Cavendish Laboratory

Wikipedia contributors · CC BY-SA · EN · 04/10/2026

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 after the British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish. The laboratory has had a huge influence on research in the disciplines of physics and biology.

The laboratory moved to a new site in West Cambridge in 1974. In 2025 it moved again to the Ray Dolby Centre, still in West Cambridge.

, 30 Cavendish researchers have won Nobel Prizes. Notable discoveries to have occurred at the Cavendish Laboratory include the discovery of the electron, neutron, and structure of DNA.

Founding

The Cavendish Laboratory was initially located on the New Museums Site, Free School Lane, in the centre of Cambridge. It is named after British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish for contributions to science and his relative William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, who served as chancellor of the university and donated funds for the construction of the laboratory.

Professor James Clerk Maxwell, the developer of electromagnetic theory, was a founder of the laboratory and the first Cavendish Professor of Physics. The Duke of Devonshire had given to Maxwell, as head of the laboratory, the manuscripts of Henry Cavendish's unpublished Electrical Works. The editing and publishing of these was Maxwell's main scientific work while he was at the laboratory. Cavendish's work aroused Maxwell's intense admiration and he decided to call the Laboratory (formerly known as the Devonshire Laboratory) the Cavendish Laboratory and thus to commemorate both the Duke and Henry Cavendish.

Physics

Several important early physics discoveries were made here, including the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson, the Townsend discharge by John Sealy Townsend, and the development of the cloud chamber by C.T.R. Wilson.

Ernest Rutherford became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919. Under his leadership the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, and in the same year the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner was performed by students working under his direction: John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton.

Physical chemistry

Physical Chemistry (originally the department of Colloid Science led by Eric Rideal) had left the old Cavendish site, subsequently locating as the Department of Physical Chemistry (under RG Norrish) in the then new chemistry building with the Department of Chemistry (led by Lord Todd) in Lensfield Road: both chemistry departments merged in the 1980s.

Nuclear physics

In World War II the laboratory carried out research for the MAUD Committee, part of the British Tube Alloys project of research into the atomic bomb. Researchers included Nicholas Kemmer, Alan Nunn May, Anthony French, Samuel Curran and the French scientists including Lew Kowarski and Hans von Halban. Several transferred to Canada in 1943; the Montreal Laboratory and some later to the Chalk River Laboratories.

The production of plutonium and neptunium by bombarding uranium-238 with neutrons was predicted in 1940 by two teams working independently: Egon Bretscher and Norman Feather at the Cavendish and Edwin M. McMillan and Philip Abelson at Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Biology

The Cavendish Laboratory has had an important influence on biology, mainly through the application of X-ray crystallography to the study of structures of biological molecules. Francis Crick already worked in the Medical Research Council Unit, headed by Max Perutz and housed in the Cavendish Laboratory, when James Watson came from the United States and they made a breakthrough in discovering the structure of DNA. For their work while in the Cavendish Laboratory, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, together with Maurice Wilkins of King's College London, himself a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge.

The discovery was made on 28 February 1953; the first Watson/Crick paper appeared in Nature on 25 April 1953. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at Guy's Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life." The news reached readers of The New York Times the next day; Victor K. McElheny, in researching his biography, Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution, found a clipping of a six-paragraph New York Times article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline "Form of `Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned." The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. (The New York Times subsequently ran a longer article on 12 June 1953). The Cambridge University undergraduate newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay Conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the British press.

Sydney Brenner, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time they were working at the University of Oxford's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology. According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA. Orgel also later worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Present site

Owing to overcrowding in the old buildings, it moved to a new site in West Cambridge in the early 1970s. In 2025 it moved to a third site, the nearby Ray Dolby Centre.

Nobel laureates at the Cavendish

John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (Physics, 1904)

Sir J. J. Thomson (Physics, 1906)

Ernest Rutherford (Chemistry, 1908)

Sir William Lawrence Bragg (Physics, 1915)

Charles Glover Barkla (Physics, 1917)

Francis William Aston (Chemistry, 1922)

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (Physics, 1927)

Arthur Compton (Physics, 1927)

Sir Owen Willans Richardson (Physics, 1928)

Sir James Chadwick (Physics, 1935)

Sir George Paget Thomson (Physics, 1937)

Sir Edward Victor Appleton (Physics, 1947)

Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett (Physics, 1948)

Sir John Cockcroft (Physics, 1951)

Ernest Walton (Physics, 1951)

Francis Crick (Physiology or Medicine, 1962)

James Watson (Physiology or Medicine, 1962)

Max Perutz (Chemistry, 1962)

Sir John Kendrew (Chemistry, 1962)

Dorothy Hodgkin (Chemistry, 1964)

Brian Josephson (Physics, 1973)

Sir Martin Ryle (Physics, 1974)

Antony Hewish (Physics, 1974)

Sir Nevill Francis Mott (Physics, 1977)

Philip Warren Anderson (Physics, 1977)

Pyotr Kapitsa (Physics, 1978)

Allan McLeod Cormack (Physiology or Medicine, 1979)

Mohammad Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979)

Sir Aaron Klug (Chemistry, 1982)

Didier Queloz (Physics, 2019)

Cavendish Professors of Physics

The Cavendish Professors were the heads of the department until the tenure of Sir Brian Pippard, during which period the roles separated.

James Clerk Maxwell 1871–1879

John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh 1879–1884

Sir Joseph J. Thomson 1884–1919

Ernest Rutherford 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson 1919–1937

Sir William Lawrence Bragg 1938–1953

Sir Nevill Francis Mott 1954–1971

Sir Brian Pippard 1971–1984

Sir Sam Edwards 1984–1995

Sir Richard Friend 1995–2020

Nicola Marzari 2025-

Heads of department

Professor Sir Alan Cook 1979–1984

Professor Archie Howie 1989–1997

Professor Malcolm Longair† 1997–2005

Professor Peter Littlewood 2005–2011

Professor James Stirling† 2011–2013

Professor Michael Andrew Parker 2013–2023

Professor Mete Atatüre 2023 –

† Jacksonian Professors of Natural Philosophy

Cavendish Groups

Areas in which the Laboratory has been influential include:-

Shoenberg Laboratory for Quantum Matter, led by Gil Lonzarich

Superconductivity Josephson junction, led by Brian Pippard

Theory of Condensed Matter, which is the dominant theoretical group.

Electron Microscopy Group led by Archie Howie

Radio Astronomy (led by Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish), with the Cavendish Astrophysics Groups telescopes being based at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Semiconductor Physics

Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics (AMOP) Group led by Zoran Hadzibabic

Nanophotonics group led by Jeremy Baumberg

Structure and Dynamics Group, led by Jacqui Cole

Laboratory for Scientific Computing led by Nikos Nikiforakis

Biological and Soft Systems Group led by Pietro Cicuta

Cavendish staff

the laboratory is headed by Mete Atature. The Cavendish Professor of Physics is Sir Richard Friend.

Notable senior academic staff

senior academic staff (professors or readers) include:

Jeremy Baumberg, Professor of Nanoscience and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge

Jacqui Cole, Professor of Molecular Engineering

Athene Donald, Professor of Experimental Physics, Master of Churchill College, Cambridge

Sir Richard Friend, Cavendish Professor of Physics and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge

Stephen Gull, University Professor of Physics

Sir Michael Pepper, Honorary Professor of Pharmaceutical Science in the University of Otago, New Zealand

Didier Queloz, professor at the Battcock Centre for Experimental Astrophysics

James Floyd Scott, professor and director of research

Ben Simons, Herchel Smith Professor of Physics

Henning Sirringhaus, Hitachi Professor of Electron Device Physics and head of Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Group

Sarah Teichmann, principal research associate and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

Notable emeritus professors

The Cavendish is home to a number of emeritus scientists, pursuing their research interests in the laboratory after their formal retirement.

Mick Brown, emeritus professor

Volker Heine, emeritus professor

Brian Josephson, emeritus professor

Archibald Howie, emeritus professor

Malcolm Longair, Emeritus Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy

Gil Lonzarich, Emeritus Professor of Condensed Matter Physics and professorial fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge

Bryan Webber, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical High Energy Physics and professorial fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Other notable alumni

Besides the Nobel Laureates, the Cavendish alumni include:

Li Kwoh-ting

Louis Harold Gray

Richard Edwin Hills

Olga Kennard

Andrew D. Maynard at Arizona State University

Bernard Roberts

John Rodenburg

Henry Snaith

Evan James Williams

Richard Jones

Helen Czerski

Source and attribution

Adapted from “Cavendish Laboratory” by English Wikipedia contributors. Main paragraphs and sections are retained; tables, reference markers and technical markup are omitted. This is an encyclopedic adaptation, not a personal review. Original revision and contributor history ↗. Text is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗. Check current visitor access, tickets and transport with the relevant operator.