George Rochester graduated with first-class honours in physics in 1930, under the guidance of W E Curtis.
14 Facts About George Rochester
1.
2.
George Rochester gained a postgraduate scholarship and joined Curtis's research group in 1931.
3.
Curtis suggested that George Rochester apply for a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship.
4.
George Rochester set sail in July 1935 from Liverpool to New York on the Samaria.
5.
George Rochester worked on halide spectra using excellent equipment, but saw work underway on the development of the cyclotron, and met many notable visitors including: Niels Bohr, J A Wheeler, R A Millikan, Arthur Compton and John Cockcroft.
6.
In 1937 George Rochester crossed the USA to New York, where he boarded the Queen Mary en route to Southampton, arriving on 14 June.
7.
George Rochester attended an interview and was appointed assistant lecturer at the Victoria University of Manchester under Lawrence Bragg, just before Bragg moved to the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington.
8.
The post of Langworthy Professor of Physics was next filled by Patrick Blackett, whose group George Rochester joined in 1938, this time to work on cosmic rays.
9.
George Rochester was University Fire Officer, work done mainly in the evenings and at weekends.
10.
Blackett moved from Manchester to Imperial College in 1953, leaving George Rochester as acting director of the Physical Laboratories, until he was offered the Chair in Physics at Durham.
11.
George Rochester was there from 1955 until the end of his career.
12.
George Rochester was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1958.
13.
George Rochester met his future wife, Idaline Bayliffe, when they were undergraduates at Durham through the Student Christian Movement, of which she was secretary.
14.
George Dixon Rochester died in Durham of heart failure on 26 December 2001.