13 Nobel Laureates

From the Commission’s awards
1891 to date

In 1891 the 1851 Royal Commission awarded its first scholarships for “research in the experimental sciences bearing upon the industries”. Since that time the Commission’s scholarships and fellowships have had a considerable impact upon the world in which we live. The Commission counts 13 Nobel Laureates; seven holders of the Order of Merit; and four Presidents and over 150 fellows of the Royal Society amongst its alumni.

Nobel Laureates Ernest Rutherford

Peter Ware Higgs
Research Fellow 1953 – 1955
Nobel Prize in Physics 2013
For the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

Sydney Brenner
Overseas Scholar 1952 – 1954
Nobel Prize in Medicine 2002
For discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death

John Warcup Cornforth
Overseas Scholar 1939 – 42
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1975
For his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions

Aaron Klug
Overseas Scholar 1949 – 52
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982
For his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes

Alexander Robertus Todd
Research Fellow 1931 – 34
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1957
For his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes

John Douglas Cockcroft
Industrial Bursar 1920 – 22
Nobel Prize in Physics 1951
For his pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton
Overseas Scholar 1927 – 1930
Nobel Prize in Physics 1951
For his pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles

Robert Robinson
Research Scholar 1907 – 1909
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1947
For his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids

Walter Norman Haworth
Research Scholar 1909 – 1911
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1937
For his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C

James Chadwick
Research Scholar 1913 – 1919
Nobel Prize in Physics 1935
For the discovery of the neutron

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac
Research Fellow 1925 – 28
Nobel Prize in Physics 1933
For the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory

Ernest Rutherford
Research Scholar 1895 – 98
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908
For his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances

Charles Glover Barkla
Research Scholar 1899 – 1902
Nobel Prize in Physics 1917
For his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements