In 1918, Arthur Dawson was appointed Director of Education for Country Durham. He had experience as a school headmaster, and in Durham he planned to enforce closer involvement between the county council and the Durham colleges, by this time there are eight.
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A portrait of Arthur Dawson
The Dawson building was the earliest permanent construction on the Science Site. Before that the site consisted of fields and some temporary huts for teaching space.
The Dawson Building when opened consisted initially of just one floor.
1923
In May of this year, the first foundation stone was laid for a new science building, named after Dawson. The ceremony was led by the Earl of Durham, chancellor of the University. This marked the opening of the Old Elvet Colliery Site Science School.
Subsequent floors were later added, along with other additions in the years 1930, 1939-1947, and 1962.
Dawson wrote that any new system of education should take advantage of the University's facilities. He wanted the Durham Colleges to include degrees and diplomas in science in their curriculums.
County officials were persuaded that pure science should come before Mining and Technology, as this would produce school teachers for the local community. In 1902, the Balfour Act had been passed, increasing the number of secondary schools in the country, so this was a growing necessity requiring more science graduates to act as teachers. Universities were beginning to fill up with prospective teachers by 1920.
Many were not content with the council's involvement, wanting more control in the hands of the colleges. Dean Welldon stated he wanted the University to be a place of learning rather than just a place to get a degree. In August 1921, he wrote 'It is quite impossible that the men who dominate the county council today should ever understand what learning is.'
To appease them, in 1922 a joint board was made, including both council members and college representatives. The council had power to develop the departments of science and education.
A science site was devised for the old colliery fields and the foundation stone for the new Dawson Building was placed in 1923.
The science school opened on South Road in October 1924 by Sir William Bragg. The Dawson building was a well-planned single story building, housing Botany, Chemistry, Geology, and Physics. The building houses two lecture halls, one small library and a handful of laboratories.
At this time Durham University still consisted of three parts: Durham colleges, College of Medicine, and Armstrong College, where all exams are held until 1963.
Fourteen students in total, spread across different colleges, were moved to the Dawson building. There were four subjects, and five new subject heads: Masson (Chemistry), Wagstaff (Physics), Holmes (Geology), Griffiths (Botany) and Macbeth (Chemistry).
Masson was made Head of Science, and remained in Durham for fourteen years. On his departure, the role was abandoned, since it was believed to hold too much preeminence over the other sciences.
To start, Wagstaff was the only professor in Physics, joined by one lecturer. His interest lay in the electrical double layer formed on mercury drops immersed in an electrolyte.
With science new to the colleges, they did not know how best to support the undergraduates, lacking libraries and resources. The department staff were overloaded and five of the first fourteen students failed their course.
J.A. Chalmers is appointed, working in atmospheric physics. The next year, W.A. Prowse was appointed, working in the electrical breakdown of gases at high frequencies. These appointments mark the beginning of the Physics Department. A visitor to Durham, named Dyson, endorsed Turner's plan to remove the Almucantar and replace it with a seismograph. He suggested that Durham Observatory was suited to easy repetitive work.
The Observatory's almucantar was shipped to the University Science Department in Newcastle. Eventually all components bar the object glass, were sent to scrap in order to aid the war effort.
Find out how the department continued to grow but the Observatory shrank
