In the 1950s there was (as there still is today) a lot of talk about the apparent backwardness of much of British industry in exploiting new science-based technology, the need to produce more highly trained and inventive engineers, and to have them not only revitalise industry but also bring the universities closer to the practical needs of the economy. Among industrialists and politicians the virtues of America in this respect were extolled and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology were frequently singled out as shining examples of what they would like to see in Britain. I need hardly add that most of them had only the dimmest idea of what these two institutions were and, as one who had been for a short time a professor in both of them, I had, at times, some difficulty in recognising them from the descriptions which were in circulation at the time. I knew, although only in general terms, that a group of industrialists, with John Oriel of Shell Ltd as a moving spirit, had been actively trying to set up some kind of technological institution but without a great deal of success. By 1956 I knew that their first idea of building on the base of Cranfield Aeronautical College had been abandoned, and that a second scheme, aiming to build an institute in association with Birmingham University, was also about to collapse. I was not surprised at the failure of these two attempts, nor was I greatly in sympathy with the scheme which had been proposed. I do not believe that you can build a replica of an institution of higher education which has grown up in one country, set it down in another with a totally different educational system, and expect it to succeed. Success will only come through the development of an institution in tune with the existing educational and cultural framework of the country in which it is located.
In December 1956 I had a note from John Colville (universally known as Jock), Sir Winston Churchill's private secretary, asking me to lunch with him at his office in London.
At this meeting he told me that he, Sir Winston and Lord Cherwell, had often discussed the problem of getting new technology into industry and the possibility of creating an institution like M.I.T. The same idea had been put forward to Sir Winston via Colville by Carl Gilbert of Boston, President of the Gillette Corporation. I was asked what I thought about it, and I gave the views I have just outlined. I pointed out that it was the people in an institution like M.I.T. that mattered, and that one of our troubles here was that the universities and colleges with special interests in technology, by and large, lacked the prestige to attract people of the highest quality either as teachers or students. In this country, it was quite clear that the prestige of Oxford and Cambridge ensured that the best brains in the country tended to gravitate there; this led me to suggest that one might do worse than take advantage of the collegiate system in Cambridge, where there was already a large academic engineering school; with money from industry, one could found a new college which would have a majority of its students in science and technology, would help develop strong research schools in the various technological studies, and in various other ways forge strong links with industry. After some further discussions, which also involved Mr. John Oriel of Shell Ltd and Sir John Cockcroft whom I brought in, it was agreed that the scheme should be closely examined. During the first part of 1957 I introduced Jock Colville to Professor B. W. Downs, Master of Christ's College and, at the time, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and to Lord Adrian, then Master of Trinity and due to succeed Downs as Vice-Chancellor in October 1957. Although not himself a scientist, Downs was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea, and he was mainly responsible for persuading the university formally to accept the idea of a new Churchill College operating on the above lines and forming a national memorial to Sir Winston. There was, of course, some opposition from diehards in the university, who viewed anything scientific with deep distrust, but this proved rather weak when put to the test and, after the usual series of academic manoeuvres, the outline scheme for the proposed new college was accepted by the Council of the Senate in November 1957. Thereupon began a lengthy series of exploratory talks with industrial leaders in which Jock Colville and I were much involved. Our idea was that we should be privately assured that industry was likely to contribute £3 1/2 million before we formally launched an appeal. In this we were greatly helped by Viscount Knollys of Vickers Ltd, who agreed not only to help in the exploratory work, but to become chairman of an Appeal Committee for the project. A Trust Deed was now drawn up and executed. In it the following were named as Trustees: Sir Winston Churchill, Lord Tedder, Lord Adrian, Viscount Chandos, Sir John Cockcroft, Professor Downs, Lord Fleck, Lord Godber, Sir Alexander Todd, Lord Weeks. Later Noel Annan, Sir William Carron, Viscount Knollys and John Colville joined as additional Trustees.
Once we reached the stage of approaching potential donors informally, I found myself saddled with the job of keeping track of amounts promised, and dealing with the local administrative problems such as opening bank accounts, etc.; my new laboratory superintendent, Ron Purchase, took on the job of acting as a Cambridge secretary to the Trust. In this work he continued until he left to return to Australia at the end of 1958. He did a first-class job, not only for the Trust but for me in the laboratory, and I was sorry to see him go; but I fear Purchase was an incurably restless individual who had to be always on the move. I have lost touch with him in recent years, but I used to hear from him occasionally for about ten years after we parted, and he seemed every time to be in different jobs located widely apart. He was, for a time, back in this country at Harwell, then later in Nauru in the Pacific - very much a rolling stone. I was doubtless lucky to have him when Ralph Gilson left Cambridge, but I was even luckier when I had to find a replacement. When I went to Manchester in 1938 Professor (later Sir) Ian Heilbron took with him to London his laboratory steward, F. G. Consterdine, a really first-class man under whom, incidentally, Ralph Gilson had been trained. Consterdine remained attached to Heilbron when the latter left Imperial College and went to direct the new Brewing Industry Research Foundation. When Heilbron died suddenly in 1959, Consterdine did not find the new regime to his liking, and, hearing that I was looking for someone like him to replace Purchase, he agreed to come to Cambridge. He took over without fuss or bother and ran my department with quiet efficiency until his retirement some years later; the wheel indeed had come effectively full circle.
It is not my intention to give a detailed history of the development of Churchill College, of which I later had the honour to be made an Honorary Fellow, but I treasure many memories of those early days when the idea was first elaborated, the money collected and the building and staffing of the new college was undertaken. During the period between the signing of the Trust Deed and the formal opening of the college the Trustees used to meet regularly at Sir Winston's house in Hyde Park Gate, London, S.W. The meetings were great fun, although we did also discharge a lot of business. The hour was always, as I recall, five o'clock in the afternoon, and each of us was provided with an enormous cigar and a very generous portion of brandy, ample replacements of both being scattered around the table. We always arranged that Oliver Chandos should sit immediately to the right of Sir Winston at the head of the table. This was important, because Chandos had by far the loudest voice in the room, and Sir Winston had a way of removing his hearing aid when the meeting started and was liable, in Chandos' absence, to become incommunicado. Nevertheless, he used to enliven the meetings from time to time by turning on a stream of epigrammatic remarks on features of the day's business which took his fancy. And many of his comments were not only acute, but clearly showed that he took the whole college project very seriously indeed; he was no sleeping partner despite his advanced years.
In the middle of one of our meetings I remember Sir Winston fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a letter which he opened and then announced 'I have a letter here from a woman - a very interesting letter. She says we ought to have women in the college. Seems quite a good idea - why don't we have women in the college?'
Whereat Chandos roared in best par
ade ground style 'If you do that, Winston, you might have to give back some of the money we've already collected.'
'Ah,' said the great man, 'that's different,' put the letter back in his pocket and replenished his glass.
On another occasion, when plans for the college buildings were being considered the question of a chapel was raised. Because we hoped the membership would be very international some of us felt that a chapel specifically associated with one religion would not be appropriate. The matter was speedily settled by Sir Winston who said 'Chapel? Why should we have a chapel - Cambridge is full of churches already.' But it didn't quite work out like that. Someone must have leaked this discussion in Cambridge, for, very soon thereafter, we received a small cheque - I think it was for £5 or £10 - as a donation for the chapel. It was felt that to return the cheque would probably lead to trouble, so we decided that, if enough money to build a chapel came to us earmarked for this purpose, then we would include one, subject to the proviso that it should be so designed that any member of the college would feel able to use it for private devotion, no matter what his particular religious beliefs. Such a chapel was in due course included in the final plans.
There was quite a discussion at one point about a motto for the college, and it was decided that between two meetings a paper should be sent to all the Trustees, on which they were asked to write their proposal for a motto. As it went to the Trustees in alphabetical order, I was able to see the proposals of all the rest except Weeks before adding my own. At the outset I was barren of ideas, but when I looked at the complicated, and in some cases extremely verbose, proposals of my colleagues - mainly in Latin - I simply wrote the single word 'Forward'. Tedder, who was our Vice-Chairman almost accused me of levity, but when, in due course, the paper was given to Sir Winston he looked at it, grunted and then growled 'What's wrong with "Forward" ?' And so Churchill College got its motto.
The appeal was formally launched on 15 May 1958. As donations were to come to Cambridge I was authorised to send Ron Purchase round to Barclays Bank in Bene't Street to open an account. According to him he went to the bank and asked if he could see the manager. He was told politely that the manager was busy, and was asked why he wanted to see him. 'I want to open an account,' said Purchase. 'Come, come,' was the reply, 'you don't need the manager for that - one of the tellers will do it for you. What kind of account do you want?' 'Well,' said Purchase, 'it is a little bit complicated; you see I want to open it with a million pounds.'
There was a moment of stunned silence - and Purchase saw the manager.
Looking back at it after some twenty years, I am struck by the smoothness with which the whole operation was carried through. Everyone worked really hard and cooperatively, and I think particular credit goes to Jock Colville whom I consider to have been the mainspring of the whole project. I am proud to have been associated with the project and with him.
I contrived to avoid the hectic days following the public launching of the Churchill College appeal by going off to conduct the honours examinations in chemistry at the University of Malaya in Singapore, and the University of Hong Kong. This was my first visit to South-East Asia, apart from a one day stopover in Singapore on my way to Australia in 1950. I enjoyed it hugely - so much so that, over the years since then, I have taken increasingly to visiting it, and especially that fascinating and beautiful place, Hong Kong. The Malayan part of my 1958 visit was not without excitement. Before leaving London I had been asked by our government to discuss certain matters with the Tunku Abdul Rahman on my way to Singapore. I duly alighted from the intercontinental plane at Kuala Lumpur, stopped the night at a hotel not far from the spectacular railway station of that city, and saw the Tunku the following morning at his residence. After the meeting there was a lunch party during which one of the Malayan military attaches asked me what I was doing after lunch. I told him I was taking a plane to Singapore, whereupon he said he was driving down to Singapore that afternoon, and would be glad of my company if I would like to see something of Malaya. I accepted with alacrity, cancelled my plane reservation, and set off to the south with the attache who was driving his own car.
A mile or two north of Seremban we were overtaken by a tropical thunderstorm and our windscreen wiper packed up. As more such storms were quite likely at that time of year, we decided to stop at Seremban and have the wiper put right. While the repair was being made, we retired to the local rest-house and had a drink or two. The repair took rather a long time, and when we set out again dusk was fast approaching. As we drove south through alternating jungle and rubber plantations, I noticed that the vegetation had been cut back so as to leave a strip of twenty-five yards or so of open ground on either side of the road. I realised that this had been done to lessen the chance of an ambush by bandits, who had not yet been completely eliminated from the Malayan scene, but thought no more of it. Soon it was quite dark, and, as we drove on and on, I couldn't help noticing that the road was deserted; no peasants with donkeys or goats, such as usually abound, were to be seen. I also became aware that my friend the attache was getting a bit worried, and was increasing his speed, thereby considerably diminishing our comfort. After what seemed quite a long time we came over the brow of a hill, and there, on the hillside on the opposite side of the valley in front of us, were the flickering lights of a small village or town. 'Thank God!' said my companion, 'Yong Peng at last.' Just at that moment a cluster of lights shot up into the sky above the village, 'Ah,' said I, 'we are just in time for a Chinese wedding or funeral!' 'I'm not so sure about that - they look like Verey lights,' said the attache, and with that he accelerated and we shot down the hill and up the other side. Before we got to the village there was a burst of machine gun fire in the jungle to our right, but we were unscathed and pulled up in front of a massive wooden gate barring entry to Yong Peng. We made a bit of noise, whereupon the gate opened slightly and a Malay soldier put his head out and asked us our business. Satisfied, he opened the gate sufficiently to let us in then closed and barred it again before taking us to see his commander in a nearby house. The commander, a young officer, told us that we had arrived just as a battle was about to begin, and that we would have to stay in Yong Peng till it was over. Apparently the authorities had learned, through informers, that on this particular night the local bandits planned to attack Yong Peng to replenish their food supplies, and the army had arranged to move in a detachment of soldiers secretly so as to give the bandits a warm welcome. We had arrived just as the first bandits had emerged from a nearby rubber plantation - hence the Verey lights - and firing had begun. The commanding officer was very apologetic, and suggested that we leave our car at the command post and proceed down the main street where we would find a bar at a Chinese hotel called the White House; there, he suggested, we should have a drink and wait until the battle was over.
We took his advice and sat down on the verandah on the street frontage of the White House, which effectively shielded us from the back garden, at the bottom of which a couple of soldiers were ensconced taking occasional pot shots in the direction of the rubber trees. In front of us there was, of all things, a juke-box which two urchins kept feeding with coins, so that the night was filled with the strains of 'See you later, alligator' punctuated, from time to time, with small arms fire from the direction of the back garden. About two hours, and most of a bottle of whisky later, the shooting had ceased, and the commander said we could leave now, although it was clear that he wasn't too happy about it. He offered us an armoured car escort, but my companion would have none of it. If we had an escort (so he said) we would certainly be ambushed, whereas, if we went on our own, the bandits wouldn't bother us. The commanding officer kindly said he would telephone the towns and villages we would have to pass through on our way so that they would expect us and so open the gates to let us through. So off we set again and reached Singapore in the small hours, our journey being without further incident apart from an encounter with a large pig near Johore Baru. There was an amusing s
equel to all this when I went along to breakfast at my Singapore hotel next day. In the dining room I met a young British lieutenant, the son of a friend in England. He was surprised to see me, and asked how long I had been in Malaya. I said I had only arrived in Singapore a few hours before after an encounter with bandits at Yong Peng. At this he expressed great indignation, holding that it was totally unfair that he should have been four months in Malaya looking for bandits without success, and here was I in touch with them within twenty-four hours of my arrival.
Examining in Singapore was quite tame after all this, but it was very interesting. I began to be aware of some of the problems which led to the later separation of Malaysia and Singapore. It was quite striking to see that the student body seemed to be mainly Chinese, with some Indians and very few Malays; in my experience, too, the Malays were the least able students, and gave the impression of having been badly prepared for university education. Hong Kong was, of course, very different in this respect, the student body being entirely Chinese. The University of Hong Kong was largely staffed (although by no means wholly) by expatriates from the United Kingdom; academically its standards were quite high, but it seemed to me at the time to have a quaintly colonial atmosphere. It had a first-class Vice-Chancellor in Sir Lindsay Ride, an Australian trained originally in medicine; he and his wife May were excellent hosts; both had long been resident in Hong Kong, had become part of the local scene, and were highly and deservedly respected throughout the colony. Both Victoria and Kowloon were much less built up than they are today - indeed, as I recall it, the only buildings which might have been called skyscrapers were the headquarters of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Communist Bank of China which stood cheek by jowl not far from the waterfront in Victoria.
A Time to Remember Page 17
