SCHONLAND, BASIL FERDINAND JAMIESON

(b. Grahamstown, South Africa, 5 February 1896; d. Winchester, England, 24 November 1972)

atmospheric electricity, scientific administration.

Schonland’s father received the Ph.D. from the University of Kiel and was the first professor of botany at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. His mother was the daughter of a botanist. Schonland was the eldest of three sons. After graduating at Grahamstown, he failed to win a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, and thus, in 1915, went instead to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He interrupted his studies there to serve in World War I, working on signals. In 1919 he returned to Cambridge and after graduating in 1920, registered for the Ph. D. at the Cavendish Laboratory. At Cambridge he met Isabel Marion Craib, a fellow South African, whom he married when he returned to South Africa in 1923. They had a son and two daughters. In 1927–1928 he returned to Cambridge.

From 1922 to 1936 Schonland taught physics at the University of Cape Town and from 1937 to 1954 at the University at the University of Witwatersrand. He also served as deputy director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell (1954–1958) and from 1958 to 1960 was its director. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1938 and in 1960 was knighted.

At the Cavendish, Schonland studied cathode rays; but after returning to South Africa, he investigated thunderstorms. He designed apparatus to photograph lightning discharges and confirmed Charles Wilson’s theory that positive ions are carried to the top rather than to the bottom of the thundercloud. Schonland described this work in Atmospheric Electricity (1932): The Flight of Thunderbolts (1950), a popularized account; and in numerous papers.

In 1938 Cockcroft invited Schonland to join a group of scientists investigating radar. During World War II, he continued this work, ultimately becoming scientific adviser to General Montgomery. In 1945 Schonland returned to South Africa to direct the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; but after the 1948 elections he found South Africa less congenial. He resigned the post in 1950 and in 1954 returned to England.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Schonland’s writings include Atmospheric Electricity (London, 1932: 2nd ed., 1953); The Flight of Thunderbolts (Oxford, 1950: 2nd ed., 1964); and The Atomists, 1805–1933 (Oxford, 1968).

On Schonland and his work, see T. E. Allibone, “Sir Basil schonland,” in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 14 (1973), 629–653, with portrait and full bibliography.

David Knight