A History of Physics at Swansea

by Professor Mike Charlton

1. Introduction
2. Building the Department (1920-45)
3. The Llewellyn Jones Years (1945-65)
4. Stability then Challenge (1965-92)
5. Change and Growth (1992-present)
6. Legacies and Connections
7. What Next?
Supplementary Material
Acknowledgments
Bibliography and Notes

1. Introduction

As Physics at Swansea began with the establishment of the University in 1920, the discipline was in the midst of one of its great intellectual revolutions. The end of the nineteenth century saw the birth of what was known for some decades as ‘modern physics’, leading to an era in which the gross structure of the atom was elucidated, the field of particle physics was begun and applications were developed that laid the foundations of some of the technological game-changers of the 20th century [1]. The Department’s first decade saw further momentous strides in the subject, especially the development of the first fully quantum mechanical description of the electron. University College Swansea staff and students were soon to be engaged at the forefront of this new physics.

In 1920 there were just under thirty universities and university colleges (including four in Wales) in the UK, and many would have had a physics department - as did Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea. Amongst the biggest players at the time, as now, were Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester, and the latter in particular was to have a marked influence on the early development of Physics at Swansea, and on the achievements of Evan James Williams, our first student to achieve top-flight scientific recognition.

The first Report to the Council of University College Swansea [2] records that Evan J. Evans, Senior Lecturer in Physics, and Assistant Director of the Physical Laboratories, at the University of Manchester was appointed to the post of Professor of Physics and the first Head of the Physics Department. Furthermore, Mr W. Morris Jones was appointed to a Senior Lectureship from a similar position in the University College (of North Wales) Bangor and Mrs K.G. Hilditch, a former lecturer in physics at the Swansea Technical College, was appointed to an Assistant Lectureship for the academic year 1920-21. Indeed, the fledgling Department’s first home was in the lecture rooms and laboratories of the Technical College in Mount Pleasant: further assistance was sanctioned by the Swansea Education Authority which allowed Mr J.C. Kirkman (the Head of Physics in the Technical College) to help part-time, particularly since Jones could not leave Bangor until the end of the first term.

2. Building the Department (1920-45)

E. J. Evans (1886-1944), see Figure 1, was an inspired appointment: at Manchester he had served under Rutherford and latterly Bragg (Lawrence, the son in the father-and-son team awarded the Nobel Prize in 1915 for their discovery in X-ray diffraction, now known as Bragg’s law). He brought a wealth of practical experience with him, an obvious commitment to research [3], plus the ability to use his influence to open doors. He was by all accounts a major presence.

A booming voice made him an excellent lecturer and he ‘was a large man and was said to be a man of great human qualities loved by every student under his influence’, and whose ‘ample belly’ appeared to be ‘beer stained’ [4]. His annual reports testify to his duty-of-care to the Department’s students: there are warm accounts of student attainment accompanied by regular updates on the achievements of alumni.

A notable event in 1921 was the establishment of the Physical and Mathematical Society. There was undergraduate involvement from the start and a direct descendent of this society thrives today as the student-led PhySoc. The first meeting, convened by Evans, was held on May 27th in Dumbarton House, Bryn-y-Mor Road, Uplands (the temporary administrative home of the University), and elected the following as officers: President, Professor Evan Jenkin Evans; Vice President, Professor Archibald R. Richardson (Head of Mathematics); Treasurer, Miss Gwyneth Edwards; and Secretary (and scribe for the day), Mr Evan James Williams. There were about twenty attendees and committee members also elected that day were Dr J. Marshall (Senior Lecturer in Mathematics), Mrs Hilditch (see above), Miss Gwen Williams, Mr Thomas J. Jones and Mr. Evan J. Hopkin. Remarkably the minute book from this meeting has survived and can be found in the Richard Burton Archives at the University [5].

Before Christmas 1921 a lecture programme had begun, including Professor Evans on the passage of alpha particles through matter and the bearing of the results on the structure of the atom (aka, the Rutherford experiment and its implications), Dr Morris Jones on aviation in the war period 1914-1919, and Dr Marshall on the equipartition of energy and its relation to the structure of the atom and radiation. Meticulous minutes were kept by secretary Williams, who delivered a lecture after Christmas on the atomic nature of electricity [6].

In 1921 Evans noted that it was not possible for the staff to conduct research due to the lack of accommodation and apparatus. Nevertheless, together with Morris Jones, he obtained a £100 grant from the Council for Industrial and Scientific Research for a study of the ‘Atomic distribution in metallic alloys using X-rays’. The link with Bragg and Manchester is clear. A surviving order book [7] (actually from the period October 1925 to November 1929) presents a fascinating picture of what the Department was spending its budget on in those early years, and the materials/X-ray theme is obvious. In addition to all his other duties, Evans was involved in work on plans for a new building for Physics (and the other scientific departments) to be located on the Singleton Campus, with occupation hoped for in the 1922-23 session.

The 1922 Report to Council noted that the plans for the new laboratories had been completed. A well-equipped workshop (with a dedicated member of staff, Mr. F. Homeyard [8]) was available, and though not much research work had been done, some new apparatus for planned metallic alloy work had been assembled. New appointments comprised Mr. L. Wright as a full-time Assistant Lecturer [9] (to replace Mrs Hilditch, ‘whose appointment had come to an end’) and Mr. E.S. Keeping as an Assistant Lecturer in Physics and Mathematics (to replace the on-loan Kirkman). Whilst Keeping became full-time in Physics in 1926, and Wright was promoted to a Lectureship in 1931, this was to be the last increase in academic staff until October 1932 (see below). A photograph of the Physics Department in the 1926-7 session, including honours students, is given in Figure 2.

Throughout the first decade the student cohort expanded such that by the early 1930s around 150 students were being taught in the Department - for at least a part of their studies. The Reports to Council, including Evans’ despatches from Physics, record a hard-working and thriving young University College. 1923 saw Physics established in new laboratories [10] on Singleton and its first BSc graduates, with 1st class honours achieved by E.J. Williams [11] and T.J. Jones, both of whom were to return to the Department the following academic year to undertake research on ‘electrical problems’. (Williams was to go on to have a distinguished career, working with, amongst others, Lawrence Bragg, Rutherford, Bohr and Blackett. He did important work with the latter in the Admiralty during World War II.) Featured in the 1925 Report was the ‘brilliant’ 1 st class degree awarded to Miss Phyllis Jones and it was ‘worthy of note that she is the first woman student in the history of the University (of Wales!) to obtain that honour’ [12]. Miss Jones went on to obtain a University of Wales Fellowship, which she used to undertake research at Manchester - under Bragg.

Research publications began to emerge, with the first few appearing in the Philosophical Magazine, one of the world’s oldest scientific journals, and undoubtedly a prestige outlet. Interestingly, a good number of these papers were single-authored - by the students! Annual Reports show that Mr. Keeping delivered a lecture course on the ‘New Wave Mechanics’ to members of staff and postgraduate students. Evans continued to track E.J. Williams’ career who, after obtaining a doctorate at Manchester, (supported by an 1851 Senior Fellowship) proceeded to Cambridge to work under the direction of Sir Ernest Rutherford FRS. Meanwhile, fellow graduate T.J. Jones was in the USA working with Robert Millikan.

In 1929 Keeping, who had two papers published in Nature in the previous year, moved to an Assistant Professorship position at the University of Alberta. He was replaced by Dr Percy Maurice Davidson, who was to remain at Swansea for nigh on four decades, and was then working on some of the first quantum mechanical calculations of the band spectra of molecular hydrogen, publishing important work in 1930/31 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Davidson was Head of Department for a brief period in the 1960s (see Supplementary Material) and is remembered today via the P.M. Davidson Prize for the best student project in Theoretical Physics. The 1930 Honours list included 1 st class degrees for Edward George Bowen and William Charles Price: both men went on to have distinguished careers. Bowen made crucial contributions to the development of airborne radar during World War II [14], and Price made major contributions to spectroscopy [15]: the Department is still awarding the W.C. Price Prize for the best student experimental project.

It is worth noting that even during this period of birth and growth in the Department, it had (for 8 successive years by 1931) hosted a Summer School of Mining and Engineering, using the facilities available in the new laboratories. Thus, outreach and engagement were embedded in the Department’s business from the start. It is clear that such activities involved significant staff effort - as they still do.

Around this time E.J. Williams was awarded a DSc from the University of Wales (to add to his two doctorates from Manchester and Cambridge), W.C. Price had secured a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Physics to work at John Hopkins University on ‘spectroscopic problems’ and E.G. Bowen had moved to King’s College London to work with Professor E.V. Appleton FRS, initially on ‘the nature of cosmic rays’.

October 1932 saw a new member of academic staff arrive in Physics with the appointment of Frank Llewellyn Jones as an Assistant Lecturer. This was to be a pivotal moment for the Department, the College and indeed the University of Wales and higher education in Wales, as Llewellyn Jones went on to hold many senior roles with the utmost distinction. He came to Swansea from Oxford where, after obtaining a first class degree he undertook research work with Sir J.S.E. Townsend FRS with whom he was ‘the author of several papers on the discharge of electricity through gases’. This research topic sounds esoteric, but the underlying science involving the scattering of electrons in gases (encompassing many processes, but most importantly ionization) and its practical applications, was to impact on many other areas of physics. (A fascinating account of the origins of this discipline has been given by Llewellyn Jones [16].) As we shall see, Llewellyn Jones, in addition to all the other responsibilities he shouldered, developed a formidable research team in this area at Swansea: one to rival the biggest and best efforts worldwide. Moreover, the spinout from his work led to Swansea’s involvement in high-voltage physics, discharge and contact physics, radiation physics and medical applications, laser physics (and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory), accelerator physics (and CERN) and even a short-lived - not an isotope pun - effort in positron physics. (I was aware of the latter when a young researcher at UCL.)

Fourteen years after opening its doors, the Department’s premier alumnus, E.J. Williams, was working in Copenhagen with Professor Niels Bohr supported by a Rockefeller Research Fellowship. The impact of Williams’ time in Copenhagen is documented extensively in his biography by Roland Wynne [13], which includes the famous photograph of the 1933 Copenhagen Conference with Williams seated behind, amongst others, Bohr, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg and Lise Meitner, and he was to maintain a warm professional relationship with the Danish physicist for the rest of his life. On the home front, first class graduates included W.J.G. Beynon and M.R. Hopkins (both later members of staff) and the Department was bursting to capacity. With close to 200 students, Evans noted that there were problems with practical classes which had to be run ‘practically every morning and afternoon of the working week’: three postgraduate demonstrators were insufficient to cope, so a temporary Assistant Lecturer was hired. It wasn’t just the undergraduate classes: the number of research students had ‘reached the limit of our accommodation’ and ‘the cost of their experiments swallowed about two-thirds of the annual grant for Apparatus and Methods’. It would seem that the vagaries of Departmental budget allocation have evolved little in the intervening years ...

As World War II approached, many students were graduating into posts in industry and in civil service laboratories. One, Ieuan Maddock (in 1938), initially decided to stay on for research, but had his efforts interrupted by the hostilities. His resulting change of employment (he never did finish his PhD) had a profound influence on the development of the British Nuclear programme. Maddock held a number of posts in the government/defence sector, eventually becoming Chief Scientist at the Department of Trade and Industry. He was awarded an OBE in 1953 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967, before being knighted in 1975 (see e.g., [17, 18]). Alumni continued to prosper: E.J. Williams was back in Wales as the Chair of Physics in Aberystwyth and was shortly to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, aged just 36, whilst W.C. Price was awarded a Fellowship at Trinity College Cambridge and won the Medola Medal of the Chemical Society.

During the main war years Departmental Reports to Council were deemed unnecessary, but it is clear that the number of students dropped precipitously. In 1944 Professor Evans had to be relieved of teaching due to illness, and later that year the Council reported ‘with deep regret’ his death on the 2nd of July, noting that he had ‘occupied the Chair in Physics with distinction since the inception of the College’. That much is clear, and the Department and its students had thrived under his energetic and benevolent care. The reins were held steady for a year by Percy Davidson, until Frank Llewellyn Jones, who had been stationed at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough for much of the war [19, 20], had resumed full duties (having already published a paper on the mobility of electrons in helium).

3. The Llewellyn Jones Years (1945-65)

With a new era underway, and Llewellyn Jones at the helm, business was quick to resume. Within a few years, student numbers had risen rapidly to over 250. Jones’ first submission to the Council [21] in 1946 established a new paradigm: it was extensive, and had more the feel of a business plan/manifesto than a report. Jones was able to welcome two new appointments (W.J.G. Beynon [22] and L.R. Griffin). He set out an extensive programme of research in ionization and high voltage physics, with applications in atomic energy and medicine mentioned already at this stage. This was to prove massively important and far-sighted. It set the Department on an upward research trend for more than two decades and, as mentioned in section 2 and discussed further below, had impact way beyond Swansea.

In the very first year for Llewellyn Jones, there was already too little space, too much difficulty obtaining apparatus, too many applicants for research places and an urgent need for a full-time laboratory steward! And by then he had published 3 articles in Nature, ensured that the Department was involved with the South Wales branch of the Institute of Physics, and thanked the Admiralty (the aforementioned alumnus T.J. Jones was a Principal Scientific Officer there) for the loan of a complete German Radar Pulse Generator and other (high voltage) equipment.

Throughout the whole of the Llewllyn Jones years research income and output was very buoyant: sources included the Department for Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR, and forerunner of today’s UKRI), the Royal Society and various industrial/governmental sources such as the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), with infrastructure funding by the University Grants Committee (UGC). By 1954 there were so many externally funded projects that ‘congestion in the research laboratories’ meant that an extension was provided to the Physics building. For instance, Llewellyn Jones’ group had 24 members in 1959 (to reach over 30 in the early 1960s including staff and students) and had more applicants than could be admitted, which was then limited to six per annum.

Departmental research outputs were dominated by the Llewellyn Jones group, and publications were frequently in journals of the very highest quality, such as Nature and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. These were supplemented by technical reports, such as that commissioned in 1948 by Sir Charles Darwin, Director of the National Physical Laboratory, and delivered two years later by Llewellyn Jones with theoretical input from Davidson as ‘Fundamental Processes of Electrical Contact Phenomena’, and books such as Llewellyn Jones’ Oxford University Press monograph on ‘The Physics of Electrical Contacts’ appearing in 1957.

In this period the Department hosted many scientific meetings/conferences of national and international scale. Colleagues who have organised meetings will know the effort involved, and with only seven academic staff the load must have been high. The Department’s ‘outstanding event’ of 1951 was hosting the Spring Provincial Meeting of the Physical Society of Great Britain (from 29th to the 31st of July 1951) which took the form of a symposium on aspects of discharge physics. It was the first visit of the Society to Wales and there were around 150 attendees from universities, government laboratories and industry. It must have gone well as the Society was back for their Autumn Conference in 1958, with more than 200 delegates, and a souvenir is provided in Figure 3.

Before leaving for the Chair in Physics at Aberystwyth in 1958, Granville Beynon was busy establishing his own research activity, following on from his studies under Appleton. In 1947 he obtained use of a former Air Ministry radio station at Hendrefoilan as a Departmental ‘outstation’ and equipped it for ionospheric work. Sadly, two years later this equipment was either stolen or destroyed as a result of a break-in, and it was decided to abandon the site and establish a smaller station within the College grounds. He was clearly a formidable networker and held a string of external roles [24], culminating (at least with respect to his time at Swansea) in his involvement in the 1957-8 International Geophysical Year (see e.g., [25]).

The Annual Reports to Council continued to document the achievements of Departmental alumni. 1953 saw congratulations go to Ieuan Maddock (now at the Armaments Research Establishment, working under the auspices of Sir W. Penney) on the award of an OBE following the successful British atomic weapons tests. His remarkable contributions to the development of British defence capabilities and his subsequent illustrious career (he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1967 and knighted in 1975) is sketched elsewhere [18]. In 1955 W.C. Price was awarded a full Professorship at King’s College London and in 1959 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

With publications in journals such as Nature there could be no doubt that the Department’s work in discharge and contact physics had an international reputation. Over the years there was a steady stream of visitors to the Department [26]. An important guest in 1954 was Sir George Paget Thomson (FRS, Nobel Laureate), visiting in his capacity as Chair of the Warren Research Committee of the Royal Society. He was in Swansea to monitor the work of one of its young scientists, Colyn Grey Morgan (who had been supported by the Committee since 1952 and of whom more below), and a photograph to mark the occasion has survived and is shown in Figure 4. Visitors from outside the UK came mainly from the United States and Australia. Indeed, Llewellyn Jones was to make extensive invited lecture tours of both countries, travelling to the USA in 1955 and 1964 and Australia in autumn 1956. Some of the itineraries have survived, and make fascinating reading. In Australia he visited many universities, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Radio Physics Laboratory, where he was guest of former Swansea student, Dr E.G. Bowen [14]

It is likely that the terms ‘outreach’, ‘engagement’ and ‘community’ did not have their current connotations in the Higher Education sector at the time. Nonetheless, the scale of such activities undertaken by the Department, but principally by Llewellyn Jones, was astonishing in number, breadth and reach. A few examples will suffice to show that Swansea Physics was already an outward-facing outfit. As early as 1949 Llewellyn Jones contributed six articles for the South Wales Evening Post (at their instigation) on ‘the scientific and social implications of the recent discoveries in physics’. There were governmental/industrial appointments: in 1950 he joined the research sub-committees of the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association and the British Iron and Steel Association. In the following year he was appointed by the Privy Council as a member of the Radio Research Board, by the Home Office as Scientific Advisor for Civil Defence for Wales, and he was elected to the Council of the Physical Society of Great Britain: he was to be their Vice President from 1955-59. He was to become President of the Royal Institution of South Wales, to hold posts with DSIR and the National Physical Laboratory and in 1960 was appointed by the Prime Minister to be a member of the ‘Council for Wales and Monmouthshire’.

A current highlight of the science outreach calendar in the UK is the highly prestigious Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition held over several days in London (see, e.g., [27]). This event had its antecedents in various exhibitions, for instance the Royal Society Conversazione/Soiree. The Department was sufficiently well known to be invited several times to such events, starting in 1955 with the exhibition of an experiment at the Burlington House (then the offices of the Royal Society) Conversazione on the 19th of May, with a repeat at a Soiree on June 21st. They exhibited again in 1957, showing some kind of model [28] which was taken up by the BBC and ITV and the Science Museum in London. The final record of an appearance at the Royal Society in the Departmental Reports is from the 1959 May Conversazione. It was to be 57 years before the Department was back at the Royal Society with the ‘Antimatter Matters’ stand at the 2016 Summer Exhibition.

Llewellyn Jones’ interest in Education at School and University levels is apparent when reading his Reports to the College Council. Already in 1952, and as an example of his massive foresight, he had commented upon the employment of students (a theme to which he returned on several occasions) noting that ‘very few are entering the teaching profession ... this trend, most noticeable since the war, cannot be altogether good for the future state of science in this country’: and in 1957 - ‘unfortunately the requirements of the teaching profession are far from being met’. Were it different now. We are still grappling with this conundrum, and arguably from an even worse starting position, seventy years on. It would not have escaped Llewellyn Jones’ radar that, of the UK regions, the current physics teacher statistics for Wales are the worst - and the prognosis the gloomiest! Notably, the Department hosted a teachers’ refresher course in 1955 on ‘The Teaching of Modern Physics in the Grammar School’ for which ‘applications greatly exceeded the number that could be accepted’.

Llewellyn Jones’ workload was showing no signs of slowing and in 1961, amongst his numerous other posts, he was appointed by the then Minister of Education, Sir David Eccles, to Chair the Central Advisory Council for Education (Wales). He still found the time to give several external lectures and to address a conference for Headmasters held at Beck Hall, Swansea on ‘The GCE and the problem of sixth form studies’. His work for the Advisory Council culminated in 1964 with a report entitled ‘The Place of Mathematics and Science in a balanced Education System for Wales’. Sadly, this work (which probably resulted in his award of a CBE in 1965) had less impact than it might have done, given the change of government in 1964.

The ‘seniority’ profile of academic staff at the time was quite different from the current norm: for a unit the size of Swansea Physics there was typically just one Professor, and this was the status quo for the whole of the first 50 or so years of the Department. Though staff came and went somewhat over the years, if they came, they mostly stayed. As student numbers ballooned (see below) and research projects multiplied, staff numbers grew steadily: two snapshots (from 1954 and 1962) are given below [29]. The snail-like nature of staff promotion in those days can be seen by two examples. Davidson, who joined the staff in 1929, was promoted to a Senior Lectureship in 1948, a Readership in 1962, before finally being appointed to a Chair in Theoretical Physics in 1964. And then Wright, who as noted above had arrived in 1922, who retired in 1963 as a Senior Lecturer (which he achieved only in 1962!) and was lauded in the Annual Report as a colleague who ‘had been known by, and knowing personally, every student who has studied physics since the foundation of the College’.

As the Department’s research interests developed, so too did the facilities available to it. As early as 1949 a van der Graaf accelerator was being developed in-house, to be followed by a CEGB-funded 600 kV generator in 1960, and a 1.5 MV d.c. generator for the new high voltage laboratory in 1965.

A recurring theme was overcrowding, and quickly the limits of the new accommodation had already been reached and there was ‘keen competition’ to enter the research school. 1957 saw the first mention of a proposal to build a ‘new Physics and Mathematics building’ (now known as the Vivian Tower), and two years later it was hoped that it would be ready by 1963. Student intake was booming and in 1960 it was stated that no increase was possible until ‘the new Physics block is completed’. Numbers seem to have maximised in 1964 with over 370 students studying in Physics to some level: intensive planning work on the new block was complete, with construction work beginning the previous year on the high voltage laboratory and the main complex in July and September, respectively. Total expenditure on the new Physics Tower Block looks to have been around £2M, including ‘three additional floors’ [30].

From the early days of the Llewellyn Jones era the Physical Society was back to work - now clearly student-led, as it is today. There was an annual round of excursions (typically picnics and outings to industrial works), lectures and an Annual Dinner Dance: see Figure 5. As its modern day equivalent, the ‘formal’ was the highlight of the Society year. The programme for the evening was printed, and the proceedings included speeches and toasts. The events were recorded in the Society Minute Books [5].

One of the most important developments during this time was the link that grew between Swansea and CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory established in 1954. Alumnus Dr Eifionydd Jones was the pioneer, starting a DSIR Foreign Fellowship there in 1959 [31]. The following years saw regular visits both ways. Drs Germain and Tinguely were the first, and in 1962 gave assistance with the 600 kV generator, to be followed by M.J. Pentz of the Accelerator Division in 1964, which Frank Harris joined in the same year as a Research Physicist. Jack Dutton spent two months at CERN during the summer of 1962 on an OECD Senior Visiting Fellowship to work on the physics of high voltages. CERN loaned/donated apparatus to Swansea, beginning with equipment to investigate the electrical breakdown of gases at high pressure: see also section 4 for a more substantial investment. Of great significance was the 1965 Michaelmas Term leave of absence granted to Colyn Grey Morgan, who was thus able to accept an invitation from the then Director General, Professor Victor Weisskopf, to become a Visiting Scientist in the Nuclear Physics Apparatus Division and be engaged in ‘work dealing with methods of separating beams of charged particles emerging from a 29 GeV proton synchrotron.’ Grey Morgan was soon to have an influence on another Swansea graduate and CERN icon, Lyndon R. Evans. (Lyn is perhaps best known for his leadership of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider project: see [32] for a summary of his many achievements and awards.) For a prolonged period in the 1960s Grey Morgan seems to have held some kind of consultancy at CERN, and Colin Evans and Tony Davies [33] were also notable visitors from the Department.

In 1965 Llewellyn Jones was elected as the College Principal [34] (the equivalent of the current post of Vice Chancellor: see Figure 6), starting in March that year. Earlier in the session he had held study leave which included travel to France, the USA and Canada. He was to remain as Principal until he retired in 1974, including a two year stint as Vice Chancellor of the University of Wales. In a sense, it could be said that he left the Department, but in truth, he never did. By then his influence had been so deep and pervasive that what was to follow was, for some considerable time, an extension of his tenure.

Though Llewellyn Jones was firmly rooted in the College, his reach was global. He pioneered outreach, engagement and advocacy before these terms had their current usage in our sector. He moulded the Department’s research and teaching by the sheer force of his intellect and energy and it would not be here today, or certainly not in its current form, without his monumental contributions. There can be no doubting that his reputation, and that of the group he created, brought a steady stream of national and international visitors and meetings and conferences to the College. He is one of the most important figures ever to stride into the Physics Department at Swansea. His devotion to his subject, his Department, his College, his region and his country were second to none. His external recognition included the aforementioned award of a CBE, and he was the 1960 winner of the Charles Vernon Boys Prize of the Physical Society. A full scale appreciation of his life and work would be a fitting epitaph to this remarkable man [36, 37].

4. Stability then Challenge (1965-92)

‘Physics he said would have to be cut down. He agreed that much of the equipment, particularly in the high voltage area, was out of date and that the Department had heavy running costs.’ [38]

This period is a tale of two halves. Following on from Llewellyn Jones’ headship, the Department was seemingly well placed to thrive - and did so for some time. But what followed that was a most difficult time, with the threat to the Department being deep and existential. As will become apparent, only the tenacity of its staff, with some help from colleagues in Wales (and it should be recalled that the College was part of the Federal University of Wales), saved it.

Percy Davidson [39] took over as Head of Department for a short period which was more-or-less business as usual, though the Department now had three full Professors, with Davidson and Jack Dutton promoted to Personal Chairs. The new Physics accommodation was occupied from September 1966, with a ‘radioactivity block’ available in June the next year. Past student achievements were celebrated in the Council Reports as of old with Maddock elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1967 (see [18] for a summary of his further achievements), and numerous others promoted to Chairs, or obtaining lectureship positions, around the world. And Llewellyn Jones had just had his 4th book published.

Thus, by the mid-1960s, the Department had excellent new space, near-record student numbers, a thriving, well-equipped research community and a purpose-built high voltage laboratory with modern facilities. The younger staff in particular were outward facing, and the many national and international links were an obvious strength - and important new developments were afoot.

As noted in section 3, Colyn Grey Morgan was one of the scientists to spend time at CERN, and whilst there in 1965 he suggested a novel solution to the production of a very high voltage (MV) impulse generator using a pulsed laser to initiate a spark discharge [40]. This was successful and threw up some new ideas for which Colyn was able to get grant support from the Science Research Council. Thus, the Swansea laser group was born [41], and the first PhD student it recruited was Lyn Evans [32]. As summarised in the notes, this group was to have a major, and lasting, impact on the Department, and its relevance to ongoing activities cannot be overstressed. Furthermore, Grey Morgan, as will be discussed in section 6, was to play an important role in the establishment of a UK national laser facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory - with a strong Swansea connection to this day.

In 1968, Peter Thonemann was appointed to a Chair in Physics, and as Head of Department. He was to remain in this post until he retired in 1984. Thonemann [42] arrived at Swansea from the Culham Laboratory, where he was Deputy Director. He had made key contributions to the development of prototype fusion devices, including the ZETA machine [43]: a photograph of him from this time with important visitors to the Culham facility is given in figure 7. It seems that at Swansea, although Thonemann began to do fusion work with PhD students, he was unable (or unwilling, it is not clear) to raise funding for an experimental fusion programme. According to the notes collected by David Olive [4] this impacted negatively on the space usage in the newly available Physics Tower, which was to have a knock-on effect a few years later.

Engagement also continued, and in 1969 a Physics Centre ‘for local Physics Teachers’ was established in collaboration with the Faculty of Education and the Department of Extra-Mural Studies. Efforts to this day mirror what was being attempted then [45]. In 1970 they held the first of several annual Summer Schools, an event attended by over one hundred pupils, together with various other initiatives (some quite extended, over 3 or more days). Some time in the early 1970s the ‘Christmas lectures for 6th forms’, which carry on as the broader Christmas Schools Lectures to this day, seem to have been instigated.

Starting in the late 1960s, and for a period of close to 30 years, Medical Physics became an important activity at Swansea. A conference in the field was held here in 1969 and work grew, inspired by the radiation and ionising physics expertise of Jack Dutton and Colin Evans. This included neutron activation work in collaboration with Singleton Hospital, and close relationships were forged with the Hospital’s Department of Nuclear Medicine in which Swansea Physics graduates (such as Parveez Ali and Simon Ryde) were to hold responsible positions. For a time research funding was forthcoming from the Science and Medical Research Councils, and from the Wellcome Trust to support a Lectureship in ‘Magnetism applied to Medicine’ (which went to Dr Dareyoush Rassi). Sadly, the momentum of these initiatives could not be maintained.

In addition, for a time through the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the Department was active in the nascent field of positron physics. Initially inspired by the possibility of using the 2 MV accelerator [46] to produce positrons in vacuum in an attempt to make a low energy beam [47], the group eventually adopted a radioisotope-based approach and published a handful of papers in the field [48]. Jack Dutton and Colin Evans were involved in this work, as was Dewi Lewis as a PhD student [49]. Reciprocal visits took place between Swansea and positron groups in Canada (the University of Western Ontario) and the USA (Wayne State University).

The political backdrop at the time was one of funding difficulties for universities, the consequences of which were surely being felt by the early 1980s. An immediate context was provided by analyses of the competitiveness and viability of small departments, particularly those in the physical sciences. It was argued, no doubt with good reason, that in order to undertake research at the highest international level, and to teach to a high standard across a portfolio of undergraduate degrees, that departments needed to be a minimum size of around 20 academic staff. One of those charged with overseeing the application of this doctrine was Sir Sam Edwards [50], then Chair of the Science Research Council.

During this period, or soon thereafter, several UK institutions closed their standalone Physics Departments. In Wales, Bangor lost physics, and the merger of the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology with University College Cardiff in 1988 resulted in the loss of a further department. Only those at Aberystwyth, Cardiff and Swansea remained, but still there was pressure for rationalisation and the three Heads of Departments [51] had to respond. The result is contained in a document entitled ‘University of Wales Rationalisation Working Party: Physics: Recommendations’ signed by Sir Granville Beynon on behalf of the three Departments and dated 16th May 1988. Furthermore, an annotated (by Colyn Grey Morgan) draft of this document has survived from December 1986, and is fascinating reading [52].

The four headline recommendations are as follows, and are given here verbatim.

• 1. The Heads of Physics Departments recommend that a University of Wales School of Physics be established.

• 2. The School shall consist of 2 departments as below: (a) An interdisciplinary department at Aberystwyth. (b) A combination of Cardiff and Swansea using both the Cardiff and Swansea sites, the division of activities between the two sites shall be determined by the School.

• 3. Both departments shall provide a full range of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching (including Single Honours teaching).

• 4. It is to be emphasised that the above plan is to be seen as a composite whole and should it prove to be impossible to implement any part of it then the Heads of Physics would need to reconsider this plan.

This is self-explanatory, and somehow natural, since at the time Physics at Aberystwyth was the best funded and highest performing of the three Departments. The recommendations are supported by a set of ten further points, together with twelve somewhat longer explanatory summaries. However, the aforementioned 1986 document, whilst eventually and somewhat confusingly ending up with a similar conclusion, effectively starts with the premise that there should be two Physics Departments in Wales - one in the ‘south’ and one in the ‘north’. It seems that the Department in the ‘north’ was to be a combination of Aberystwyth with the soon-to-be-ceased activity at Bangor, whilst that in the ‘south’ was to be located at Cardiff, by ‘consensus of opinion’.

This solution was then immediately compromised in the same document which stated that (from Swansea at least, as is quite evident from Colyn Grey Morgan’s notes) ‘there is a strong view that Physics should be retained’. And so, with dreadful contortion, it was posited that Swansea Physics should survive and that ‘the situation should be reviewed in 5-6 years time’ [53]. So the final document ended up with a recommendation for a Department on two sites. That this did not occur may be down to several reasons, but not least the growing moves towards independence of the Colleges within the University of Wales [54], as eloquently documented from the Swansea perspective for the Centenary Collection by Lynn Williams [55].

From around 1970 the numbers of students studying in the Physics Department started to decline alarmingly, falling from around 250 to just over 100 in less than a decade - perhaps understandably, this baseline statistic stopped being featured in the Departmental Reports to Council around this time [56]. The 1979 Report noted that it had been a ‘difficult session’ with staff leaving for posts elsewhere not being replaced, and the Department vacating all laboratories and offices on the 9th floor of the Tower. Furthermore, ‘a further contraction of the Department has been under discussion throughout the session’. This phase culminated just a couple of years later as the Department shrunk to allow the Department of Psychology to take over space in the Tower, which it still occupies today.

To compound these difficulties, research at Swansea, or the external perception of it, was suffering. The public, and hence university, budgetary restrictions of the 1980s prompted the UGC (under Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer) to introduce a means of research assessment by which quality-related (now known by the acronym QR) funding allocations could be made to institutions, based around discipline-focussed scrutiny. Physics was clearly a stand-alone ‘unit of assessment’, and Swansea Physics was submitted alongside all the other UK Departments. So-called ‘research selectivity exercises’ were carried out in 1986 and 1989, but a more rigorous approach was warranted, and this was forthcoming in 1992 as the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

The institutional and disciplinary RAE (now REF) performances are crucial. Not only do they determine QR funding income, but they also feed into league tables and other measures of prestige: and they are fixed from one assessment to the next, which is currently 5 years or more. Even back in 1992, a good score, at the very least commensurate with peer/rival institutions, was vital.

Swansea Physics’ rating in the 1992 RAE (reflecting its output since 1989) was disastrous. On a scale of 5 (international research excellence in some areas and national excellence in the rest) to 1 (no, or virtually no, national excellence) Swansea Physics was rated 2, with a sub-score of 1 for some applied work. It had submitted the outputs of just 9 staff to the exercise, which left it with a pitiful QR funding allocation, and in a very vulnerable position [57].

5. Change and Growth (1992-present)

Just when it seemed (at least looking back from 2021) that Physics at Swansea might disappear a new, and (ultimately) inspirational, initiative arose. Its principal architect was Professor Aubrey Truman FRSE FLSW, then Head of the Department of Mathematics, who devised an audacious plan to attract a world-leading mathematical physics activity to Swansea. The germ of the idea had apparently started when the 9th International Congress on Mathematical Physics was hosted at Swansea (from the 17th to the 27th of July 1988), the first time it had been held in the UK. Many distinguished mathematicians and theoretical physicists were present, including Sir Michael Atiyah, Ed Witten [58], David Evans and David Olive.

Some time after the Congress, Professor Truman was helping Physics with a professorial appointment - of an experimenter - which fell through after protracted negotiations. The future of the Department was squarely in the balance, before the inspired initiative was put into place, and which eventually led to David Olive [59] and Ian Halliday [60] joining Swansea from Imperial College London to establish a new centre for particle physics theory, as documented in Figure 8.

Some of the early theory group members included Graham Shore, David Dunbar, Simon Hands and Tim Hollowood, reflecting in part the interests of Olive and Halliday and spanning both mathematically-focused research in quantum field theory and string theory and computationally-based work in lattice field theory and quantum chromodynamics. The group has flourished in both these areas and, following the recruitment of a fresh influx of advanced fellows from 2004, became the third largest theoretical particle physics group in the UK. More recently, a new activity in cosmology has been added, and at the time of writing the Swansea Particle Physics and Cosmology Theory Group is comprised of 16 members [61]

With the Particle Theory group established, the fortunes of the Department improved rapidly with a high rating of 4 in the 1996 RAE and similar success in the national Teaching Quality Assessment. These difficult transition years left the Department on a reasonably stable, if somewhat lopsided, platform enabling the University - with the enthusiastic support of the VC Sir Robin Williams CBE FLSW FRS - to embark on a recruitment exercise for a Chair in Experimental Physics. The author was appointed to this post in 1999, and a thriving activity in Atomic, Molecular and Quantum Physics has arisen since then. This has involved major investment in research laboratory capabilities, taking advantage of some of the under-utilised space on the 5th and 6th floors of the Vivian Tower. This Group is currently active in laser physics and imaging, applications of laser spectroscopies, cold atom physics, applications of quantum physics and nano-physics to medicine, opto-mechanics and positron and antihydrogen physics (with the latter taking place at CERN [62]). The connection to some of the Department’s legacy achievements outlined in section 6 is clear.

More recently, a new activity in Applied Photonics and Materials Physics has been established following the appointment of Professor Kenith Meissner as Head of Department (2016-2020) and the recruitment of Professor Paul Meredith (2017) [63] to a Sêr Cymru Research Chair. This new initiative has already made a huge impact on the University, and will hopefully do so for some time to come. At the time of writing, the amalgamated Atomic, Molecular and Quantum Physics and the Applied Photonics and Materials Group is comprised of 14 members [64].

Eventually, with the renewed activity at Swansea, came the mentioned increase in academic staff numbers, and enhancements in size of both the undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts and in the postdoctoral research staff. Within the reduced space available to Physics in the Vivian Tower, and the repurposing of some of the original undergraduate laboratory space for other purposes, the College of Science was able to provide modern undergraduate teaching facilities in the Wallace Building. This was made possible largely due to a generous bequest to the Department from Dr Gething Morgan Lewis FRSE [65], and a plaque acknowledging this contribution can be found outside the new laboratory. The facilities were formally opened by Lyn Evans in September 2012.

6. Legacies and Connections

The contribution of Welsh scientists to the development of nuclear technology in the UK has been described extensively elsewhere [17], and the role of Swansea physicists (in the wider Swansea sense, not just via association with the Department) is highlighted elsewhere in this collection [18]. Even so, there are untold aspects to this story worthy of further investigation (such as the electrical contact and ignition work of Llewellyn Jones and colleagues), and there are ongoing links via alumni with the UK AWE and other defence establishments.

It is impossible to ignore the profound connections between Swansea Physics and CERN. Aspects of this 50 year association were featured in an issue of the ‘UK news from CERN’ [66]. Beginning with Eifionydd Jones and continuing with, as described briefly in sections 3-5, the reciprocal visits, and the research fellowships, together with the equipment donations, there was undoubtedly a two-way flow of ideas and expertise from the very early days. The truly monumental role played at CERN by Lyn Evans has been touched upon, as has the marked influence of others, such as Dewi Lewis [49]. The importance of the current links via Swansea’s massive commitment to the ALPHA Collaboration have been detailed in the notes [62]. ALPHA’s programme of work is set to continue for some time, so hopefully we can look forward to continuing this fruitful relationship far into the future. Swansea’s Particle Physics and Cosmology Theory group also has strong links with CERN’s Theoretical Physics Department.

From the mid-1970s, Swansea staff, and particularly Colyn Grey Morgan (who had been on the National Laser Laboratory Steering Committee and was vice-chair of a Laser Users Committee) took an active role in the setting up of a national facility at the Rutherford Laboratory. A photograph of Colyn in the laboratory at Swansea from around this time is shown in Figure 9. By 1979, Grey Morgan was chair of the so-called Central Laser Facility. This entity has thrived over the years and its current director is Professor John Collier FLSW, a Swansea alumnus and Honorary Professor in the Department [67]. Laser physics and its applications is an important thread running through many of Physics’ current activities.

From its foundation, and with the nascent metallic alloy research undertaken under the auspices of E.J. Evans, the Department has actively embraced applied research and relations with governmental and industrial partners. The sponsorship of the research during the Llewellyn Jones years makes it clear that this remained a prominent feature of the Department’s work throughout - and beyond into the era of medical and laser physics and their applications. The latter have included (and still do include) spectroscopies and diagnostics, remote sensing, protocols for magnetic resonance imaging, medical applications in collaboration with the Institute for Life Science and the Swansea Health Board and, most recently, the £30M Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials (CISM) project [68]. 

And in outreach, the Department has taken a prominent role in College of Science-and University-wide activities such as the Swansea University Science for Schools Scheme (S4) [69] and Oriel Science [70]. Both have academic leadership from the Department with Dr Will Bryan (S4) and Professor Chris Allton (Oriel) [71].

7. What Next?

This brief dip into the history of Physics at Swansea has, I hope, shown that it is both deep and rich. There is much potentially archivable material still in the Department, which at the very least must be examined and catalogued. This study has purposely skimmed the developments of the last thirty years or so. Historical evidence should be compiled from current and former colleagues from this period to ensure that this aspect of our heritage is adequately documented. The Department has been supported over the years by tremendously talented and dedicated technical and administrative staff, and their impressions and recollections should also be recorded [72].

The materials held concerning Frank Llewellyn Jones [36] deserve most serious attention, and together with University and other relevant information, should form the basis of a book-length biography. A small, currently somewhat ad hoc, selection of physics-based apparatus is being stored in the Department [73]. Consideration should be given as to the utility and viability of this collection.

Several of the staff and students of the Physics Department have made defining contributions to the efforts in which they were involved. These include: E.J. Williams, E.G. Bowen, W.C. Price, W.J.G. Beynon, I. Maddock, F.L. Jones, D.I. Olive and L.R. Evans. For many years photographs of some of these adorned the walls of the 6th floor of the Vivian Tower, but other than David Olive (for whom, in collaboration with the Learned Society of Wales, the Department has recently inaugurated an annual distinguished memorial lecture), there are no obvious celebrations of the achievements of these luminaries on campus. It is high time this changed.

And what of the Department? Swansea Physics has a strong self identity and a collective sense of purpose which it has displayed on numerous occasions. It has survived and prospered through the eras of Planning Groups, Schools and Colleges. It is more than likely, then, that it will be serving the University and its communities when the new Faculty system has long-since served its purpose - and when Covid-19 has run its course.

Supplementary Material

1. List of the Heads of the Department of Physics

2. Abridged list of Physics Department material held in the Richard Burton Archive (Table)

Acknowledgments

I am most grateful to my late colleagues Colin Evans and David Olive who started researching the history of the Department some time ago. Thanks are due to Graham Shore for his encouragement and his help, and in particular with Colin and David’s notes, which he kindly passed on from the late Jenny Olive. Thanks are also due to the staff of the Richard Burton Archive for their enthusiastic help over the years. I am grateful to John Tucker for his encouragement, suggestions and material help throughout, and not least for his detective work with respect to the material held by David and Peg Llewellyn-Jones [36], and to David and Peg for their input and the photograph of Frank’s portrait. I thank Aubrey Truman for his reminiscences concerning some of the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the Particle Theory group at Swansea. Hugh Thomas has been very helpful in finding information and materials for me whilst Covid19 has restricted access to the campus. I am also grateful to my colleagues, Professors Simon Hands, Carlos Nunez and Chris Allton, for their suggestions and to Tim Grey Morgan for the photograph of his father, Colyn, and other useful material. Thanks are due to Iwan Griffiths for supplying me with L. Wright’s booklet of recollections and Tony Davies for sending me his reminiscences of Swansea Physics.

Professor Mike Charlton, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Swansea University

Mike studied physics at University College London (UCL), completing his PhD in 1980. He won a Science and Engineering Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1982 followed by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 1983, before becoming a Reader in Physics at UCL in 1991. In 1999 he moved to a Chair at Swansea where he has been Head of the Department of Physics and of the School of Physical Sciences. He held an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Senior Research Fellowship from 2007-12. He has made seminal contributions to the study of atomic systems that include antiparticles, and in particular antihydrogen. He was a co-recipient of the 2011 American Physical Society John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and was awarded the 2020 Institute of Physics (IOP) Thomson Medal and Prize. He is a Fellow of the IOP and a Member of Academia Europea. He was elected as an Inaugural Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2011 and is currently its Vice President for STEMM.

 

Bibliography and Notes

[1] An incomplete list of the physics advances from 1890, but before 1920, includes: the discovery of the electron, radioactivity, the atomic nucleus and cosmic rays; the development of special and general relativity; Planck’s quantum hypothesis and Bohr’s model of the atom; the discovery of superconductivity in some materials at very low temperatures and the discovery of atomic isotopes. Technological advances include: the wireless transmission of Morse code across the Atlantic Ocean, the birth of electronics with the development of diode and triode valves and associated circuitry, the beginnings of mass spectrometry and the development of the cloud chamber as a particle detector.

[2] I am very grateful to Professor John Tucker and the University Library for providing me with access to digital copy of the Council Reports spanning the period 1920-2004.

[3] For example, E.J. Evans, 1913 Nature 92 5. This important paper is entitled ‘The Spectra of Hydrogen and Helium’ and reports a confirmation of Bohr’s theory from the same year (N. Bohr, 1913 Phil. Mag. S6 26 No.151) that certain observed spectral lines originate from the helium ion, He+, and not hydrogen. The particular experiment concerns the 4686 Angstrom line, which we now know originates from the Paschen-alpha series of the ion (principal quantum numbers n = 4- n = 3). It is clear from the paper that Evans was fully aware that he was testing Bohr’s theory, in contrast to the contemporaneous work of the more famous spectroscopist, Theodore Lyman. The importance of Evans’ experiment is described eloquently in Helge Kragh’s ‘Niels Bohr and the Quantum Atom: The Bohr Model of Atomic Structure 1913-1925’ (Oxford University Press, 2012).

[4] From notes on the Department compiled by the late Professor D.I. Olive CBE FLSW FRS and the late Dr. C.J. Evans. These notes remain in the Department in paper and electronic formats, but need to be curated.

[5] Several of the Society (by 1924 renamed the Physical Society) minute books have survived, and were collected by the author and are now archived. Incredibly, they ended up being handed down from Society president-to-president through to the current Society, though some of the oldest were found in what was the Head of Department’s Office (room 620, Vivian Tower). They provide a vivid picture of what was obviously an important aspect of the Department and encompass activities such as lectures (involving both internal and external speakers), trips to external facilities and social events, such as dinner dances and picnics.

[6] Later in 1922 Professor W.L. Bragg (introduced by the College Principal Professor Franklin Sibly) lectured on ‘Crystals: an account of our increased knowledge of matter in the solid state’.

[7] I am very grateful to Mr Julian Kivell for passing this book on to me, after keeping it in safe storage for many years. Some of the orders were placed to (still) familiar names, such as BOC and Johnson Matthey (the latter for precious metals). Other prominent recipients of the Department’s business included: British Thomson Houston (X-ray and related cathode equipment); F.E. Becker (electrical equipment); O. Gallenkamp (various); Adam Hilger (including the sum of £14 for an achromatic lens in May 1927); Watson and Son (X-ray equipment and films); the Scientific Glass Blowing Company of Manchester (22 orders over the period for bespoke glass apparatus, quartz tubes and vacuum wax) and various precious metals suppliers (for elements including antimony, gallium, germanium, cadmium, bismuth and the alkalis plus large amounts of mercury, presumably for use in high vacuum pumping equipment - many of the orders for mercury were marked ‘urgent’). In October 1928, the Department spent £42 on a single phase oil-cooled transformer with a secondary output of 2 A at up to 30 kV! One order, placed in 1928 to British Thomson Houston, was for Ne lamps and was marked by the Head of Department with ‘open day’. Plus ¸ca change ...

[8] David Dykes, 1992 ‘The University College of Swansea: An Illustrated History’ Alan Sutton. Frank Homeyard can be seen in chapter 4 in a photograph of the Physics Department taken in the mid-1930s and also in figure 2 herein.

[9] Wright produced a small booklet of reminiscences: ‘The Department of Physics, University College of Swansea 1920-1945, Personal Recollections’. I am grateful to Professor Iwan Griffiths for supplying me with a copy of this document.

[10] Karmen Thomas, 2020 “They ’Made Good’ at Swansea: Scientific Research and the Establishment of the University College of Swansea in 1920” (https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/Swansea2020/page/Scientific-Research-and-the-Establishment-of-the-University-College-of-Swansea). From one of the images shown in Karmen’s article the new laboratories appear to be slightly behind the front of the Abbey and somewhat to the west. Karmen also shows a postcard picture depicting the Honours Physics Laboratory at University College Swansea circa 1923. Some of the equipment on the benches has been in use well within living memory!

[11] Evans notes that ‘the performance of ...(Williams) was of such exceptional merit as to greatly impress the External Examiner’, who was Professor Charles Glover Barkla FRS (Edinburgh University and Nobel Laureate in 1917). Williams was awarded an MSc degree in 1924 for two projects: (i) the temperature variation of the conductivity of mercury and some of its dilute amalgams and (ii) a theoretical investigation of the effect of a magnetic field on the resistance of liquid metals. This combination of theory and experiment was to be characteristic of Willams’ career - much further, and fascinating, information can be found in the important new translation of Rowland Wynne’s book ‘Evan James Williams: Ffisegydd Yr Atom’ [13], which includes a wonderful photograph of him whilst he was a Swansea undergraduate. Following his masters study, Williams moved to Manchester to work towards a PhD with Professor W.L. Bragg FRS.

[12] This is a remarkable discovery. Would it not be appropriate to celebrate this in some way - possibly by inaugurating a prize in Miss Jones’ name? Following Professor Evans’ diligent reporting it seems that Miss Jones eventually took up a teaching career, becoming Physics Mistress at Bridgend County School some time around 1930.

[13] Rowland Wynne, 2020 ‘Evan James Williams: Atomic Physicist’ (University of Wales Press, Scientists of Wales Series).

[14] Edward George Bowen CBE FRS is one of Swansea Physics’ most distinguished alumni. A potted history of his remarkable career can be found elsewhere [18]. He is known as ‘the father of airborne radar’ and his wartime memoirs are published as ‘Radar Days’ (CRC Press, 1998). His papers are held in Cambridge at the Churchill Archives Centre (reference GBR/0014/EGBN). Royal Society memoirs can be found as follows: R. Hanbury Brown, H.C. Minnett and F.W.G. White, ‘Edward George Bowen’ in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Volume 38, (London: The Royal Society, 1992) (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1992.0003), with the equivalent for the Australian Academy of Sciences available at http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/aasmemoirs/bowen.htm.

[15] William Charles ‘Bill’ Price FRS had a distinguished career in what might now be termed chemical physics. He was a pioneer of the spectroscopy of molecules. His career was spent at Cambridge and King’s College London, where he was Wheatstone Professor of Physics from 1962-1976. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959. Royal Society memoirs can be found as follows: R.N. Dixon, D.M. Agar and R.E. Burge, ‘William Charles Price’ in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Volume 43, (London: The Royal Society, 1997) (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1997.0023).

[16] Chapter 19 of ‘Physicists Look Back - Studies in the History of Physics’ (edited by John Roche) 1990 (Adam Hilger).

[17] John Baylis, 2019 ‘Wales and The Bomb: The Role of Welsh Scientists in the British Nuclear Programme’ (University of Wales Press, Scientists of Wales Series).

[18] John Baylis and Mike Charlton, 2020 ‘The Role of Swansea in the UK Nuclear Programme’, Swansea University Centenary Essays Collection (https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/swansea2020/page/nuclear-programme).

[19] Dykes [8] (p 197) notes that, even whilst stationed at Farnborough, ‘it was symptomatic of Llewellyn Jones’s commitment to the College that ... he continued to carry out a complete lecturing programme by returning to Swansea for a week each month to give intensive courses’.

[20] David Llewellyn-Jones notes of his time at Farnborough that: ‘One of the problems he worked on was that of ignition systems in high-altitude piston aircraft (DH Mosquitos), which were sometimes mysteriously falling out of the sky. This was believed to be due to failure of the ignition systems (mainly the contact breakers) at low atmospheric pressures - this work led directly to his interest in the physics of contacts and the departmental programme he built up after the War.’

[21] The Report, as does the Council, notes the sad and untimely passing of E.J. Williams, aged just 42: see [13].

[22] William John Granville Beynon, a Swansea alumnus, eventually left the College to take up the Chair in Physics at Aberystwyth in 1958. He had returned to Swansea from the Radio Division of the National Physical Laboratory at Slough, where he had been collaborating with Appleton. He had a most distinguished career (some of which will be noted herein), encompassing academic work in ionospheric and atmospheric physics, and was an early, and successful, proponent of international collaboration, particularly in geophysics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1973 and knighted three years later. Royal Society memoirs can be found as follows: L. Thomas, ‘Sir Granville Beynon CBE’ in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Volume 44, (London: The Royal Society, 1998) (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1998.0004).

[23] Massey held the Quain Chair of Physics at University College London where, amongst many other achievements, he was responsible for establishing a positron physics group in the late 1960s. This was the group the author joined as research student in 1978 - the group leader was then T. Ceiri Griffith, who had been a student at Aberystwyth under E.J. Williams in the 1940s!

[24] For instance: in 1948 he was nominated to take a lead role in the ‘International Mixed Commission on the Ionosphere’, with the programme of work approved by the Radio Research Board via the award of a modest grant. A year later he joined a Royal Society National Committee for Scientific Radio, and he was to be a regular nominee of the Society to attend meetings on their behalf, including the XIth General Assembly of the International Scientific Radio Union, and in 1956 a Gassiot Committee on ‘Rocket Investigation of the Upper Atmosphere’. He was awarded a CBE in 1959 and, as previously mentioned [22], he went on to became a Fellow of the Royal Society and to be knighted. He has given some personal recollections of the development of ionospheric research in [16], Chapter 18.

[25] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.2761801.

[26] During the Llewellyn Jones years visitors to Department included: G. P. Thomson (Cambridge); K. Mendelssohn (Oxford); L. Huxley (Adelaide); N.F. Mott (Bristol); A.H. von Engel (Oxford); W. L. Hyde (US Office for Naval Research); S. C. Brown (MIT); R. W. Crompton (latterly ANU, Canberra to spend a year in the Department studying the ‘electrical breakdown of gases’); G. Biondi (Westinghouse); H. Bondi (London); L. Essen (NPL); F.C. Frank (Bristol); W.E. Lamb (Oxford); N. Kurti (Oxford); J.D. Somerville (Armindale, who at one point was awarded a grant of £1,000 from the Royal Society Warren Committee to spend a year in Swansea). A guest book has survived, though sadly not from this period, and is archived.

[27] https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2019/summer-science-exhibition/

[28] At around this time the Department was extremely active, giving around sixty outreach-style lectures per annum, and it is noted in 1956-7 that a ‘Lightning’ lecture was proving to be very popular. It is known that there was a model associated with this lecture, though probably now lost. So perhaps this was the model that so interested the media.

[29] 1954 Physics staff snapshot:- Professor: Llewellyn Jones; Senior Lecturer: Davidson, Beynon; Lecturer: Wright, Griffin, Brown, Dutton; ICI Fellow, Hopkins and Warren Committee Research Fellow, Grey Morgan (9 in total). 1962 Physics staff snapshot:- Professor: Llewellyn Jones; Reader: Davidson; Senior Lecturer: Wright, Dutton; Lecturer: Griffin, Grey Morgan, Miles, Saunders, Thomas (K.A.), Jones (I.R.); Senior Tutor: Davies (D.F.); Assistant Lecturer: Davies (A.J.); Temporary Assistant Lecturer: George (13 in total).

[30] There is an uncorroborated (other than by word of mouth, though there may be material in the University archive) story that these floors (now numbered 7-9 in the Vivian Tower) originated from a chance encounter between Llewellyn Jones and ‘an influential person’ (thought by Tony Davies to be the head of the UGC) with access to ‘extra money in the building budget’ on the train between Swansea and London. The original plan for a six-storey building went so far as the architect modelling stage, and the model was displayed on campus in recent times, and is now held in the University archives.

[31] Eifionydd Jones spent the rest of his career at CERN, before his untimely death in 1990. An obituary by Carlo Rubbia (Nobel Laureate) appeared in The Independent on the 19th of March 1990 [4]. Eifionydd made important contributions to the Intersecting Storage Rings at CERN and to the Antiproton Accumulator, which was key to many experiments, including the discovery of the W boson. Interestingly the Accumulator was later re-purposed as the Antiproton Decelerator and used for the antihydrogen experimentation in which Swansea Physics currently plays a prominent role: see section 5.

[32] Lyn graduated from Swansea in 1966 and obtained his PhD in 1970 on ‘a combined theoretical and experimental study of the interaction of intense lasers with gases’. His PhD External Examiner was Leon van Hove, then director of the Theory Division at CERN and later its Director General, who was so impressed by Lyn’s work that he offered him a job on the spot as a Research Fellow in the Proton Synchrotron Division. A succession of posts, through project, and then Division, leadership led ultimately to him taking charge of the Large Hadron Collider Project. He has won many honours and awards for his work, including a CBE (2001), the prestigious American Physical Society Robert R. Wilson Prize (2008) and election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society (2010). He was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales Swansea in 2002.

[33] Tony spent around 50 years at Swansea University, starting with his undergraduate years from 1955-58 (though his first year was spent in Chemistry). Tony went on to work with distinction in ionization and high voltage physics, with both Frank Llewellyn Jones and Percy Davidson and served as Head of Department from 1998 to 2001. He has kindly supplied me with a charming personal account of his long and fruitful association with the Department.

[34] Llewellyn Jones had previously been acting Principal in the session 1959-60 following the resignation of J.S. Fulton to go to Sussex University.

[35] The photograph was provided by David and Peg Llewellyn Jones. The portrait was painted by Kenneth Hancock, who was then the Principal of Swansea College of Art, and a personal friend of Professor Llewellyn Jones.

[36] A wealth of material concerning Professor Llewellyn Jones has been held in storage by his son and daughter-in-law, David and Peg, for many years. There are around thirty box files containing mostly documents related to his work at the College and his external appointments. I am grateful to John Tucker for discovering its existence, and to David and Peg for their hospitality and willingness to open up the files for inspection. To date, this has been little more than a scoping exercise, but there is no doubt that this is an important collection.

[37] An obituary appeared in The Times, penned by Professor Colyn Grey Morgan, on March 5th 1997.

[38] The ‘he’ in the quote is Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer KBE FRS (1927-2018), a distinguished mathematician, and Chair of the University Grants Committee (UGC) 1983-1989 during what was a difficult time for university finances. The extract is taken from a University College Swansea document (F 9779) minuting a visit to the UGC on the 21st of July 1986. Representing the College were the Principal, Professor B.L. Clarkson, Vice-Principals, Professors J.B. Woodward, H.A. Barker and (as V-P designate) D.T. Herbert, the Registrar, Mr J.V. Carney and the Director of Finance, Mr W.F.D. Harrison. The College presentation explicitly acknowledged that ‘difficulties at University College Cardiff were affecting ongoing discussions’ with respect to ‘rationalisation within the University of Wales’, and a ‘rationalisation exercise’ was mentioned explicitly regarding Physics. This is discussed further in section 4.

[39] Davidson retired in 1968 after 39 years service to the College, and a warm appreciation from Llewellyn Jones can be found in the Report to Council of that year. He was educated at King’s College London and Cambridge, and published several papers (including during his time at Swansea) with Owen Williams Richardson (FRS, Nobel Laureate in Physics) on the spectrum of molecular hydrogen. Latterly he gave important theoretical support to the activities of Llewellyn Jones’ group. Interestingly, Richardson was the University of Wales External Examiner in Physics during the period 1919-1921. Davidson was fondly remembered by many [4] as ‘universally popular, being clever but unambitious’. He was a bachelor who seemed to have access to private wealth. He reputedly delivered excellent speeches at the Annual Physics Society Dinner (toasting ‘the Ladies’, apparently) and a photograph, with pipe-in-hand, at such an event used to hang in the Vivian Tower. He retired in March 1968 and died on the 18th of October 1969. The first mention of the P.M. Davidson Prize is in 1974, when it was awarded to Kelvin Donne, now a Professorial Fellow at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David [18]. Other winners include Professors R.M. Clement and I.W. Griffiths, though for several years in the 1980s the prize was not awarded, presumably due to the precipitous decline in suitably qualified Honours students.

[40] This is based upon Grey Morgan’s short document ‘Origin of Laser Research Group’ as given to David Olive.

[41] As noted by Colyn Grey Morgan [40] - ‘In subsequent years the group’s range of interest in the interaction of powerful laser radiation with matter activities broadened and embraced branches of spectroscopy when joined by Drs H.T. Miles and Aled Williams. The group’s work was supported by SRC, DTI, MoD, AWRE ... and gained financial support of some £1.1M over the years by 1989. It also attracted a number of major International and National Conferences to Swansea ...’ This work was carried on with distinction at Swansea for another three decades, primarily by Professor Helmut H. Telle. Helmut joined the Department in 1984 on a UGC-sponsored ‘New Blood Lectureship’ in Laser Physics from the group of Professor John Polyani (FRSC FRS, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) in Toronto. He made major contributions to, amongst other things, Resonance Ionisation Spectroscopy, Raman Spectroscopies and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, and attracted considerable funding from diverse sources to support these efforts. Thriving descendant activities of his Analytical Laser Spectroscopy Unit (see https://www.swansea.ac.uk/physics/research-andimpact/analytical-laser-spectroscopy-unit/) can still be found in the Department.

[42] After arriving in Swansea Professor Thonemann was actively engaged in the UK research community as a Committee member for the Science Research Council, and as Chair of their Plasma Physics Panel, in addition to holding a consultancy with the AEA. He was an early entrant into the field of biophysics. In 1970 he lectured at Oxford (where he did his PhD) on the ‘statistical behaviour of swarms of organisms’, and in 1976 published a paper with Colin Evans on motile bacteria (‘The Dispersal of an Initial Concentration of Motile Bacteria’ 1976 Journal of General Microbiology 92 23). For some reason this effort, which was way ahead of the curve, was not maintained. Peter Thonemann was born and brought up in Melbourne, Australia, graduating from the university there in 1940. He moved to the UK after World War II and undertook a PhD at Oxford entitled ‘Study of Gas Discharge Phenomena and their Application to Nuclear Science’ - a clear indication of his future. He was a pioneer of magnetic confinement and wrote an important early paper on the subject with W.T. Cowhig (P.C. Thonemann and W.T. Cowhig, ‘High-Current Gas Discharge at Low Pressures’ 1950 Nature 166 903). Professor Thonemann passed away on the 10th of February 2018 shortly after his 100th birthday. He lived up to that time in the Swansea area, and in recognition of his century, the Department presented him with an album to commemorate his time at Swansea and (partly) at Culham. See: https://www-2018.swansea.ac.uk/press-office/newsarchive/2017/swanseauniversitycelebratesthe100thbirthdayofprofessorpeterthonemann.php, and https://www.swansea.ac.uk/science/news/professorpeterthonemann-areflectionofhislife.php. There are also numerous recollections of Professor Thonemann assembled in the notes compiled by David Olive and Colin Evans.

[43] The history of this device, and the 1958 report that thermonuclear fusion had been observed using it, is recorded in detail elsewhere: see for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZETA-(fusionreactor)

[44] This photograph was given to the Department by the Harwell Archive. I am grateful to Professor Peter Dunstan for this resource, and for his help with the material regarding Professor Thonemann.

[45] For instance, in the late 1980s a UGC grant of £125k was awarded to the Department, together with the Department of Education, to create a two year integrated PGCE/Diploma in Physics - it is not recorded what became of this initiative.

[46] A 2 MV particle accelerator, valued at around £70k was gifted to Swansea from CERN in 1968. Apparently at the time the Department had ‘been trying to obtain such a generator for the past three years’ and they intended it to be used for an number of things including ‘for experiments on the collisions of particles of anti-matter (positrons) with matter.’

[47] High energy positrons result from electron-positron pair production via the bremsstrahlung (braking) gamma-radiation produced when the MeV electrons from the accelerator are abruptly halted as they penetrate a solid. The positrons can then stop in the same material and, under favourable conditions, some of them can reach its surface before they annihilate. Positrons really can behave as anti-electrons at surfaces and may experience a negative work-function which results in their spontaneous liberation into vacuum with eV-type kinetic energies. These are then simple to confine into a beam and accelerate to a desired kinetic energy for collisions with, for instance, gaseous targets [48].

[48] The author read the Swansea papers as a postgraduate student at UCL. The group used a so-called Ramsauer-type apparatus to measure scattering cross sections, which gave them an advantage in that they could explore higher kinetic energies than was (realistically) feasible with the time-of-flight system in operation in London. Their work was thoughtful, and their measurements have proven to be accurate. What happened to the apparatus is not known. When I arrived in Swansea in 1999, all that remained was a white-on-black plastic sign above the door of a ground floor Vivian Tower room saying ‘POSITRON PHYSICS’ - as chance would have it, this is the title of my 2000 Cambridge University Press monograph with J.W. Humberston. This sign is above my desk at home - the university is welcome to reclaim it, should the need for signage with this colour scheme re-emerge.

[49] Dewi Merion Lewis was an undergraduate (1966-69) and then a postgraduate at Swansea, following which he held a Fellowship at CERN, working on the Intersecting Storage Rings. Upon his return to the UK he helped establish the medical radioisotopes industry here with Amersham International and General Electric, eventually becoming Head of Physics in the latter. He has held other positions of distinction with UK universities and research organisations and in 2010 he was appointed as CERN’s first Industry Advisor. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Learned Society of Wales. Dewi has maintained a strong link with the Department, recently as a mentor with respect to the Research Excellence Framework. He was given an Honorary Degree by the university in July 2019.

[50] Sir Sam Edwards FLSW FRS (1928-2015) was born and brought up in Swansea and was one of the world’s foremost authorities in, and a founder of, the discipline of soft condensed matter physics. He was also chair of the so-called Edwards Committee, and it is interesting that the 1988 Report to Council notes that Colyn Grey Morgan was a member of this committee ‘to consider the future provisions for physics in UK universities’.

[51] The three were Sir Granville Beynon CBE FRS (Swansea alumnus and former member of staff, as described herein) at Aberystwyth and who was the senior figure at the time, Robin Williams CBE FLSW FRS (now Sir Robin, and former Vice Chancellor at Swansea) at Cardiff and Colyn Grey Morgan for Swansea. As shown in the Head of Department list in the Supplementary Material, the Headship at Swansea was shared during this period between Colyn and Jack Dutton, and though both would have had input to this matter, it seems to have been the former that took part in the Heads’ discussions.

[52] Only paper copies of these two documents have survived in Swansea, and both are held in the Richard Burton Archive. Presumably the 1988 document (which is marked as confidential) is also held in the University of Wales archive. From Grey Morgan’s annotations, the 1986 document was presented to a meeting at Bangor on the 8th of December 1986, and to the Rationalisation Working Party nine days later.

[53] The justification for this from Swansea was based upon three observations: (i) the strong demand for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses; (ii) the strengths of the Department’s two research groups in Laser Physics and Medical Physics and (iii) that the Department’s involvement in Medical Physics was expected to increase substantially. Indeed a medical instrumentation activity had been established (see section 4), and a new postgraduate Medical School for Swansea had seemingly just been approved, which it was thought would enhance physics-based work.

[54] Though the three Departments remained separate, links were forged via a loose-knit entity known as the University of Wales Faculty of Physics, starting around 1989. The Swansea Report to Council from that year outlines some of the benefits of the new inter-College Faculty, such as that the graduates will ‘be able to contribute significantly to the industrial regeneration of Wales in the 1990s’. The faculty held an annual, if informal, staff meeting at Gregynog Hall at which there were research and teaching updates and typically an external speaker on a topic of common interest. This body continued, even as the individual Colleges distanced themselves from, and finally left, the University of Wales. Advanced courses (for instance specialised MPhys modules) were shared by the Departments via internet links and project-related training days were held, also at Gregynog. The staff meetings finally faded away as attendance dropped, and even more recently the joint courses have ceased to be an attraction.

[55] Lynn Williams, 2020 ‘The Long Goodbye: leaving the federal University of Wales (1988-2007)’, Swansea University Centenary Essays Collection (https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/swansea2020/page/the-long-goodbye).

[56] Strenuous efforts were made in overseas recruitment around this time. In particular, Colyn Grey Morgan forged extensive links with universities in Southern Asia and was successful in drawing students to Swansea from there.

[57] The text accompanying the score of 2 in RAE 1992 was that the Department had ‘Research quality that equates to attainable levels of national excellence in up to half of the subareas of activity’, and since the only active research areas were in laser and medical physics, it suggests that only a handful of staff were assessed as working even at a nationally competitive level. The decline from the internationally vibrant activities of earlier decades is so stark as to need no further comment. By comparison Aberystwyth and Cardiff were rated at 3 and 4 with 11 and 20 staff FTEs, respectively.

[58] The ‘story’ of Ed Witten in Swansea at the International Congress, and the proof of a theorem, or realisation of a connection, over dinner at the then Annie’s Restaurant in St. Helen’s Road, was relayed to the author in a telephone conversation with Aubrey Truman on the 11th of June 2020. A plaque to commemorate this dinner, which was also attended by the late Sir Michael Atiyah, apparently hung in the restaurant for many years, and is now in the possession of the Mathematics Department. Witten’s follow-up paper ‘Quantum field theory and the Jones polynomial’ was published in Commun. Math. Phys. 121 1989 pp351-99, and described therein as ‘An expanded version of a lecture at the IAMP Congress, Swansea, July 1988. I am grateful to Professor Carlos Nunez for directing me to this work.

[59] David Ian Olive CBE FLSW FRS (1937-2012) was one of the foremost theoretical physicists of his day. He was educated at Edinburgh and Cambridge, and spent several years in the Theory Division at CERN before joining the Theoretical Physics Group at Imperial College London, which he eventually led. He left there in 1992 to establish, with Ian Halliday, the Theory Group at Swansea. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987, and he was awarded (together with Peter Goddard) the prestigious Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 1997. In 2002 he received a CBE for his services to theoretical physics and he was a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2010. The Department of Physics at Swansea, in collaboration with the Learned Society, has recently established a distinguished lecture series in memory of David, and an obituary, written by Professor Graham Shore, can be found at https://www.swansea.ac.uk/science/news/professordavidoliveobituary/.

[60] Ian Gibson Halliday CBE HonFInstP MAE FRSE FLSW headed Swansea Physics in the crucial period from 1992-98. He was educated at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Cambridge before taking up an academic appointment at Imperial College London. Ian has held positions of great responsibility in UK and European Science, including Chief Executive of PPARC (the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council) and SUPA (the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance), and he was President of European Science Foundation for several years. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, which is their highest level of Fellowship, and he was awarded a CBE for his scientific and leadership achievements in 2009. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Learned Society of Wales in 2011.

[61] Theory group academic staff members in 2020 were as follows: G.P.A.T. Aarts (Group Leader), C.R. Allton, A. Armoni, T. Burns, D.C. Dunbar, S.J. Hands, T.J. Hollowood, S.P. Kumar, B. Lucini (Head of the Department of Mathematics and honorary group member - to be a Leverhulme Research Fellow from autumn 2020), C. Nunez, W.B. Perkins, M. Piai, G.M. Shore (Emeritus), G. Tassinato, D.C. Thompson and E.I. Zavella.

[62] Swansea was one of the founding institutions of the ALPHA antihydrogen collaboration (http://alpha.web.cern.ch/) and has consistently provided more personel for the experiment than any of the other institutions involved. Antihydrogen work was pioneered in the UK over 30 years ago, and Swansea Physics has, to date, enjoyed uninterrupted funding for its participation in this unique fundamental physics programme.

[63] Professor Paul Meredith FLSW is a Swansea alumnus, being an undergraduate from 1986-1989, and was President of the Physics Society during his final year, a role to which he was appointed (‘given the finger’) directly by Colyn Grey Morgan. Paul was awarded an OBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours List for ‘Services to Semiconductor Research and Innovation’.

[64] The combined AMQP and APM group academic staff members in 2020 were as follows: A. Armin, W.A. Bryan, J.E. Bateman, M. Charlton, P.R. Dunstan, S.J. Eriksson, C.A. Isaac, N. Madsen, K.E. Meissner, P. Meredith (Group Leader), K. O’Keeffe, D.A. Ritchie (joint appointment with Cambridge University), S. Shermer and D.P. van der Werf.

[65] Gething Morgan Lewis FRSE grew up in Ystalfera and was educated at Brecon College. From the 1960s he pioneered experimental particle physics at Glasgow University, where he worked until his retirement in 1979.

[66] https://stfc.ukri.org/files/uk-news-from-cern-issue-23/

[67] It is notable that Professor Collier is the recipient of the 2020 Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics ‘for the sustained leadership and strategic development of the UK’s multi-disciplinary Central Laser Facility and his pioneering developments in and (sic) high-energy, high-average power lasers’.

[68] https://www.swansea.ac.uk/campus-development/developing-bay/key-projects-bay/cism/

[69] https://s4science.co.uk/

[70] http://orielscience.co.uk/

[71] Oriel Science has been a great success, engaging over 150,000 people in around 100 events. Chris has also, since 2012, co-curated (with Ed Pope from Biosciences) the successful Oriel Science Cafés (previously the Science Cafés). He is the recipient (2018-2020) of a Science and Technology Facilities Council Leadership Fellowship in Public Engagement.

[72] Colin Evans made an historical list (dated the 12th of February 2010 which he thought to be incomplete) of the Physics technical support staff, including laboratory superintendents, as follows: F.B. Homeyard, J.F. Henderson, A.C.C. Jenkins, John G. Lum, Huw Jones, Trevor Gethin, John Dunn, Len Treasure, Colin Craven, Lewis Howell, Hayden Howells, Mike Bagshaw, Ellis Edwards, Doug Snell, Wilf Barham, Brian Hendy, Paul Hendy, Arnold Freeman, Bill Hammet, Ray Squire, Hugh Thomas, Julian Kivell, Mike Rogers and David Payne. At the time of writing, Hugh Thomas is still with us, working alongside Jonathan Woodman-Ralph and Phil Hopkins in Physics and the new Faculty of Science and Engineering. Julian Kivell retired in January 2021 after around 40 years of service with the University. It would be appropriate to try draw up a complementary list of secretarial and administrative staff. One of the longest serving colleagues was the late Ray Squire, who joined the Department in 1962 as a trainee technician. Ray stayed with us for 50 years, eventually becoming the Departmental Administrator. A plaque dedicated to his service can be found in his old office (now part of ‘Science North’) on the sixth floor of the Vivian Tower.

[73] Some of the Department’s computational instrumentation has been donated to Swansea’s History of Computing Collection. Colin Evans has written some fascinating notes of the early days of computing in the Physics Department which can be accessed in the Collection (see https://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/archive-and-research-collections/hocc/peopleand-reminiscences/colin-evans/). See also John Tucker’s elegant contribution to these Centenary Essays (https://collections.swansea.ac.uk/s/swansea-2020/page/computer-science/