Adelaide University celebrated its centenary in August 1974 during a spell of warm sunny weather which ensured that all the ceremonial and pageantry went off without a hitch. We met many old friends there, including, of course, the Vice-Chancellor, Geoffrey Badger, and his wife, and we were particularly pleased to meet again Sir Mark Oliphant who, aided by his wife, was doing an excellent job as Governor of South Australia and endearing himself to the ordinary people of the state by his friendliness and informality. I always find Adelaide with its wide streets and balconied houses a most attractive city. It has about it a rather quiet, genteel, air which is also noticeable in the Adelaide Club, of which I had the honour to be a member during my stay. The club preserves much of the old-fashioned courtesy and formality now fast disappearing from many of the London clubs on which the Australian clubs were clearly modelled. I have been a temporary member of several others - the Weld Club in Perth, the Union Club in Sydney and the Melbourne Club - and have found them also to be, if anything, more English than their London counterparts.
Lindeman Island, where we went with our friends Lloyd and Marion Rees after the Adelaide ceremonies, was, as on our earlier visits, a really magnificent place for a relaxed holiday in the sun. The beautiful beaches, the informality of the single hotel, and the eerie stillness of the bush in the centre of the island, broken only by the occasional screech of a currawong -all these were much as before. But there was, I thought, an ominous portent of things to come in the admittedly rough and ready nine-hole golf course, which had been carved out of the bush near the island's only landing strip. I fear that this may be the prelude to the kind of so-called development which has already converted a number of other islands between the Queensland coast and the Great Barrier Reef into raucous holiday resorts. I can only hope that I am wrong!
On our New Zealand visit we made an extensive tour of the South Island with Sir Malcolm Burns, chairman of the Nuffield New Zealand Committee, and his wife as our hosts and companions throughout. The weather was cold and not infrequently wet as we went around - Mount Cook, Queenstown, Te Anu, Arrowtown, Manipouri and Milford Sound - but it was all most enjoyable. I found the rain forest in the far south-west quite fascinating; in a land where the annual rainfall averages well over 300 inches, the forests are dominated by lichens of every colour. New Zealand is a country of great scenic beauty; it is a pity that its towns and cities are not equally inspiring.
Two years after I assumed the chairmanship of the Nuffield Foundation I was - much to my surprise - nominated for the Presidency of the Royal Society, which office I assumed on 1 December 1975. To be elected President of the Royal Society is the supreme accolade in British science and in my case it had an added sentimental value. My father-in-law, Sir Henry Dale, had been its President from 1940 to 1945 and did indeed formally admit me to the Fellowship in 1942; he, too, had been awarded a Nobel Prize and was a member both of the restricted German Order Pour le Merite and of the British Order of Merit. I had myself been made a member of Pour le Merite in 1965 and when, in 1977, I had the honour to be admitted to the Order of Merit it put my wife in a unique position!
8. The Royal Society
The Royal Society or - to give it its full title - the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is the oldest of the existing national scientific academies and it enjoys an immense prestige in the world of science. Its origins go back to about 1645 when a group of scholars made a habit of meeting together in London and, during the Protectorate, partly there and partly in Oxford, but it was formally founded in 1660 and received its first Royal Charter in 1662. Unlike many national academies it confines its activities to natural science, both pure and applied. One of its earliest secretaries, Robert Hooke, in 1663 laid down rules for the Royal Society as follows:
The business and design of the Royal Society is - To improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanick practises, Engynes and Inventions by Experiments - (not meddling with Divinity, Metaphysics, Moralls, Politicks, Grammar, Rhetorick, or Logick).
These rules are still followed, and define fairly accurately the scope of the Society's activities. Over the three centuries of its existence it has had frequent contacts with British governments, and has given advice and assistance in matters of policy - for example, in the setting up of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and (much more recently) of the National Physical Laboratory; but it has always kept clear of political involvement.
Like all human institutions, the Society has had its ups and downs. Periods in which it was vigorous and influential have alternated with others when it was relatively inactive and inward looking; it has, however, always been steadfast in its recognition and support of outstanding ability in science. When I became President, the Society was emerging from a rather difficult period. In the 1930s it had been on the whole quiescent, and, indeed, had something of the air of a scientific gentlemen's club; the war of 1939-45, however, saw it plunged into the problems of scientific policy as the allied governments sought (with success) to harness science to the war effort. By the end of the war, science and its potential stood high in political esteem, and the Royal Society was supremely well placed to fill the role of scientific adviser to government in developing the new post-war world. Unfortunately that chance was missed. Dale, who had been President during most of the war, went out of office in 1945 and was succeeded first by Sir Robert Robinson and then by Lord Adrian, neither of whom had any interest in political or governmental matters. Adrian's successor, Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, was again essentially a scholar and a scientist and occupied himself largely with the celebration of the Society's Tercentenary and with its foreign relations, while Sir Howard (later Lord) Florey in his turn was fully occupied with the problem of reorganising and rehousing the Society in new premises in Carlton House Terrace - a task which involved, among other things, much detailed negotiation and extensive fund-raising. When Patrick (later Lord) Blackett took over in 1965 he certainly moved to increase the Society's role in national and international affairs, but, by aligning himself and also endeavouring to align the Society with the political party then in power, he broke one of Hooke's rules and, in my view, damaged the Society in its external relations. Under my immediate predecessor, Sir Alan Hodgkin, repair of that damage and recovery was put in train, but still had some way to go. I decided that I should endeavour (1) to increase the influence of the Society in providing government with advice on scientific aspects of policy while remaining totally independent; (2) to increase to the maximum extent its support of research in the then current climate of financial restrictions by developing and extending its system of research professorships and fellowships; (3) to develop closer relations with applied science and engineering and (4) to strengthen its international relations. The degree to which these efforts were successful is for others to judge, but they are, in any case, too recent to permit a fair judgement.
One of the duties of the President of the Royal Society is to deliver each year an Anniversary Address to the Society at its annual meeting on St Andrew's Day. Although it had not been customary for Presidents to devote their Addresses to current problems, I decided that my Anniversary Addresses should be a vehicle for my views on matters of public concern. This I endeavoured to do, and in each of my five Addresses I dealt with matters related to science which were of current concern to the Society and to the public at large. Because of their importance as indicators of my views, and because quotations from them would hardly do justice to these views, I have included the essential parts of them as appendices.