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Atomic Energy Research Establishment
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), also known as Harwell Laboratory, was the main centre for atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Government.
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 and Calder Hall 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. Since 2006 it has been known as the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus.
In 1945 John Cockcroft was asked to set up a research laboratory to further the use of nuclear fission for both military 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 laboratory. This more or less limited the choice to the areas around Oxford or Cambridge. 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 facility (the Cavendish Laboratory), the RAF did not want to abandon any of its eastern airfields because of its potential involvement in the Cold War, therefore Harwell was chosen when the RAF made the airfield available. RAF Harwell was sixteen miles south of Oxford near Didcot and Harwell (at this time in Berkshire), and on 1 January 1946 the Atomic Energy Research Establishment was formed, coming under the Ministry of Supply. The scientists mostly took over both accommodations and work buildings from the departing RAF.
The early laboratory had several specialist divisions: Chemistry (initially headed by Egon Bretscher, 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 and Walter Marshall), Isotopes (Henry Seligmann), Engineering (Harold Tongue, later Robert Jackson), Chemical Engineering (A.S. White), and Metallurgy (Bruce Chalmers, later Monty Finniston, FRS). Finniston was later to become chairman of the British Steel Corporation. Directors after Cockcroft included Basil Schonland, Sir Arthur Vick and Walter Marshall.
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) 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.[citation needed]
The remote nature of the Harwell site required AERE workers to be transported by shuttle bus. By 1956, nine contractors to AERE operated a total of 47 mostly second-hand buses and coaches on 41 staff shuttle services, which operated 24 hours a day to shuttle workers as far as Oxford, Newbury, Reading and Swindon to the Harwell site. These buses were initially painted in utilitarian Ministry of Supply grey livery, however by the mid-1950s, the AERE fleet began adopting an azure blue and grey livery with 'AERE' signwriting.
Such was the interest in nuclear power and the priority devoted to it in those days that the first reactor, GLEEP, was operating by 15 August 1947. GLEEP (Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) was a low-power (3 kilowatt) graphite-moderated air-cooled reactor. The first reactor in Western Europe, it operated until 1990.
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Atomic Energy Research Establishment
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), also known as Harwell Laboratory, was the main centre for atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Government.
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 and Calder Hall 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. Since 2006 it has been known as the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus.
In 1945 John Cockcroft was asked to set up a research laboratory to further the use of nuclear fission for both military 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 laboratory. This more or less limited the choice to the areas around Oxford or Cambridge. 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 facility (the Cavendish Laboratory), the RAF did not want to abandon any of its eastern airfields because of its potential involvement in the Cold War, therefore Harwell was chosen when the RAF made the airfield available. RAF Harwell was sixteen miles south of Oxford near Didcot and Harwell (at this time in Berkshire), and on 1 January 1946 the Atomic Energy Research Establishment was formed, coming under the Ministry of Supply. The scientists mostly took over both accommodations and work buildings from the departing RAF.
The early laboratory had several specialist divisions: Chemistry (initially headed by Egon Bretscher, 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 and Walter Marshall), Isotopes (Henry Seligmann), Engineering (Harold Tongue, later Robert Jackson), Chemical Engineering (A.S. White), and Metallurgy (Bruce Chalmers, later Monty Finniston, FRS). Finniston was later to become chairman of the British Steel Corporation. Directors after Cockcroft included Basil Schonland, Sir Arthur Vick and Walter Marshall.
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) 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.[citation needed]
The remote nature of the Harwell site required AERE workers to be transported by shuttle bus. By 1956, nine contractors to AERE operated a total of 47 mostly second-hand buses and coaches on 41 staff shuttle services, which operated 24 hours a day to shuttle workers as far as Oxford, Newbury, Reading and Swindon to the Harwell site. These buses were initially painted in utilitarian Ministry of Supply grey livery, however by the mid-1950s, the AERE fleet began adopting an azure blue and grey livery with 'AERE' signwriting.
Such was the interest in nuclear power and the priority devoted to it in those days that the first reactor, GLEEP, was operating by 15 August 1947. GLEEP (Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) was a low-power (3 kilowatt) graphite-moderated air-cooled reactor. The first reactor in Western Europe, it operated until 1990.