LORD RUTHERFORD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 5 January 1931, Page 4

LORD RUTHERFORD

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES '" ’ . r-' SCHOOL DAYS AT HAVELOCK (By_ Telegraph—Special to “The Mail'') CHRISTCHURCH, 3rd January. * To-night’s “Star” has the following: “Biographical notes deeding with Lord Rutherford usually start with his entry into Nelson College, and forget to mention Havelock, a tiny township at the head of Pelorus Sound, where there are still a number of people who can boast of having attended the primary school with him. The same school building', though it has recently been slewed round to catch the sunshine, is still in use, and the frieze of lettered panels round the top of the walls commemorating the achievements of past pupils in the field of scholarship hears the name “Ernest Rutherford” many times. The Rutherford family who lived in Havelock for a number of 'years, were not in a position to help their brilliant son financially, and his school and college years were not the comfortable period of more fortunately situated youn's* people. The habit 'constantly indulged in by schoolboys of carving their names on the class room desks is never regarded with a tolerant eye by educational authorities, but time and" the prestige gained by the owner of the initials have certainly mitigated the crime in the case of Rutherford. A certain desk was once, and may be still is, proudly pointed out by pupils of Nelson College as the desk on which Rutherford had wrought the damage ‘that lie would never have dreamed of executing in the dining room table at home,’ as the authorities delight in saying, but dark rumour says the ‘E.R.’ graven deep on the desk's face, was placed there many years after Rutherford’s departure from the school by a plotting j'out.h. Who knows?”