When I emerged from hospital and was fully fit again I decided that it would be wise to cut down on my commitments and take things a little more easily. I began by shedding a number of committees, and cut down severely on public lecture commitments. It also seemed that I now had the chance to put into practice what I had often told my family I would do once I passed the age of sixty, viz. retire from the headship of the University Chemical Laboratory. I had, during my professional life, seen great departments such as Cambridge, Manchester and Oxford badly scarred and well-nigh destroyed by having professors who stayed on after they had ceased to be effective, and I had always vowed I would not make that mistake in the school I had built up in Cambridge. I had indeed already made a move by importing, only nine months before my illness, a young and brilliant professor in A. R. Battersby (who had indeed been an undergraduate member of my school in Manchester during the war period). The way was thus clear for me to show that I could practise what I preached, and I gave notice that I would resign my chair and take Emeritus status on 30 September 1971. I fulfilled my obligation as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1970, and delivered a fairly hard-hitting Presidential Address entitled' A Time to Think' in Durham Cathedral (the only place in Durham large enough to accommodate the audience). The address, in which I set out at some length my criticism of the post-Robbins expansion for our universities, did not please the political left; it was leaked beforehand, and the gaiety of the occasion was increased by a demonstration in the Cathedral Yard by a group of left-wing adherents of a body called (I think) the 'Society for Social Responsibility in Science', all attired in white sheets and affecting to be victims of chemical and biological warfare.' A Time to Think' was published in Advancement of Science 1970, 27, 70; on re-reading it after ten years I find little in it that is not equally relevant today. For this reason, and because it sets out my views on a number of topics of wide interest and importance, I have decided to reproduce it in full as Appendix I (p. 205) to these memoirs.
I kept my word and formally resigned my Cambridge chair in 1971. To mark my retirement the University Chemical Laboratory held a large dinner - so large, indeed, was the guest list that it had to be held in the Hall of King's College. I was deeply moved to find included among the guests not only former colleagues and students from the Manchester and Cambridge days, but also old friends from my student days in Glasgow, Frankfurt, and Oxford, as well as Sir Robert Robinson and R. B. Woodward. It was a tremendous party, and one notable consequence of it was the creation of the Toddlers' Club, an exclusive dining club of eighteen members which I have already described (p. 71).
Even before I resigned my chair it was clear that my life would not be very much easier as a result. Following the death of Sir Frank Lee in the spring of 1971 I came under heavy pressure from the Vice-Chancellor and the University Treasurer to succeed Sir Frank as chairman of the Syndics of Cambridge University Press. They were most insistent and, particularly as I had refused to allow myself to be nominated for the Vice-Chancellorship, I felt I had to accept.
My refusal to stand as a candidate for the Vice-Chancellorship - the highest office in the University of Cambridge - perhaps calls for some explanation. My reasons were simple enough. In the University of Cambridge the Vice-Chancellor holds office for only two years, the running of the university being largely in the hands of its permanent officials. In my opinion, two years is too short a period in which to initiate and put into operation any reforms which experience might show to be desirable. In this sense, the Vice-Chancellor seemed to me to be largely a figurehead with little real power, but carrying a great deal of responsibility if things went wrong. Responsibility without power has never appealed to me, and I believe that the Vice-Chancellorship of the university should be held for a longer period (as in Oxford) or be a permanent appointment as in all other universities in the United Kingdom. Already on my first visit as chairman to the offices of the University Press I was horrified; the Press was to all intents and purposes bankrupt, with a soaring overdraft and with sales and receipts dwindling, so that they were unable to cope with rising costs. I believe that only the knowledge that behind the Press stood the university with its great resources had kept the bank from calling a halt. Fortunately, even I could see that the Press could be made to function profitably and that all that was wrong with it was bad management. The Press was managed by the Syndics, a group of academics appointed by the university on a system of rotation; no doubt they were excellent choosers of scholarly books, but they evidently thought that the Press should be run just like a university department; they also seemed wedded to the idea that Press staff should not only be, as far as possible, academics themselves but also be remunerated on university scales without reference to the rates paid in the world of commercial publishing. Fortunately there were some members of the Press who realised the position and were looking for a lead which could only come from the top. I had a few busy months at the start but was lucky enough to get things on the right lines quickly. In these initial moves I received great help and encouragement from R. W. (Dick) David, the University Publisher, who was well aware of the problems and who, quite unselfishly, sought with me to reorganise the Press, even if it detracted from his own position of authority; I shall always be grateful to him for his help. It was evident that the first essential was to appoint a really first-class managing director/chief executive with experience in commercial publishing. Since it was obvious that to get such a person one would need to pay the going rate in competition with commercial publishers, I decided that the best thing to do would be to engage the right man and only tell the Syndics about it after the deed had been done. In this way I was able to appoint a really brilliant executive in Geoffrey Cass, who had previously been associated with Allen and Unwin Ltd. He took office with us on 1 January 1972, and from that day the Press never looked back. Within a year it was back on the rails, and by the time I had to resign (with great regret) my chairmanship at the end of 1975 when I became President of the Royal Society, we were not only making very substantial surpluses but had built up an extremely strong cash and assets position. Although the success was undoubtedly due to Geoffrey Cass, I like to think that I played some part in what was an important rescue operation for the University and for academic publishing.
In March 1973 Sir Geoffrey Gibbs resigned as chairman of the Managing Trustees of the Nuffield Foundation and I was appointed in his place. As the Foundation had been in existence for more than twenty-five years and had an efficient administrative organisation at its London headquarters in Regents Park, the duties of its chairman were not unduly onerous. It seemed to me that we had rather neglected our advisory committees in Australia and New Zealand and that it would be a good thing for the chairman to visit them and discuss programmes and policy on the spot. It happened that I had been invited to deliver the Centenary Oration at the University of Adelaide in 1974, so that it was possible to fit in the Nuffield visits on the same trip. Accordingly, in August 1974, my wife and I travelled to Adelaide and, after the university's centenary celebrations, we visited various centres in Australia on Nuffield matters, and spent a memorable fortnight on Lindeman Island before going on to New Zealand for our second visit to that beautiful country.
We flew from London to Adelaide via Mexico, where we stopped off for an all too short visit. In addition to seeing the marvellous collection of antiquities in the great archaeological museum in Mexico City, we were only able to visit two pre-Columbian temple complexes at Teotihuacan and Tula, but that was enough to make me resolve to return to that beautiful and fascinating country at the first opportunity. Prior to our visit I had been interested in the history of pre-Columbian America, and I knew a fair amount about the Toltec and Aztec civilisations; but I was quite unprepared for the breathtaking size and beauty of the Temples of the Sun and Moon and the huge ceremonial avenue of the Teotihuacan complex. Teotihuacan will always rank in my mind with the great temple at Karnak in Egyp
t, which is about equally majestic and awe-inspiring.
Adelaide University celebrated its centenary in August 1974 during a spell of warm sunny weather which ensured that all the ceremonial and pageantry went off without a hitch. We met many old friends there, including, of course, the Vice-Chancellor, Geoffrey Badger, and his wife, and we were particularly pleased to meet again Sir Mark Oliphant who, aided by his wife, was doing an excellent job as Governor of South Australia and endearing himself to the ordinary people of the state by his friendliness and informality. I always find Adelaide with its wide streets and balconied houses a most attractive city. It has about it a rather quiet, genteel, air which is also noticeable in the Adelaide Club, of which I had the honour to be a member during my stay. The club preserves much of the old-fashioned courtesy and formality now fast disappearing from many of the London clubs on which the Australian clubs were clearly modelled. I have been a temporary member of several others - the Weld Club in Perth, the Union Club in Sydney and the Melbourne Club - and have found them also to be, if anything, more English than their London counterparts.
Lindeman Island, where we went with our friends Lloyd and Marion Rees after the Adelaide ceremonies, was, as on our earlier visits, a really magnificent place for a relaxed holiday in the sun. The beautiful beaches, the informality of the single hotel, and the eerie stillness of the bush in the centre of the island, broken only by the occasional screech of a currawong -all these were much as before. But there was, I thought, an ominous portent of things to come in the admittedly rough and ready nine-hole golf course, which had been carved out of the bush near the island's only landing strip. I fear that this may be the prelude to the kind of so-called development which has already converted a number of other islands between the Queensland coast and the Great Barrier Reef into raucous holiday resorts. I can only hope that I am wrong!
On our New Zealand visit we made an extensive tour of the South Island with Sir Malcolm Burns, chairman of the Nuffield New Zealand Committee, and his wife as our hosts and companions throughout. The weather was cold and not infrequently wet as we went around - Mount Cook, Queenstown, Te Anu, Arrowtown, Manipouri and Milford Sound - but it was all most enjoyable. I found the rain forest in the far south-west quite fascinating; in a land where the annual rainfall averages well over 300 inches, the forests are dominated by lichens of every colour. New Zealand is a country of great scenic beauty; it is a pity that its towns and cities are not equally inspiring.
Two years after I assumed the chairmanship of the Nuffield Foundation I was - much to my surprise - nominated for the Presidency of the Royal Society, which office I assumed on 1 December 1975. To be elected President of the Royal Society is the supreme accolade in British science and in my case it had an added sentimental value. My father-in-law, Sir Henry Dale, had been its President from 1940 to 1945 and did indeed formally admit me to the Fellowship in 1942; he, too, had been awarded a Nobel Prize and was a member both of the restricted German Order Pour le Merite and of the British Order of Merit. I had myself been made a member of Pour le Merite in 1965 and when, in 1977, I had the honour to be admitted to the Order of Merit it put my wife in a unique position!
8. The Royal Society
The Royal Society or - to give it its full title - the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is the oldest of the existing national scientific academies and it enjoys an immense prestige in the world of science. Its origins go back to about 1645 when a group of scholars made a habit of meeting together in London and, during the Protectorate, partly there and partly in Oxford, but it was formally founded in 1660 and received its first Royal Charter in 1662. Unlike many national academies it confines its activities to natural science, both pure and applied. One of its earliest secretaries, Robert Hooke, in 1663 laid down rules for the Royal Society as follows:
The business and design of the Royal Society is - To improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanick practises, Engynes and Inventions by Experiments - (not meddling with Divinity, Metaphysics, Moralls, Politicks, Grammar, Rhetorick, or Logick).
These rules are still followed, and define fairly accurately the scope of the Society's activities. Over the three centuries of its existence it has had frequent contacts with British governments, and has given advice and assistance in matters of policy - for example, in the setting up of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and (much more recently) of the National Physical Laboratory; but it has always kept clear of political involvement.
Like all human institutions, the Society has had its ups and downs. Periods in which it was vigorous and influential have alternated with others when it was relatively inactive and inward looking; it has, however, always been steadfast in its recognition and support of outstanding ability in science. When I became President, the Society was emerging from a rather difficult period. In the 1930s it had been on the whole quiescent, and, indeed, had something of the air of a scientific gentlemen's club; the war of 1939-45, however, saw it plunged into the problems of scientific policy as the allied governments sought (with success) to harness science to the war effort. By the end of the war, science and its potential stood high in political esteem, and the Royal Society was supremely well placed to fill the role of scientific adviser to government in developing the new post-war world. Unfortunately that chance was missed. Dale, who had been President during most of the war, went out of office in 1945 and was succeeded first by Sir Robert Robinson and then by Lord Adrian, neither of whom had any interest in political or governmental matters. Adrian's successor, Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, was again essentially a scholar and a scientist and occupied himself largely with the celebration of the Society's Tercentenary and with its foreign relations, while Sir Howard (later Lord) Florey in his turn was fully occupied with the problem of reorganising and rehousing the Society in new premises in Carlton House Terrace - a task which involved, among other things, much detailed negotiation and extensive fund-raising. When Patrick (later Lord) Blackett took over in 1965 he certainly moved to increase the Society's role in national and international affairs, but, by aligning himself and also endeavouring to align the Society with the political party then in power, he broke one of Hooke's rules and, in my view, damaged the Society in its external relations. Under my immediate predecessor, Sir Alan Hodgkin, repair of that damage and recovery was put in train, but still had some way to go. I decided that I should endeavour (1) to increase the influence of the Society in providing government with advice on scientific aspects of policy while remaining totally independent; (2) to increase to the maximum extent its support of research in the then current climate of financial restrictions by developing and extending its system of research professorships and fellowships; (3) to develop closer relations with applied science and engineering and (4) to strengthen its international relations. The degree to which these efforts were successful is for others to judge, but they are, in any case, too recent to permit a fair judgement.
One of the duties of the President of the Royal Society is to deliver each year an Anniversary Address to the Society at its annual meeting on St Andrew's Day. Although it had not been customary for Presidents to devote their Addresses to current problems, I decided that my Anniversary Addresses should be a vehicle for my views on matters of public concern. This I endeavoured to do, and in each of my five Addresses I dealt with matters related to science which were of current concern to the Society and to the public at large. Because of their importance as indicators of my views, and because quotations from them would hardly do justice to these views, I have included the essential parts of them as appendices.
During my first year of office I found myself much involved with problems relating to the freedom of science and of scientific enquiry, and with much public agitation about the treatment of certain scientists in the Soviet Union and in some South American countries. My views on these matters are set out in my Address delivered on 30 November 1976, of which I append the relevant portion as Appendix
II. The end of 1976 brought with it other problems. The President of the Royal Society relies heavily on the Executive Secretary and four Honorary Officers - the Physical, Biological, and Foreign Secretaries and the Treasurer. Although having had only one year in office, I was faced with the need to appoint three new Officers - a Treasurer, a Biological and a Foreign Secretary -the holders of these posts being due to retire at the 1976 annual meeting. I was fortunate enough to make three excellent appointments, but something approaching disaster struck only some three weeks after the Annual Meeting. Sir David Martin, who had been Executive Secretary for some thirty years, died suddenly and without any prior warning as a result of a massive heart attack shortly before Christmas 1976 - only a couple of hours after he and I had attended the annual staff Christmas party. David was not just a dear friend of many years' standing, but he really was the linchpin of the Society and his tragic loss put me in real trouble. Things might, however, have been worse; at least I had appointed three outstanding men as Honorary Officers - John Mason, David Phillips and Michael Stoker - and Sir Harrie Massey was continuing as Physical Secretary. Harrie was a real tower of strength, and in Ronald Keay, David Martin's deputy, we were lucky enough to have a man of experience and ability who could take over the duties of Executive Secretary. So we survived, and were able to carry on with the programmes I had in mind.
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