Engineering and the Cavendish
Cockcroft studied mathematics and electrical engineering in Manchester, with military service during the First World War and practical training in an electrical company. After completing the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge in 1924, he worked in Rutherford’s Cavendish Laboratory.
Accelerated protons and nuclear reactions
From 1928 he investigated accelerating protons with high voltages, soon collaborating with Walton. In 1932 they bombarded lithium with accelerated protons and observed a nuclear reaction producing alpha particles, or helium nuclei.
Their work developed an accelerator-based route to nuclear transformations, extending experiments that had relied on particles emitted by radioactive sources. The collaboration earned the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wartime work and research institutions
During the Second World War he worked on radar and joined the Tizard Mission in 1940. He directed Canadian atomic-energy research from 1944 and returned to Britain in 1946 to lead the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. He later became Master of Churchill College, Cambridge.
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