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KEVIN M. DOWNARD FEATURE The life and travels to Australia of Francis Aston Kevin Downard traces the life and times of Francis Aston, inventor of the mass spectrograph. Young Aston ‘laboratory’ and acquired glass- guinea (about 20 shillings or one blowing skills, fabricated electrical pound) to her memorial fund.3 Francis William Aston’s life was coils, and prepared fireworks that In 1894, Francis entered Mason clearly influenced by his roots and were launched with much College in Birmingham, which from early childhood. He was born on 1 enthusiasm during annual displays. 1900 became part of the University September 1877, the third child of Despite several siblings, it is clear of Birmingham. Mason College was five, to William and Fanny Charlotte the young Francis was often content established in 1875 with £180 000 (nee Hollis) Aston in Camomile to amuse himself, a trait he carried by Sir Josiah Mason, who had made Green on the edge of the town of into his later years of research, his fortune by designing the Harborne near Birmingham. An where he mostly worked alone. One machine-slit nib of the fountain pen. 1881 census shows William to be 12 By 1893 the college had 556 years older than his wife, and that particularly popular activity was the students. At Mason, Francis was Francis’ sisters and brother were construction of tissue paper balloons taught chemistry by Percy Faraday named Kate, Henry (four and two that he would send off with self- 2 Frankland and physics by John years older respectively), Mary and addressed postcards. These were Henry Poynting.4 He graduated with Helen.1 Harborne was a centre for sometimes returned from far away, a Bachelor of Science degree in nailmaking in the late 1800s, with complete with details of their find. 1898, specialising in organic nails fabricated from iron supplied His ingenuity and interest in the sci- chemistry, and was awarded the in part from local businesses entific and mechanical, combined Forster Scholarship to work with operated by the town’s wealthier res- with an interest in people outside of Frankland on optical rotation, which idents. Nailmaking was often per- his own surrounds, set the stage for resulted in a joint publication of formed on the nailmaker’s own Aston’s future scientific career and 1901.5 property, and nails were transported travels. Aston left college in 1900 to work to Birmingham in exchange for more Aston was initially schooled by for three years in nearby raw material. Aston’s father was Emily Tonks and was enrolled in Wolverhampton at the local W. active in the trade and is listed in Harborne Vicarage School from Butler and Co. Springfield brewery. the 1881 census as a metal broker.1,2 1889. The vicarage school was run He continued, however, to work pri- His mother was also close to the by Eliza Roberts, the wife of the vately on his research in a disused metal industry, being the youngest Reverend Edward Roberts from the loft in his father’s house. Here, he daughter of Isaac Hollis, a gunmaker local St Peters Church. Figure 1 is a created discharges within glass test and founder of what is now the photograph showing some of the tubes using a fabricated induction Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) students at the school around 1890. coil, which was capable of producing group of companies.2 Although the names of the boys a spark of several inches in length. Together, the Aston’s lived in a have not been recorded with the In 1903, he returned to the then large house known locally as photo, the boy standing sixth from University of Birmingham as an ‘Tennal’, on Church lane at one end the right, and a little aloof from the associate to continue his research of Tennal road, then backed by small others, bears a strong resemblance to discharge work in high vacuum in local farms. The family was of some Francis Aston in his later life. In the physics department.6 In this and means because the home occupied a September 1891, Aston transferred his future research, Aston preferred large block of land and they enjoyed to Malvern College to complete his experimentally based discoveries the benefit of servants Sarah Tanner high school studies and it was here over mathematical or theoretical and Annie Knowles. Tennal Hall also that he began to demonstrate his pursuits and performed most of his stood on Tennal Road but should abilities in chemistry, physics and research alone. He published several not be confused with the Astons’ mathematics. He and his brother home that was reportedly Henry returned to his old school in 3 Kevin M. Downard is at the School of demolished in the 1960s. Here, the 1892 to attend a memorial to Mrs Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, young Francis constructed his first Roberts where both contributed a University of Sydney, NSW. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 200617 Figure 1. Some of the students of the Harborne Vicarage School in 1890.The boy sixth from the right resembles a young Francis Aston. Source: Harborne Public Library. articles in the Proceedings of the on the steamship SS Omrah to tour Laboratory as an assistant. Here, Royal Society during this time of his the UK, Ireland and North America, Aston built several mass spectro- experiments in so-called cathode winning 32 of their 38 matches. The graphs, successors of the cathode ray dark space.7 team competed in the 1908 Olympic tubes used for studying positive Games, which was moved to London ions. Considerable energy was spent Aston travels the world after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius ensuring a good vacuum in these In 1908, Francis was left substantial near Rome forced the host city to devices. In 1911, in a note in the monies from his father’s estate. Now withdraw. Aston, a keen sportsman journal Nature, Aston reports on a 30, he used this to take a world trip who cycled, swam, skied, and played method to detect leaks: ‘An visiting Ceylon, Burma, Australia, both tennis and golf, must have been apparatus of mine involving seven New Zealand, the USA and in his element and was surely glued distinct and complex sealing-wax Canada.2,8 This was the first time he to radio broadcasts of the results. joints recently developed a micro- had set sail to Australia, now a Adventure was also in the air in scopic leak … (and) it occurred to young federal Commonwealth under 1908, with Australian Douglas me that extremely sensitive nature of a constitution that came into effect Mawson setting off to be among the the discharge in air changing colour on 1 January 1901. A former first party to reach the South Pole in when in the presence of carbon Scottish miner and union leader, and Antarctica in January of 1909. Travel compounds might be used to one of the founders of the was about to become easier for the advantage. I therefore wiped each Queensland state Labor party, masses too, with the first production joint over with a small pad of Andrew Fisher was elected Prime model T Ford rolling off the cotton-wool soaked in petrol, Minister of Australia in 1908. Some assembly line in the USA in 1908. keeping the discharge going 2400 square kilometres in the Aston’s activities in Australia, meanwhile, and the instant the real Yass–Canberra valley were set aside however, are unknown. offender was reached – the discharge that year for the Australian Capital Back in Cambridge, Aston joined turned abruptly from red to blue.’.9 Territory (ACT). The first Australian the recently knighted Sir Joseph From these early vacuum exper- rugby team, the Wallabies, set sail John Thomson at the Cavendish iments, Aston’s mass spectrographs 18 led by New Zealander Ernest Rutherford until his sudden death in Cambridge the year prior. Physicist Sir James Hopwood Jeans took Rutherford’s place. After disembarking the ship in Brisbane in Australia’s sunshine state of Queensland, the trail of Francis Aston goes cold. There are no formal records of Francis Aston meeting with the Royal Society of Queensland or those in other states. Nor is there any record of Aston giving a lecture to the Australian Chemical Institute (now the Royal Australian Chemical Institute) in the institute’s proceedings of 1938–1939. A possible motivation for Aston’s travels to Australia was to attend the Science Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) in Canberra, held 11–18 January 1939. Yet there is no record of him in the conference program, a sur- prising omission if he did attend, given he was then a Nobel laureate. The Science Congress was attended by 1050 ANZAAS members as well as some official guests from England, including novelist Herbert George (H.G.) Wells. Famous for his many works of science fiction, Figure 2. Aston working at the Cavendish laboratory, Cambridge University, fractionating national archives show Wells arrived samples of rare gases for analysis in his mass spectrograph, c. 1914. Source: Science and in Australia at Fremantle aboard the Society Picture Library UK. Comorin ahead of the meeting on 27 December 1938. Hammond reports10 were used to identify isotopes for Melbourne, Sydney and, from 1919, that Wells flew on via Adelaide after many of the more common elements Brisbane, Australia. Upon the a brief welcome dinner in Perth. (Fig. 2), which preoccupied the outbreak of World War II, the ship After the Canberra meeting, Wells remainder of his career. He spent the was enlisted in the war effort and gave a radio address titled ‘Utopias’, rest of his life in Cambridge, was ordered back to Sydney, where it broadcast to the Australian public on notwithstanding a period of service was painted a battleship grey, fitted 19 January 1939.