Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett of Chelsea (18 November 1897 – 13 July 1974), was a British experimental physicist and life peer who received the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1925, he was the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another. He also made major contributions to the Allied war effort in World War II, advising on military strategy and developing operational research. In the war's aftermath, Blackett continued his scientific work, but also became outspoken on political matters. He advocated for restraints on the military use of atomic energy. He was a proponent for Third World development and for reducing the gap between rich and poor. In the 1950s and '60s, he was a key advisor to the Labour Party on science and technology policy. By the time of his death in 1974, Blackett had become controversial to the point that the Times obituary referred to him as the "Radical Nobel-Prize Winning Physicist."
Early life and education Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett was born on 18 November 1897 in Kensington, London, the son of Arthur Stuart Blackett, a stockbroker, and Caroline Maynard. His younger sister was Marion Milner, a noted psychoanalyst. His paternal grandfather, the Rev. Henry Blackett, brother of Australian architect Edmund Blacket, was for many years Vicar of Croydon. His maternal grandfather, Charles Maynard, was an officer in the Royal Artillery at the time of the Indian Mutiny. The Blackett family lived successively in Kensington, Kenley, Woking and Guildford, and Surrey, where he went to preparatory school. His main hobbies were model aeroplanes and crystal radio. When he interviewed for entrance to the Royal Naval College, Osborne, Isle of Wight, Charles Rolls had just completed his cross-channel flight the previous day and Patrick, who had tracked the flight on his crystal set, was able to expound lengthily on the subject. He was accepted and spent two years there before moving on to Dartmouth where he was "usually head of his class." In August 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, Blackett was assigned to active service as a midshipman. He was transferred to the Cape Verde Islands on HMS Carnarvon and was present at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. He was then transferred to HMS Barham and saw much action at the Battle of Jutland. While on the Barham, Blackett was co-inventor of a gunnery device on which the Admiralty took out a patent. In 1916, he applied to join the RNAS but his application was refused. In October of that year, he became a sub-lieutenant on HMS P17 on Dover patrol, and in July 1917 he was posted to HMS Sturgeon in the Harwich Force under Admiral Tyrwhitt. Blackett was concerned by the poor quality of British gunnery in the Harwich Force when compared with that of the enemy. In May 1918, he was promoted to lieutenant, but by then had decided to leave the Navy. He started to read science textbooks as he planned his post-war career. In January 1919, the Admiralty sent the officers whose training had been interrupted by the war to the University of Cambridge for a course of general duties. On his first night at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he met Kingsley Martin and Geoffrey Webb, later recalling that he had never before, in his naval training, heard intellectual conversation. Blackett was impressed by the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory, and left the Navy to study mathematics and physics at Cambridge.
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