Charles Glover Barkla (1877-1944)

Nobel Laureate Charles Glover Barkla was born in Widnes on 7 June 1877. He studied at the Liverpool Institute and then at University College, Liverpool, and then Trinity College and King's College, Cambridge. He was a student of physics, and as a research scholar he studied at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. In 1905, Barkla became a Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer in Physics, and then in 1909 he was appointed to the Chair of Physics at King's College, London. He held this post until 1913 when he became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University. For his outstanding contribution to physics and his work on the nature of X-radiation and its interaction with matter, Barkla was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1917. Barkla was very interested in music and was an able musician and singer. He died on 23 October 1944.