The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was the main
centre
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...
for
atomic energy Atomic energy or energy of atoms is energy carried by atoms. The term originated in 1903 when Ernest Rutherford began to speak of the possibility of atomic energy.Isaac Asimov, ''Atom: Journey Across the Sub-Atomic Cosmos'', New York:1992 Plume, ...
research and development
Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Government.
![RAL_Aerial_View_-_1972_(37827762804)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/RAL_Aerial_View_-_1972_%2837827762804%29.jpg)
A number of early research reactors were built here starting with
GLEEP in 1947 to provide the underlying science and technology behind the design and building of Britain's nuclear reactors such as the
Windscale Piles
The Windscale Piles were two air-cooled graphite-moderated nuclear reactors on the Windscale nuclear site in Cumberland (now known as Sellafield site, Cumbria) on the north-west coast of England. The two reactors, referred to at the time as "p ...
and
Calder Hall
Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nucle ...
nuclear power station. To support this an extensive array of research and design laboratories were built to enable research into all aspects of nuclear reactor and fuel design, and the development of pilot plants for fuel reprocessing. The site became a major employer in the Oxford area.
In the 1990s demand for government-led research had significantly decreased and the site was subsequently gradually diversified to allow private investment, and was known from 2006 as the
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a 700-acre science and technology campus in Oxfordshire, England. Over 6,000 people work there in over 240 public and private sector organisations, working across sectors including Space, Clean Ener ...
.
Founding
In 1945
John Cockcroft
Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, (27 May 1897 – 18 September 1967) was a British physicist who shared with Ernest Walton the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclea ...
was asked to set up a research laboratory to further the use of
nuclear fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radio ...
for both
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
purposes and generating energy. The criteria for selection involved finding somewhere remote with a good water supply, but within reach of good transport links and a university with a
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
laboratory. This more or less limited the choice to the areas around
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
or
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
. It had been decided that an RAF airfield would be chosen, the aircraft hangars being ideal to house the large atomic piles that would need to be built. Although Cambridge University had the better
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
facility (the
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
), the RAF did not want to abandon any of its eastern airfields because of its potential involvement in the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, therefore Harwell was chosen when the RAF made the airfield available.
RAF Harwell
Royal Air Force Harwell or more simply RAF Harwell is a former Royal Air Force station, near the village of Harwell, located south east of Wantage, Oxfordshire and north west of Reading, Berkshire, England.
The site is now the Harwell Sc ...
was sixteen miles south of
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
near
Didcot
Didcot ( ) is a railway town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, east of Wantage and north west of Reading. The town is noted for its railway heritage, Di ...
and
Harwell Harwell may refer to:
People
* Harwell (surname)
* Harwell Hamilton Harris (1903–1990), American architect
Places
* Harwell, Nottinghamshire, England, a hamlet
*Harwell, Oxfordshire, England, a village
**RAF Harwell, a World War II RAF airfield, ...
(at this time in Berkshire), and on 1 January 1946 the Atomic Energy Research Establishment was formed, coming under the
Ministry of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for aircr ...
. The scientists mostly took over both accommodations and work buildings from the departing
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
.
The early laboratory had several specialist divisions: Chemistry (initially headed by
Egon Bretscher
Egon Bretscher CBE (1901–1973) was a Swiss-born British chemist and nuclear physicist and Head of the Nuclear Physics Division from 1948 to 1966 at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, also known as Harwell Laboratory, in Harwell, United ...
, later by Robert Spence), General Physics
(H.W.B. Skinner), Nuclear Physics (initially headed by
Otto Frisch, later E. Bretscher), Reactor Physics (John Dunworth), Theoretical Physics (
Klaus Fuchs, later
Brian Flowers
Brian Hilton Flowers, Baron Flowers FRS (13 September 1924 – 25 June 2010) was a British physicist, academician, and public servant.
Early life and studies
The son of the Rev. Harold Joseph Flowers and Mrs Marian Flowers, Brian Hilton Flowe ...
and
Walter Marshall), Isotopes (Henry Seligmann), Engineering (Harold Tongue, later Robert Jackson), Chemical Engineering (A.S. White), and Metallurgy (Bruce Chalmers, later
Monty Finniston
Sir Harold Montague "Monty" Finniston FRS FRSE (15 August 1912 – 2 February 1991) was a Scottish industrialist.
Life
He was born at 26 Aikenhead Road in Govanhill, Glasgow the son of Robert Finniston. His family were of Russian Jewish origi ...
, FRS). Finniston was later to become chairman of the British Steel Corporation. Directors after Cockcroft included
Basil Schonland
Sir Basil Ferdinand Jamieson Schonland OMG CBE FRS (2 February 1896 – 24 November 1972) was noted for his research on lightning, his involvement in the development of radar during World War II and for being the first president of the South ...
, Sir
Arthur Vick
Sir Francis Arthur Vick (5 June 1911 – 2 September 1998) was a British physicist and university administrator.
Vick graduated with a degree in physics from Birmingham University in 1932 and with a PhD in solid state physics from Birmingham Uni ...
and
Walter Marshall.
![Aere harwell main gate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Aere_harwell_main_gate.jpg)
The decision to site AERE at Harwell had huge implications for a rural area which had depended mainly on agriculture for employment before World War II. The site (which quickly became known colloquially amongst the local population as 'The Atomic') became one of the main employers in the post-war period. It also led to an influx of labour from outside the area, putting pressure on already scarce housing stocks. In response to the problem, hostels and temporary housing were established around the site. The hostels were named Icknield Way House ('B' mess, the RAF sergeants' mess), Portway House ('C' Mess, the RAF airmans' mess) and Ridgeway House ('A' Mess, the officers' mess) provided either single or double room accommodation for staff and were adopted from existing RAF structures on the site. The class distinction was maintained by the UKAEA. A-Mess housed visiting scientists, B-Mess scientific support staff and some post-graduate scientists, and C-Mess industrial support staff. The temporary housing stock consisted of several hundred '
Prefabs', single storey structures manufactured in parts for quick erection, which were designed originally to help alleviate chronic housing shortages in the immediate post-war period in Britain. Two estates of 'Prefabs' were built to the north and south of the site perimeter, along with a road system and parade of shops. In later years, conventional housing was provided on estates built in
Abingdon,
Grove (near
Wantage
Wantage () is a historic market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire since 1974. T ...
) and
Newbury for employees. A modern hostel (Rush Common House) was built in Abingdon. The houses were later sold (mainly to their occupants) in the 1980s and the hostels were demolished or adapted for other uses. The 'Prefab' estates lasted until the early 1990s when the residents were transferred to local authority housing. The RAF prewar NCO married quarter housing at Harwell together other UKAEA housing in Abingdon, Grove, Wantage and Newbury totaling 129 houses were sold in their entirety to the Welbeck Estate Group in 1995 and following extensive refurbishment were sold to local buyers.
Workers were bussed to the site from as far away as Reading in utilitarian grey buses marked 'AERE'.
Early reactors
Such was the interest in nuclear power and the priority devoted to it in those days that the first reactor,
GLEEP
GLEEP, which stood for Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile, was a long-lived experimental nuclear reactor in Oxfordshire, England. Run for the first time on August 15, 1947, it was the first reactor to operate in western Europe.
It was built at ...
, was operating by 15 August 1947. GLEEP (Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) was a low-power (3
kilowatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
) graphite-moderated air-cooled reactor. The first reactor in Western Europe, it operated until 1990.
A successor to GLEEP, called
BEPO (British Experimental Pile 0) was constructed based on the experience with GLEEP, and commenced operation in 1948. At 6
MW, BEPO was much more powerful than GLEEP. The engineers at Harwell eventually decided that this small reactor should be put to some use, so the air that flowed over it was directed through an underground trench, where there were some pipes filled with water that connected to a secondary group of water-filled pipes that were used by the nearby establishments to heat offices. This was the first use of nuclear district heating in the UK. BEPO was shut down in 1968.
LIDO
Lido may refer to:
Geography Africa
* Lido, a district in the city of Fez, Morocco
Asia
* Lido, an area in Chaoyang District, Beijing
* Lido, a cinema theater in Siam Square shopping area in Bangkok
* Lido City, a resort in West Java owned by MN ...
was an
enriched uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238 ...
thermal swimming pool reactor which operated from 1956 to 1972 and was mainly used for shielding and nuclear physics experiments. It was fully dismantled and returned to a green field site in 1995. In the same building as LIDO, DAPHNE (Dido And Pluto Handmaiden for Nuclear Experiments) was constructed to test equipment used in experiments on the two larger reactors.
A pair of larger 26MW reactors,
DIDO
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...
and
PLUTO
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
, which used enriched
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
with a
heavy water moderator came online in 1956 and 1957 respectively. These reactors were used primarily for testing the behaviour of different materials under intense
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
irradiation to help decide what materials to build reactor components out of. A sample could be irradiated for a few months to simulate the radiation dose that it would receive over the lifetime of a power reactor. Both reactors were also used for neutron scattering crystallography. They took over commercial
isotope
Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) ...
production from BEPO after that was shut down. DIDO and PLUTO themselves were shut down in 1990 and the fuel, moderator and some ancillary buildings removed. The GLEEP reactor and the hangar it was situated in were decommissioned 2005. The current plans are to decommission the BEPO, DIDO and PLUTO reactors by 2020.
Zeta
One of the most significant experiments to occur at AERE was the
ZETA
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...
fusion power
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion, nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, whi ...
experiment. An early attempt to build a large-scale nuclear fusion reactor, the project was started in 1954, and the first successes were achieved in 1957. In 1968 the project was shut down, as it was believed that no further progress could be made with the kind of design that ZETA represented (see
Timeline of nuclear fusion).
Organisational history
In 1954 AERE was incorporated into the newly formed
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ...
(UKAEA). Harwell and other laboratories were to assume responsibility for atomic energy research and development. It was part of the
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
During the 1970s the slowdown of the British nuclear energy program resulted in a greatly reduced demand for the kind of work being done by the UKAEA. Pressures on government spending also reduced the funding available. Reluctant to merely disband a quality scientific research organisation, UKAEA was required to divert its research effort to the solving of scientific problems for industry by providing paid consultancy or services. For example, an Operations Research Group was set up at Harwell, and developed shipping fleet scheduling software that was used to provide a service to British and overseas shipping companies and oil reservoir simulation software to help in the development of the UK's North Sea oil interests.
"Winning More Oil: Increasing Importance for Enhanced Oil Recovery"
auth. Ray Dafter, pub. Financial Times Business Information Limited, 1981, p. 34 UKAEA was ordered to operate on a Trading Fund A trading fund is an executive agency, government department or often simply a part of a department, that enables the department to handle its own revenues and expenses separately from overall government finances and more like a business, as opposed ...
basis, i.e. to account for itself financially as though it was a private corporation, while remaining fully government owned. After several years of transition, UKAEA was divided in the early 1990s. UKAEA retained ownership of all land and infrastructure and of all nuclear facilities, and of businesses directly related to nuclear power. The remainder was privatised as AEA Technology
Ricardo-AEA Ltd, trading as Ricardo Energy & Environment, was formed on November 8, 2012, when Ricardo acquired the business, operating assets and employees engaged in the business of AEA Technology Plc (AEAT, in administration) (AEA Europe), fo ...
and floated on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
. Harwell Laboratory contained elements of both organisations, though the land and infrastructure was owned by UKAEA.
The name Atomic Energy Research Establishment was dropped at the same time, and the site became known as the ''Harwell International Business Centre''. The site incorporates the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the Atlas ...
which is home to the Science and Technology Facilities Council (including the ISIS neutron source
The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source is a pulsed neutron and muon source, established 1984 at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, Unite ...
and Diamond Light Source
Diamond Light Source (or Diamond) is the UK's national synchrotron light source science facility located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. Its purpose is to produce intense beams of light whose special characteristic ...
). In 2006, the name Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a 700-acre science and technology campus in Oxfordshire, England. Over 6,000 people work there in over 240 public and private sector organisations, working across sectors including Space, Clean Ener ...
was introduced and management of the campus was passed to a Public / Private 50:50 Joint Venture partnership to take forward the management and redevelopment of the campus which has been re-branded as Harwell Oxford. In February 2009, part of the campus, the remaining nuclear licensed site, passed to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and is being decommissioned by Research Sites Restoration Limited (RSRL, from 2015 part of Magnox Ltd), on their behalf.
See also
* Atomic Weapons Establishment
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research ...
* Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment
Dounreay (; gd, Dùnrath) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness in the Highland area of Scotland. It is on the A836 road west of Thurso.
The nuclear establishments were creat ...
* Harwell CADET
The Harwell CADET was the first fully transistorised computer in Europe, and may have been the first fully transistorised computer in the world.
The electronics division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, UK built the H ...
, an early transistorised computer
* Harwell Synchrocyclotron, an early accelerator based in AERE Hangar 7
* JET fusion reactor
* List of nuclear reactors
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
* WITCH (computer)
The Harwell computer, or Harwell Dekatron computer, later known as the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell (WITCH), is an early British computer of the 1950s based on valves and relays. From 2009 to 2012, it was restore ...
, an early Dekatron
In electronics, a Dekatron (or Decatron, or generically three-phase gas counting tube or glow-transfer counting tube or cold cathode tube) is a gas-filled decade counting tube. Dekatrons were used in computers, calculators, and other counti ...
-based computer constructed at Harwell and donated to computer science in the late 1950s
References
External links
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus website
Information about the RSRL site, present day
Speech by Sir John Cockcroft
Nuclear Development in the UK
* Nuclear Power in the UK
Fusion experiments from the British Science Museum
{{Authority control
1946 establishments in the United Kingdom
Buildings and structures in Oxfordshire
History of Berkshire
History of Oxfordshire
Organisations based in Oxfordshire
Nuclear research institutes in the United Kingdom
Nuclear weapons infrastructure of the United Kingdom
Research institutes in Oxfordshire
Scientific organizations established in 1946
Vale of White Horse