Scientists Remembered in the Barton Science Centre

Scientists Remembered in the Barton Science Centre

The original Tonbridge Science Centre was the first purpose-built school science building in the country. In an era when most schools thought science a suitable subject for those not gifted enough to study classics, Tonbridge was nothing short of revolutionary. The vision shown by the school and the governors paid off and Tonbridge has had a proud tradition of science at the highest level, ever since.

When looking back through our alumni, 1924-1954 would appear to mark a particularly ‘golden age’ for Tonbridge: thirty years in which four very significant scientists were educated here as boys; Norman Heatley OBE (PS 24-29), Sir Derek Barton (MH 32-35), Charles Geoffrey Garrett (JH 38-43) and Bill Hamilton (SH 49-54).

Their stories, covered over the next pages, have been a source of inspiration for the school in the development of the new Barton Science Centre. They, alongside many other notable scientists, have been remembered in the naming of laboratories and libraries in the new science centre. We hope their memories will inspire further golden ages to come, not just at Tonbridge but in schools across the region.

Norman Heatley OBE (PS 24-29)

Norman Heatley OBE (PS 1924-29)

Commemorated in the naming of the Heatley Library in Chemistry, in recognition of his vital role in the mass production of penicillin.

After Tonbridge, Norman went on to St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied Natural Sciences, graduating in 1933. His doctoral research in Cambridge led to a PhD in 1936, and he then moved to the University of Oxford, where he became a fellow of Lincoln College and joined a team working under Howard Florey that included Ernst Chain.

Alexander Fleming had first discovered penicillin by accident in 1928, but at that time believed it had little application. When Florey and his team recognised the potential of the discovery for combating bacterial infection, they faced the problem of how to manufacture penicillin in sufficient quantities to be of use. Heatley, although the junior member of the team, possessed a natural gift for ingenuity and invention. It was he who suggested transferring the active ingredient of penicillin back into water by changing its acidity, thus purifying the penicillin.

In order to conduct tests on human patients, even more of the drug had to be produced, and again it was Heatley who realised that the most effective vessel for this purpose was something like the porcelain bedpans in use at the Radcliffe Infirmary. These were in short supply because of the ongoing Second World War, so Heatley designed a modified version which was manufactured in the Potteries. With the help of these, the Oxford laboratory became the first penicillin factory, and subsequent tests on humans proved the efficacy of the new treatment. Even so, it was very difficult to produce enough for sustained treatment.

At the launch of the Barton Science Centre, Headmaster James Priory said:

“I was lucky enough to know Norman when I became a student at Lincoln College Oxford. I was an English student and so, our conversations were rather more literary, I think it’s fair to say. He was a very kind and entirely unassuming man, but also clearly deeply proud of his work and he was delighted to have the opportunity to share it. He invited me back to his house once for tea, to show me the original notebooks he’d used, in which he’d sketched his work with Howard Florey, built on Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, and developing ways in which to purify and mass produce it. There’s no doubt that Norman’s work saved countless lives of servicemen in the latter years of the Second World War and has gone on of course to save many millions of lives since. What I didn’t dare admit to Norman, was that I was actually allergic to penicillin. Despite that, he has been one of my quiet heroes ever since.”

Sir Derek Barton (MH 32-35)

Sir Derek Barton (MH 1932-35)

Commemorated in the naming of the Barton Science Centre, in recognition of his Nobel Prize for the development of the concept of conformation and its application in Chemistry.

Whilst Norman Heatley was developing ways to mass produce penicillin towards the end of the Second World War, Derek Barton was working in military intelligence. Later, he took a sabbatical in Harvard where he wrote a paper on conformational analysis, in which he shed light on the threedimensional geometric structure of complex molecules. It was for this ground-breaking insight that he became a Nobel Laureate in 1969.

Through his work on conformational analysis, Sir Derek Barton, as he later became known, was able to identify the geometry of various organic molecules; most famously, Cyclohexane. To celebrate this achievement, the school commissioned ‘Barton’s Chair’, a large-scale sculpture which now hangs in the central atrium of the new facility.

The sculpture, which is 8 billion times the life size of the Cyclohexane molecule, re-imagines its structure as a network of adult and child figures, evoking imagery of human connection and cooperation, and commemorating the words of eminent OT author, EM Forster; ‘Only Connect.’

Charles Geoffrey Garrett (JH 38-43)

Charles Geoffrey Garrett (JH 1938-43)

Commemorated in the naming of the the Garrett Laboratory in Physics, in recognition of his work as a laser and optical fibre pioneer.

Whilst Geoffrey was a boy in Judde House, Heatley’s work was just come to near-miraculous fruition. After studying Physics at Cambridge, Geoffrey moved to the United States where he joined the faculty at Harvard, later becoming director of AT&T Bell Laboratories. Geoffrey was a pioneer in optical electronics, and a passionate advocate of optical fibre cables as the way of the future. He extended laser techniques to develop far infrared, and even helped to develop the prototype computer microchip. He was also a polymath; a lover of music, history and languages, which reflects one of the key inspirations behind the design and development of the Barton Science Centre.

Bill Hamilton (SH 49-54)

Bill Hamilton (SH 1949-54)

Commemorated in the naming of the Hamilton Laboratory in Biology, in recognition of his role as one of the most important evolutionary theorists of the 20 th century.

Smythe House boy, Bill Hamilton, is internationally regarded as one of the great ecologists, and evolutionary biologists of his generation. His work is hugely influential in the work of scientists and writers such as Richard Dawkins.

In 1964, Hamilton accepted a teaching position at Imperial College, London, and published The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour, a paper that laid the foundation for population genetics studies of social behaviour. The key concept presented in this work was ‘inclusive fitness,’ a theory that later became known as ‘Hamilton’s Rule’. Through this, Hamilton proposed that an organism’s genetic success is derived from cooperation and altruistic behaviour, as well as the consequences of social interaction. He demonstrated mathematically that it was possible for altruism to evolve as a trait as long as the benefits of altruistic acts fell on individuals that were genetically related to the donor. In other words, it would be advantageous for an animal to give an alarm call, despite placing itself in danger, to warn a group of relatives, since its relatives also carry copies of its genes. Through his rule, Hamilton predicted the conditions by which one individual would likely behave altruistically toward another.

Over the course of his career, Hamilton addressed other important theoretical problems related to the choice of mate and sexual reproduction. He also pioneered the use of computers in biology and computer simulation as a method of research and proof.