An article in the Adelaide 'Sunday Mail' newspaper notes that William Bragg's Adelaide house is in danger of being domolished or redeveloped. John Jenkin, a physicist and science historian from LaTrobe University has responded with the following "Letter to the Editor".
It is given to very few to change the course of human history. With his father William Bragg, Lawrence Bragg (born, raised and educated in South Australia) invented X-ray crystallography and later facilitated the discovery of the structure of DNA by Crick and Watson in the laboratory that he headed. The biological revolution that this sparked is yet to reach its peak, despite its extraordinary productivity.
William Bragg arrived in Adelaide in 1886 as Professor of Mathematics and Experimental Physics, and in 1889 he married Gwendoline, the third daughter of Charles and Alice Todd. The newly-weds rented a house in Noth Adelaide until 1897, and here their two sons, (William) Lawrence and Robert Charles were born. This house on Lefevre Terrace was included on the State Heritage Register in the 1980s.
In 1898 the Bragg family went to England on study leave, and when they returned William bought a block of land on the corner of East Terrace and Carrington Street, designed a large, two-storey house with Edwardian gables, and had it built with the aid of a loan of £1,300 from the Savings Bank of South Australia. Charles Todd laid the foundation stone on 9.9.1899. Like their earlier house, it looks out over the parklands to the Adelaide hills, a view the family loved. Here the two boys grew up and a daughter was born. Here Lawrence and Bob made toys and gadgets in the workshop, and here Lawrence developed a love of gardening that stayed with him all his life. Here William seriously contemplated the research that was to blossom in Adelaide and take him to international renown, and here Lawrence studied for his examinations: at school (St Peter's College) and at Adelaide University (B.A. with first-class honours in Mathematics).
The family left Adelaide in 1909, William for Leeds and Lawrence for Cambridge, and in 1915 they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of X-ray crystallography, the technique that enables the arrangement of atoms in crystals to be determined. In the same year Bob was killed at Gallipoli. Lawrence remains the youngest person ever to win the award; later he became head of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge and of the Royal Institution in London.
The house on East Terrace was sold to the Sandford family, and in 1960 it passed to the Public Schools Club. The City offered to include the building on its Local Heritage List but the Club declined, as did the State Heritage Branch. I am told it is about to be put up for sale; followed by demolition and redevelopment no doubt.
If Adelaide has a conscience, a heart, or historical understanding, it will preserve this house as an essential link with our past. If the government or the city will not do it, will St Peter's College or the University of Adelaide? But then again, who cares?
It is given to very few to change the course of human history. With his father William Bragg, Lawrence Bragg (born, raised and educated in South Australia) invented X-ray crystallography and later facilitated the discovery of the structure of DNA by Crick and Watson in the laboratory that he headed. The biological revolution that this sparked is yet to reach its peak, despite its extraordinary productivity.
William Bragg arrived in Adelaide in 1886 as Professor of Mathematics and Experimental Physics, and in 1889 he married Gwendoline, the third daughter of Charles and Alice Todd. The newly-weds rented a house in Noth Adelaide until 1897, and here their two sons, (William) Lawrence and Robert Charles were born. This house on Lefevre Terrace was included on the State Heritage Register in the 1980s.
In 1898 the Bragg family went to England on study leave, and when they returned William bought a block of land on the corner of East Terrace and Carrington Street, designed a large, two-storey house with Edwardian gables, and had it built with the aid of a loan of £1,300 from the Savings Bank of South Australia. Charles Todd laid the foundation stone on 9.9.1899. Like their earlier house, it looks out over the parklands to the Adelaide hills, a view the family loved. Here the two boys grew up and a daughter was born. Here Lawrence and Bob made toys and gadgets in the workshop, and here Lawrence developed a love of gardening that stayed with him all his life. Here William seriously contemplated the research that was to blossom in Adelaide and take him to international renown, and here Lawrence studied for his examinations: at school (St Peter's College) and at Adelaide University (B.A. with first-class honours in Mathematics).
The family left Adelaide in 1909, William for Leeds and Lawrence for Cambridge, and in 1915 they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of X-ray crystallography, the technique that enables the arrangement of atoms in crystals to be determined. In the same year Bob was killed at Gallipoli. Lawrence remains the youngest person ever to win the award; later he became head of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge and of the Royal Institution in London.
The house on East Terrace was sold to the Sandford family, and in 1960 it passed to the Public Schools Club. The City offered to include the building on its Local Heritage List but the Club declined, as did the State Heritage Branch. I am told it is about to be put up for sale; followed by demolition and redevelopment no doubt.
If Adelaide has a conscience, a heart, or historical understanding, it will preserve this house as an essential link with our past. If the government or the city will not do it, will St Peter's College or the University of Adelaide? But then again, who cares?
