W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Walter Charles Marshall, Kt CBE FRS Baron Marshall of Goring (1932-1996) VOLUME I Introduction Section A: Biographical – Section K: Non-textual media By Anna-K. Mayer, Peter Harper and Timothy E. Powell NCUACS catalogue no. 171/2/09 W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 Title: Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Walter Charles Marshall FRS (1932-1996), physicist Compiled by: Anna-K. Mayer, Peter Harper and Timothy E. Powell Date of material: 1949-2008 Extent of material: ca 1850 items Deposited in: Churchill College, Cambridge Reference: GB 0014 MRSL 2009 National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath NCUACS catalogue no. 171/2/09 The work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists in the production of this catalogue is made possible by the support of the W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 NOT ALL THE MATERIAL IN THIS COLLECTION MAY YET BE AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION. ENQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO: THE ARCHIVIST CHURCHILL ARCHIVES CENTRE CHURCHILL COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 LIST OF CONTENTS Items Page GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5 SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL A.1-A.52 10 SECTION B UNITED KINGDOM ATOMIC ENERGY B.1-B.138 15 AUTHORITY (UKAEA) SECTION C CENTRAL ELECTRICITY GENERATING C.1-C.342 26 BOARD (CEGB) SECTION D SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY, D.1-D.49 54 ‘THE COST OF NUCLEAR POWER’ SECTION E HOUSE OF LORDS E.1-E.14 63 SECTION F ROYAL SOCIETY F.1-F.57 65 SECTION G PAPERS AND PUBLICATIONS G.1-G.80 71 SECTION H LECTURES H.1-H.727 76 SECTION J CORRESPONDENCE J.1-J.369 174 SECTION K NON-TEXTUAL MEDIA K.1-K.7 185 INDEX OF CORRESPONDENTS 187 W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 GENERAL INTRODUCTION PROVENANCE The papers were received from Lady Marshall, Goring-on-Thames, on 11 February 2008. OUTLINE OF THE CAREER OF WALTER CHARLES MARSHALL Walter Charles Marshall was born in Rumney, Wales, on 5 March 1932, the youngest of three children. His mathematical talent manifested early and, if his recollections are anything to go by, in determined fashion. On his first day at primary school, aged just four-and-a-half, young Marshall insisted he wanted to do sums. At grammar school (St. Illtyd’s College, Cardiff), he ‘knew already [mathematics] was to be my career’ (Personal records submitted to the Royal Society, F.36). In 1949 he left Cardiff with a Major County Scholarship to study at the University of Birmingham. He was the youngest undergraduate there at the time and, as his mentor, the eminent German émigré Rudolf Peierls later told him, ‘the only undergraduate to go to Birmingham with the explicit plan, in advance, to take Peierls’ Mathematical-Physics Honours Course’ (Ibid.). Marshall graduated with first class honours in 1952, and took his PhD two years later (Antiferromagnetism, 1954). That same year he was recruited into the Theoretical Physics Division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell, recently incorporated into the newly formed United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Initially assigned to the Plasma Physics Group, Marshall soon returned to his interest in condensed matter physics, developing it further during two periods of study leave at the University of California, Berkeley (1957-1958), and Harvard (1958-1959). Upon his return to Harwell he became Leader of the Solid States Theory Group and, in 1960, Head of the Theoretical Physics Division. Under Marshall the Division continued effective collaborations with theoretical physicists at Oxford, among them Peierls, who had relocated from Birmingham. It also attracted large numbers of visiting scientists, particularly from the US, where Marshall had made a profound impression, and where he continued to spend sabbaticals, notably at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee (1962-1963). The success of the Theoretical Physics Division shifted Marshall’s career onto a new trajectory, from pure science to the administration of applied science and technology. By the 1960s many of the scientific objectives that had led to the establishment of the Harwell laboratory in 1946 had been met and the future direction of the facility required new definition. Harold Wilson’s new Labour government meant to align Britain’s public sector with its goals for industry. In this context Marshall began to envisage the future of AERE Harwell as largely dependent on the extent to which the laboratory would be able to exploit the technological spin-off from its nuclear research and development (‘Harwell changes course’, The New Scientists, ed. D. Fishlock, Oxford 1971, pp. 55-71). Under Marshall (he W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 was promoted to Deputy-Director in 1966 and to Director in 1968), Harwell diversified its aims and objectives to encompass an industrial programme that by 1976 accounted for over half of the facility’s overall programme. Marshall’s role in this process – his ‘contribution to the organisation, utilization and application of science’ – was recognised by the Institute of Physics with an award of the Glazebrook Medal in 1975. That same year he was promoted to Deputy-Chairman of the UKAEA. A concern that increasingly occupied Marshall in the wake of the oil crisis of the early 1970s was long- term energy supply. In 1974 he was appointed Chief Scientist to the Department of Energy, on a part- time basis, a remit he pursued in a variety of arenas. He chaired the Study Group investigating how combined heat and power (CHP) could be linked to district heating schemes, and he inaugurated the Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU) at Harwell, which investigated energy options, encouraged energy conservation in industry and explored renewable sources of energy. But above all he became convinced that a growing nuclear component would be essential for a stable energy policy in the UK. This belief was not shared by the then Energy Secretary Tony Benn MP, and by 1977 Marshall was abruptly asked to return to his duties in the UKAEA full time. Public rehabilitation was not far off. In Margaret Thatcher, who became Prime Minister in May 1979, Marshall found a strong ally for his enthusiasm for nuclear power. As the new Chairman of the UKAEA (1981), it fell to him to coordinate the work of a new Task Force to sort out disagreements over the design for a ‘British PWR’, i.e. a Pressurised Water Reactor that complied with UK nuclear safety philosophies. The Task Force settled the design for Sizewell B. Marshall emerged from the process as an adept negotiator who could lead a divided and quarrelsome industry. In 1982 he was appointed Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), and received a knighthood. In the years to follow he became the public face of nuclear expansion and nuclear safety arguments. In one episode, he helped stage a crash test as part of a public demonstration that a nuclear waste flask would survive the impact of a rail crash (the memorable event took place on the Old Dalby Test Track in Leicestershire in July 1984). His subsequent efforts to ‘keep the lights on’ during the 1984- 1985 Miners’ Strike earned him a peerage (1985). Much of Marshall’s time during his later years at the helm of the CEGB was taken up with repairing the image of nuclear power after the Chernobyl reactor accident in April 1986, and with advising the government on its plans to privatise the electricity supply industry. He wished to take the CEGB into the private sector in one piece and resigned in protest against the government’s decision in November 1989 to abandon plans for the privatisation of the nuclear industry. Following the Chernobyl accident Marshall had been quick to identify and publicize the design flaws of the reactor in question. By the autumn of 1988 he emerged as Chairman of a steering group to produce a charter for a new international organisation to promote worldwide collaboration between nuclear utilities. At the foundation of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) in May 1989, Marshall was elected Chairman of the Governing Board, a role he expanded following his W.C. Marshall NCUACS 171/2/09 resignation from the CEGB six months later. Among other things he used his two terms in office to set up a peer review system for nuclear operators and a Users Group for Soviet Built Reactors that would allow operators in the former Soviet Union to collaborate in a non-political way. After stepping down as Chairman of WANO in April 1993, he continued on as WANO Ambassador, advising the Users Group and lobbying the West for financial and technological aid to improve reactor safety in the countries of the former Soviet Union. From 1991 onwards he also became active in a new syndicate of Lloyd’s of London specialising in nuclear insurance, and he was co-opted as Western observer and participant (‘Overseas Advisor’) when a new think-tank-cum-laboratory, the Institute of Nuclear Safety (INSS), was set up by the Kansai Electric Power Company, Japan, in 1992. To use Marshall’s own words, after his resignation from the CEGB he reinvented himself as an ‘international nuclear guru’ (Letters to Lord Sharp of Grimsdyke and Richard V. Giordano, both 23 March 1994, J.239). Marshall received numerous honours and awards during his life. These included honorary degrees from a number of British universities and both the Maxwell and the Glazebrook Medals of the Institute of Physics. Overseas honours included Foreign Associateship of the National Academy of Engineering, US, Fellowship of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, the 1985 American Henry de Wolf Smythe Nuclear Statesman Award and the International Award of the Canadian Nuclear Association (1991).