Makinson, Richard Elliss Bodenham

 

Makinson, Richard Elliss Bodenham

Given NameRichard Elliss BodenhamLast NameMakinsonDate of Birth05/05/1913Date of Death15/01/1979Biography

Makinson and his parents were born in NSW, Makinson in the Sydney suburb of Burwood, his father in Brewarrina and his mother in Windsor. REB Makinson studied at the Sydney Church of England Grammar School, the University of Sydney, from which he graduated in 1935 with University Medals in both physics and mathematics, as well as the John Coutts Scholarship and the Barker Travelling Scholarship, and the University of Cambridge. He was awarded a Strathcona Research Studentship by St John's College in Cambridge; there, he met his wife Rachel, also a physicist.

AH Wilson, Makinson's supervisor at Cambridge, expressed the view that Makinson's research for which he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1939 was "an outstanding contribution" to theoretical physics. In the same year, Makinson became an Associate of the Institute of Physics; he was awarded a Fellowship of the Institute in 1949.

The University of Sydney appointed Makinson to an assistant lectureship in 1939; he was re-appointed for one year in 1940. In 1946, Makinson applied, unsuccessfully, for the Chair of Physics. He was subsequently promoted to a senior lectureship and later to a readership which he resigned in 1968 to accept an appointment as Associate Professor in Physics at Macquarie University.

During World War II, Makinson carried out teaching and developmental research in radiophysics. He collaborated with the CSIR Radiophysics Laboratory and the Australian Government Ministry of Supply; for the latter, he developed methods for the separation of metal from reclaim rubber. A list of his reports is in draft curricula vitae in series 7 of this collection. He participated in courses, on microwave radar, given to service personnel in the CSIR Radiophysics Laboratory in 1942-43 and a Radio Training Course to service personnel given in the School of Physics from 1941 to 1944.

His field of research was described in "The Australian Physicist" in its obituary to Makinson as "mainly in the fields of plasma and solid and liquid state physics". Makinson's research was both theoretical and applied. In 1936, he patented the "Means for the Production of Frequency-Modulated Electrical Oscillations". After the war, he directed the University's nuclear physics program. In 1962, he spent his sabbatical leave at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge with 3 weeks at the Semiconductor Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad. In the 1970s, at Macquarie University, he developed an electronic calculator suited to the needs of blind people.

With an interest in science that extended well beyond the laboratory, Makinson was a member of the University Faculty of Science's History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) Committee which inaugurated lectures in HPS in 1954. He was a member of the Australian Association of Scientific Workers and the Communist Party of Australia. In 1952, in the Australian Government House of Representatives, it was alleged, without supporting evidence, that Makinson was guilty of treason.

Sources for this administrative history other than this group of archives are:

Archives G3/158 (University personnel file for Makinson);
G47 (Physics School file on Makinson),
G3/13/794 (History and Philosophy of Science lectures);
Senate Minutes 2 December 1946;
Obituary in The Australian Physicist June 1979, page 81;
Commonwealth of Australia, House of Representatives Hansard no 11(1952) pages 1619-1622;