don't dare to refuse'. So, on returning to England I became a Managing Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation. Thus began a long and intimate association with this great charitable foundation, which I have served successively as Managing Trustee, deputy chairman and chairman until the end of 1979, and since then as chairman of the Ordinary Trustees. The Nuffield Foundation was created by Lord Nuffield who, having made a large fortune in the motor industry, wanted to set up a trust which would apply his wealth to the advancement of health, and the prevention and relief of sickness, the advancement of social well-being by scientific research, the development of education, and the care and comfort of the aged poor. During the first twenty-five years of its existence the Foundation devoted most of its resources to the promotion of research by grants-in-aid to individuals or groups seeking to explore and develop new areas in science, medicine, or social studies. Through these, and through its large ventures in various fields, e.g. the development of radioastronomy at Jodrell Bank, the Nuffield Science Teaching Projects and its stimulation of some relatively neglected fields of science, I believe the Foundation made a contribution to science in the post-war years in this country and in the Commonwealth out of all proportion to the actual sums of money it provided. A detailed account of the Foundation and its work during its first twenty-five years of existence has been published in book form (Clark. A Biography of the Nuffield Foundation. Longmans, London, 1972), and I need not enlarge on it here. Suffice to say that
I have enjoyed every minute of my association with the Foundation, and that I have learnt through it that to spend large sums of money wisely on education and research is far from being an easy task!
The year 1951 was an exciting one scientifically, because it was in the early summer of that year that we finally solved the problem of nucleic acid structure, and I announced it in a lecture given in Manhattan Centre, New York, on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the American Chemical Society in August. Attendance at that meeting was quite an experience, for I had never been at such a huge gathering before. We had a very pleasant trip from Southampton to New York on the Cunard liner Caronia in company with a number of chemical friends - Ewart (Tim) and Frances Jones (Oxford), Bill and Carol Dauben (Berkeley), John and Kathleen Lennard-Jones (Cambridge), and Vlado and Kamila Prelog (Zurich). We plunged into a veritable maelstrom of social and scientific activities, in the company of several thousand other participants. It is true that one did meet most of the world's leading chemists there, but actual encounters were fleeting, and I am afraid the whole thing convinced me that gigantic meetings of that nature were things to avoid wherever possible.
A Time to Remember Page 14
