Roberta May Rutherford 1877 - 1941
Roberta May Rutherford , only dau. Is her brother Ernest Rutherford, the physicist? Ernest Rutherford was born at Spring Grove in rural Nelson on August 30th 1871, the second son and fourth child of twelve born to James and Martha Rutherford. Scottish James had arrived in New Zealand in 1843 as a four-year old. James became a wheelwright and engineer, and later a flax-miller. Martha Rutherford (nâee Thompson) was born in England and arrived in New Plymouth in 1855 as a thirteen-year old. She was evacuated to Nelson in 1860 during the Taranaki Land War. Had it not been for that war James and Martha would never have met. Martha became a teacher at the Spring Grove school where her efforts were always praised by the provincial school inspector. So Ernest Rutherford and his siblings received a good education because of parents who appreciated education: his father because he hadn't had much and his mother because she had. The Rutherfords' daughter Eileen had married Ralph Fowler, a mathematical physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory. They had four children; Peter who became a distinguished cosmic ray physicist, Elizabeth a doctor, Patrick an electrical engineer monitoring safety at nuclear power plants and Ruth a research physiologist. Sadly, Eileen died of an embolism at age 29, nine days after the birth of her fourth child and just two days before Christmas of 1930. Ernest Rutherford died aged 66 on the 19th of October 1937, the result of delays in operating on his partially stangulated umbilical hernia. His ashes were interred in London's Westminster Abbey, under an inscribed flagstone near the choir screen in the Nave. Lady Rutherford retired to Christchurch, New Zealand, where she died in 1954. Birth: 30 AUG 1871 Brightwater, Nelson, New Zealand Christening: Death: 19 OCT 1937 Burial: Parents: Father: JAMES RUTHERFORD Family Mother: MARTHA----------- Spouse: MARTHA THOMPSON Family Marriage: 28 APR 1865 Spring Grove, Nelson, New Zealand Her niece?? probably... GRO ref. Births Dec 1902 RUTHERFORD Roberta May W. Ham 4a 385
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Born: Durham, England, , 1877 | Baptised:
| Died: 1941 | Buried:
| Family: Rutherford |
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