Page 1

Schonland

Scientist and Soldier

Brian Austin

Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics

University of Liverpool, UK

Institute of Physics Publishing

Bristol and Philadelphia

CRC Press

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For Kath

CONTENTS

Foreword by Sir Maurice Wilkes FREng FRS

ix

Preface

xiii

1

EARLY YEARS

1

2

RHODES TO CAMBRIDGE

11

3

FOR KING AND COUNTRY

26

4

IN COMMAND

39

5

FROM THE CAVENDISH TO CAPE TOWN

53

6

AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHTNING

71

7

ENTER COCKCROFT

90

8

THE WINGS BEGIN TO SPREAD

110

9

TWO CHAIRS AND THE BPI

132

10

BERNARD PRICE’S INSTITUTE

151

11

THE SSS AT WAR

170

12

‘COULD I BE OF SERVICE?’

204

13

SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS

229

14

MONTGOMERY’S SCIENTIST

264

15

WHEN SMUTS CALLED

302

16

NATIONALISTS AND INTERNATIONALISTS

338

17

‘COME OVER TO MACEDONIA AND HELP US’

364

18

COCKCROFT’S MAN

380

19

SCIENTIA ET LABORE

395

20

‘COMETH THE HOUR’

431

vii

21

HARWELL

449

22

FISSION BUT NO FUSION

466

23

ZETA AND WINDSCALE

492

24

CAPTAIN AND NOT FIRST OFFICER

522

25

‘FOR THE FUTURE LIES WITH YOU’

549

NOTES AND SOURCES

580

INDEX

621

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

viii

FOREWORD

by Sir Maurice Wilkes FREng FRS

Basil Schonland, the subject of this biography by Dr Brian Austin, was a

distinguished South African who, during and after the Second World

War, occupied important positions both in South Africa and in the

United Kingdom. He was scientific adviser to Field Marshal Montgomery

during the invasion of Europe. He then returned to South Africa to

establish a modern scientific and industrial research organization in

that country. His final appointment was that of Director of the UK

Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell.

It was my great good fortune, during my wartime career, to serve

under Schonland for very nearly two years. My close association with

him began in August 1941 when he took charge of an Army operational

research group, based on Petersham in Surrey, in which I worked. It

was at once clear that he was just the sort of immediate chief that I

could most desire, and I came to admire him greatly. Like me, he was a

Cavendish man, although of an older generation. He had worked under

Rutherford, first as a research student and later as a visitor to the

Cavendish Laboratory, in the golden age of Cambridge physics. He was

one of an illustrious group that included Blackett, Cockcroft, Kapitza

and others. The close bond he formed at that time with Cockcroft, later

Sir John Cockcroft, had an important influence on his career and forms

one of the main themes of Dr Austin’s book.

When he returned to his native South Africa, Schonland found it

difficult to continue to work in atomic physics so far from the main

centres, and took up the study of thunderstorms and lightning, a field

for which South Africa provided exceptional opportunities. Before long,

he became a world authority in this subject and in 1938 he was elected

a Fellow of the Royal Society. South Africa was then rather isolated

scientifically, and Schonland told me that he saw it as his role to fly the

flag of high quality research.

When I first worked under him, Schonland was a Lieutenant

Colonel in the South African Army on loan to the British Army. He had

a natural military bearing and it was clear that he found the military

life congenial; his campaign medals from the First World War and a

ix

military OBE proclaimed him to be a seasoned soldier. He had intense

feelings of patriotism both for South Africa and, in the wider sense, for

the British Commonwealth. By the Statute of Westminster, South Africa

was, as he emphasized to me, an independent country, which happened

to have the same king as the United Kingdom.

In Petersham, Schonland found himself in a world that was new to

him, namely, that of the British Service ministries and their dependent

establishments, where soldiers and civil servants worked side by side.

As a newcomer, Schonland had to get up to speed. He was ready

to pick up information where he could, if necessary from his sub-

ordinates; for example, I remember explaining D.O. (demi-official) letters

to him.

We both lived in the Star and Garter Hotel in Richmond. Relations

when off duty tended to be relaxed in Army circles, and I got to know

him well. He could at times be almost boyish in his enthusiasm. He had

a particular liking for the plays of J M Barrie, which I shared, although

they were then unfashionable among superior people. He was never

unkind in his judgements of other people; however, he gave vent to a

certain mistrust of eminent scientists who made pronouncements on

subjects outside their scientific specialities. He used to call them ‘public

scientists’ and I detected a slightly malicious pleasure in the way he

said it.

When Schonland took over the Operational Research Group, we

were mostly concerned with radar in Anti-Aircraft Command. However,

the Army began to appreciate the potentialities of operational research in

various aspects of land warfare and it became Schonland’s task to develop

sections dealing with signals, tanks, field artillery, infantry weapons and

tactics, and so on. My own interests did not develop in any of these

directions and it was natural that, in the summer of 1943, I should leave

the Group to return to mainstream radar. Very soon, I received a posting

that took me right across ministerial boundaries, and I found myself at

TRE working for the RAF on airborne radar. I thus passed completely

out of Schonland’s orbit and only heard from time to time of his activities.

It was with the greatest interest, therefore, that I read Dr Austin’s account

of Schonland’s adventures in the challenging and somewhat improbable

role of Scientific Advisor to Field Marshal Montgomery at 21st Army

Group Main Headquarters.

During his later period at the Army Operational Research Group,

Schonland saw a great deal of General Smuts, who was then Prime

Minister of the Union of South Africa and often in England. Smuts’s

mind was turning to post-war reconstruction in South Africa, and it

was at his personal request that Schonland undertook to set up and

preside over a scientific and industrial research organization along the

lines of those to be found in other Dominions. Accordingly, he left 21st

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

x

Army Group at the end of October 1944 and, after a brief period in

London, went back to South Africa.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, as the organiza-

tion was called, was very successful, but as time went on political

developments occurred in South Africa that were far from being to the

liking of either Schonland or his wife. He began, therefore, to show

interest in approaches that were made to him from various parts of the

British scientific establishment. Eventually he accepted an invitation

from Sir John Cockcroft, then Director of the UK Atomic Energy Establish-

ment at Harwell, to become his deputy. Later he succeeded Cockcroft as

Director and remained in that position until his retirement.

Dr Austin captures well the character and personality of Schonland

as I knew him. As well as being a biography, the book will be of interest to

many readers for the contribution it makes to the historical record of

events, both scientific and military, in Britain and South Africa.

Maurice V Wilkes

Cambridge

December 2000

Foreword

xi

PREFACE

It was while I was on the staff of the Department of Electrical Engineering

at the University of the Witwatersrand (known by staff and students alike

as ‘Wits’) in Johannesburg during the 1980s that a remarkable piece of

local history fired my imagination. Though vaguely aware that some

most secret wartime work had been done at Wits it was only then that I

discovered that an elementary radar set, designed and built just a stone’s

throw from my office, had produced the first radar echo seen in South

Africa on 16 December 1939. The man behind that achievement, remark-

able considering the circumstances of the time and the very infancy of

radar itself, was Basil Schonland, Professor of Geophysics and Director

of the University’s Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research. Few

South Africans knew anything about that event and the remarkable

wartime developments that followed from it; others farther afield had

no knowledge at all that radar ever existed in the southern reaches of

Africa. In 1982, when the University celebrated its Diamond Jubilee, the

Department’s contribution to the occasion took the form of a series of

lectures on radar—one of which, the South African story, was given by

Professor Emeritus G R Bozzoli, a former Vice-Chancellor of the Univer-

sity and a significant figure in the development of radar in South Africa.

Subsequently, word of South Africa’s achievements in this field filtered

through to the wider world at an international conference on radar in

London in 1985 but was never published. In 1990, by which time I was

living in England, the opportunity presented itself to tell the story again

and this I did at a meeting in Oxford. But now the focus in my mind, at

least, was already beginning to shift from Schonland as the father of

South African radar to Schonland the man, but it was now apparent

that his name had faded almost completely from the collective memory

of his fellow countrymen. Elsewhere he was known to but a few. In

1995 I took the bold decision for an engineering academic to attempt to

write a biography of Basil Schonland and I approached his eldest daugh-

ter, Dr Mary Davidson, then living in the Schonland family home near

Winchester, for permission to do so. Mary graciously and bravely

agreed and the project was born, but very much as a part-time activity,

xiii

since my duties in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electro-

nics at the University of Liverpool took first call on my time. For the better

part of the next five years I led the life of a hermit at home and must

therefore thank my wife Kath for all her forbearance and understanding

while I attempted to learn the trades of historian and biographer.

No task of this magnitude can be undertaken without the consider-

able assistance of a vast number of people. One of the many pleasures that

the research and writing of the biography has brought me has been the

friendships that I have made with a large number of people, both in

South Africa and in England. Not only have I received considerable

help and encouragement from those who either knew Schonland,

worked with him or were just associated with him at various stages of

his multi-faceted career, but I found myself almost overwhelmed by the

kindness of those of another generation who were just so interested in

the project itself and did all they could to assist me. It is to all these indi-

viduals and in many cases to the organizations they represent that I owe

an enormous debt of gratitude. I shall attempt here to name them all;

should I omit anyone, that is a mark of my own fallibility and inadequate

record-keeping and I ask you to accept both my apologies for the omission

and my heartfelt thanks for your help.

First and foremost I must thank Mary and Freddie Davidson for

their hospitality at The Down House and for the remarkable collection

of Basil and Ismay Schonland’s letters and photographs which they

entrusted to me. In addition, Ismay’s recollections of Basil written in

the hand of the professional historian after his death are priceless. With-

out all of these the story would certainly have lacked a soul. Mary has also

been the recipient of numerous letters and phone-calls from me, often

involving convoluted queries about events of long ago, but she never

failed to dig deep into her memory to provide an answer. I also thank

Schonland’s grandson, Dr Robert Davidson, for sending me Basil

Schonland’s diary kept during his training at the Royal Engineers

Signal Depot in Bletchley in 1915, as well as his notebooks written on

the field of battle. They are a unique record. My interviews in Johannes-

burg with Ann Oosthuizen, Schonland’s younger daughter, and with

her daughter Susan in Cambridge revealed family insights and personal

recollections that were invaluable. These laid the bedrock on which to

build a story of quite considerable proportions.

To Professor T E Allibone must go a special mention for it was he

who wrote the Biographical Memoir of Schonland that appeared the

year after his death as part of that invaluable series commemorating the

Fellows of The Royal Society in London. Ted Allibone had been asso-

ciated with Schonland longer than any of his scientific colleagues and

so was able to write a most readable and comprehensive account of

Schonland’s life and achievements. It was the spur that got me going.

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

xiv

Our subsequent correspondence, especially about life at Cambridge and

the Cavendish, yielded fascinating cameos from an obviously happy

time. To Lorna Arnold I owe a special debt of gratitude. As an employee

of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency since 1959, and an histor-

ian of considerable note in all matters nuclear, her assistance and advice

on Harwell, its personalities and its history were simply beyond compar-

ison. Her own work on the accident at Windscale and her collaboration

with Professor Margaret Gowing in writing the definitive account of

atomic energy in Britain have been of inestimable value to me in under-

standing Schonland’s part in this massive enterprise. She kindly agreed

to read early drafts of the Harwell chapters and I acted immediately on

all her comments and suggestions. In addition, my ultimate access to

the Schonland files at Aldermaston and Harwell was due entirely to her

initiative in setting up the right contacts.

Sadly, the passage of time between commencing my research and

actually writing the biography has seen a number of my ever-willing col-

laborators pass away. None was more poignant to me than the death of

Professor G R Bozzoli, simply ‘Boz’ to every student and colleague

privileged enough to know him. A most eminent man himself with an

illustrious career in academic life, Boz played a key role in the wartime

radar story in South Africa because he was Schonland’s chief technical

officer responsible for the design of much of the radar equipment and

for the running of the Special Signals Services after Schonland left for

England in 1941. The interview I conducted with him at his home in

Johannesburg in 1997, and our subsequent correspondence until just

before his death the following year, were sources of invaluable informa-

tion and insight. My great regret is that he did not live to read the final

account. Others, too, who have since died were Professor R V Jones, Dr

J S Hey and Sir Arthur Vick. All had known Schonland in various

capacities and at different periods of his career and they responded

very willingly to my requests for information about the Bruneval Raid,

the jamming of British army radars, and Harwell, respectively.

The wealth of published material on the Second World War contains

little about the part played by Operational Research in the various

campaigns and engagements. I was, however, most fortunate to discover

that the reports produced by Schonland’s Army Operational Research

Group had been very carefully analysed and catalogued in recent years

and they were made available to me by Lt Col Richard Dixon RM of

the Centre for Defence Analysis, and by the Royal Military College of

Science. Most recently, Professor Terry Copp of the Laurier Centre for

Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies at the Wilfrid Laurier

University in Canada, has produced the definitive account of the part

played by Operational Research within 21 Army Group and he most

kindly provided me with much valuable correspondence between

Preface

xv

Schonland and his second-in-command at the AORG, Omond Solandt, a

Canadian, and I am indebted to him for allowing me to quote from it here.

Numerous former colleagues and associates of Schonland

responded to my requests for information and even anecdotes. My

thanks go to Dr J V Dunworth for his hospitality at his home on the Isle

of Man, and to R M Fishenden, Lord Flowers, R F Jackson, Dr G H Stafford

and Professor P C Thonemann for their recollections of Harwell under

Schonland. Professor Anton Hales in Australia wrote detailed letters of

events long ago at UCT and the BPI with an accuracy that was astound-

ing, while Dr Stanley Hey gave me his first-hand account of the discovery

of radio emissions from the sun while at the AORG in 1942, and

Schonland’s reaction to a discovery of huge significance as one of the fore-

runners of radio astronomy. His namesake, Professor J D Hey at the

University of Natal, provided me with a number of photographs of the

Boys camera, undoubtedly the most important scientific tool in Schon-

land’s career. Professor Frank Brooks, Dr John Juritz and Lesley Jennings

in the Department of Physics at UCT turned up fascinating historical

gems whilst I was there and continue to do so. The part played by Dr

Frank Hewitt, formerly of the SSS, the TRL and then finally Deputy

President of the CSIR in clarifying innumerable issues has been invalu-

able. His reading of my chapters on the SSS has ensured their accuracy

in any matters in which he was involved. Geoffrey Mangin, now custo-

dian of SSS affairs in South Africa, has been a regular source of valuable

information. Professor David Hill, Schonland’s Staff Officer in 21 Army

Group, was very helpful in recalling events from that period in both his

correspondence and at his home near Ripon. My search for information

in relation to Schonland’s Great War service led me to Sir John Keegan,

Brigadier Richard Holmes and Mrs Ann Clayton. Sir Bernard Lovell

has been especially helpful in a host of areas, particularly in relation to

Schonland’s part in the planning of the Bruneval Raid and his work on

‘the penetrating radiation’. He put me in touch with Don Preist in the

United States whose recollections of that famous raid in 1942 were

remarkable. Sir Arnold Wolfendale, the former Astronomer Royal, at

Lovell’s request provided useful comments on cosmic rays; as did Sir

John Mason, whose subsequent research on the charging process within

thunderclouds was stimulated by Schonland’s work before the war.

Dr R S Pease provided me with much detail about the fusion

research at Harwell and assisted in my understanding of the underlying

issues that so plagued both the ZETA and ICSE programmes. Dr J E

Johnston, also from Harwell, saw the interplay between Schonland and

Cockcroft and also introduced me to Mr Nick Hance to whom I am greatly

indebted for all his help in tracing photographs from the Harwell period.

Dr David Proctor, formerly of the NITR in Johannesburg, helped me place

Schonland’s work on lightning in perspective, while the events leading to

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

xvi

the founding of the CSIR and subsequent developments there were

described to me by Dr Bill Rapson in Johannesburg in 1997. Dr John

Stewart of the Chamber of Mines has also been most helpful in tracing

the Schonland report on research in the mining industry in South

Africa. I owe a special debt of gratitude to three Professors Emeriti at

the University of the Witwatersrand: Frank Nabarro, Friedel Sellschop

and Phillip Tobias. Frank and his late wife Margaret were most patient

when I interviewed them at length about their association with Schonland

in the AORG and about numerous subsequent events. Frank also read

and commented on the complete manuscript. The saga of attracting

Sellschop to Wits and his own recollections of those and subsequent activ-

ities flesh out the story as told by Schonland’s correspondence with

Nabarro. Phillip Tobias put into perspective the discoveries of Robert

Broom and particularly the antagonistic views held by Solly Zuckerman

in relation to South African palaeontology and South Africa in general.

No research of this nature would be possible without the massive

assistance of numerous librarians and archivists. I have been exception-

ally well-served by Di Arnott and Zofia Sulej at the University of the

Witwatersrand, Nicolene Basson and Janie van Zyl at the CSIR, Ellie

Clewlow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Joanna Corden at

The Royal Society, John Drew and Lesley Hart at UCT, Valerie Phillips

of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, Kate Pyne at AWE

Aldermaston, Lynne Seddon at the Royal Military College of Science,

Godfrey Waller at Cambridge, Christina Tyree at the British Association

for the Advancement of Science and her counterpart in South Africa,

Shirley Korsman. In addition, the staff of the Public Record Office in

Kew, the Churchill Archive, Cambridge, the Imperial War Museum,

London, the National Archive of South Africa and the South African

Museum of Military History have been most helpful in responding to

my numerous requests for obscure information. My special thanks

though must go to Sandy Rowoldt, the Cory Librarian at Rhodes Univer-

sity, Grahamstown for her wonderful support that went well beyond the

call of duty. The Cory collection of Schonland’s letters to his brother Felix

were a veritable gold mine of priceless information. For permission to

open some that Felix had sealed not quite in perpetuity I must personally

thank the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes, Dr David Woods. I must also thank

three professional historians: Philip Bell, formerly at Liverpool, Deon

Fourie at Unisa and Bruce Murray at Wits whose capacity to encourage

a novice knew no bounds. My thanks go as well to Antony Clark, Head-

master of St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown, for introducing me to

Doug and Lettie Rivett and for allowing me access to the College archives.

Jim Revill, Senior Academic Publisher at the Institute of Physics, has been

remarkably patient and most helpful throughout the gestation period of

this work.

Preface

xvii

The sabbatical leave that I was able to spend in South Africa early in

1997 in order to carry out the research for this biography was made

possible by the good offices of the University of Liverpool. In particular

I wish to thank Professor David Parsons, my Head of Department at

the time, for supporting me in this venture and for recognizing the

value of such research. Professor Charles Landy, Head of the Department

of Electrical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, pro-

vided me with an office in his department and supported my wife and

me in so many ways while we were in Johannesburg. His friendship is

valued enormously. Generous financial support made it all possible

and for this I must thank Dr Geoff Garrett, President of the CSIR, the

South African Foundation for Research Development, the Ernest Oppen-

heimer Trust and the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers.

Kind permission to reproduce material has been obtained from Dr

Mary Davidson, the Office of the Prime Minister, The British Library,

The Royal Society, the publishers of Nature, the Royal Commission

for the Exhibition of 1851, the UKAEA, the Imperial War Museum,

Churchill Archives Centre, the National Archives of South Africa,

Oxford University Press, the Universities of Cambridge, Cape Town,

and of the Witwatersrand, Rhodes University, and the South African

National Defence Force.

Every effort has been made to trace the relevant copyright holders of

material used in the biography. Any omissions or lack of appropriate

acknowledgement are an unfortunate oversight on the part of the

author and are sincerely regretted.

One man whose wise counsel, encyclopaedic knowledge and tactful

criticism have been of inestimable value to me throughout my research

and writing of this Schonland biography has been Sir Maurice Wilkes

FREng FRS. Our discussions in the most wonderful of settings in Cam-

bridge and in London were both memorable and fascinating. They, and

our frequent electronic correspondence, touched on far more than just

the period when he served under Schonland at Petersham. I owe what-

ever understanding I have of the structures and personalities of the British

scientific establishment of the time entirely to his deep and perceptive

grasp of all the issues and, indeed, of the machinations that in some

cases lay behind them. I am therefore most appreciative of his kindness

and willingness to assist me in writing the biography of the man for

whom I know he had the very highest regard. By agreeing to write the

foreword to this biography of Sir Basil Schonland CBE FRS he has done

me the ultimate honour.

B A Austin

West Kirby

January 2001

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

xviii

CHAPTER 1

EARLY YEARS

In many ways the future of modern South Africa was determined by

events in 1896, the year that Basil Schönland was born. The two British

colonies, the Cape and Natal, were part of the Victorian empire, secure

yet undistinguished. The Boer republics of the Orange Free State and

the Transvaal—the homes to a people who had trekked away from the

colonial yoke—were about to be dragged back by events which were

driven by the discovery of gold just ten years before.

Basil Schönland was born in the Eastern Cape on 5 February 1896 in

the town of Grahamstown that lay on the frontier of what, to some, was

still darkest Africa and another people: black people whose ancestors

had moved south and had encountered the first white men to inhabit

this southern tip of Africa just a few generations before. The Eastern

Cape was settler country, populated by hardy folk, predominantly from

England, who had arrived in 1820, ostensibly to a new Eden but in reality

to a rather inhospitable place with restless neighbours. Such, though, was

their dogged determination that Grahamstown and the surrounding

territory soon flourished. What began as a military encampment rapidly

became a town well-served by both churches and schools modelled on

the public schools of England. Amongst them was St Andrew’s College,

founded in 1855 and staffed mainly by men of the cloth whose purpose

was undeniably to educate the sons of gentlemen.

But there were other settlers too. Selmar Schönland and his brother

Max arrived in the Eastern Cape in 1889. They were German Jews: Selmar,

a scientist; Max, the trader. Selmar Schö nland was born in Frankenhausen

in 1860 and studied botany at the universities of Berlin and Kiel where he

obtained a doctorate. He then moved to England and to Oxford where,

over a period of four years, he did excellent work and had conferred on

him the degree of Master of Arts. However, problems with his eyesight

made laboratory work difficult and it was suggested that he should go

to the colonies and concentrate on fieldwork [1]. He and his brother,

attracted by the commercial prospects that had been bolstered by the

recent discovery of diamonds at Kimberley in 1870, set sail together.

Selmar soon found himself a position as an assistant to Peter MacOwan,

1

rector and head of Natural Sciences at Gill College in Somerset East, a

small town some 100km north-west of Grahamstown. MacOwan, said

to be a ‘peppery old Irishman’, though born in Yorkshire, was a man of

sturdy Church of England stock and was the pre-eminent botanist in

the country, who was soon to become the President of the South African

Philosophical Society, the forerunner of the Royal Society of South

Africa [2].

MacOwan had a daughter, Flora, who was blessed or possibly cursed

with her father’s temperament. Her fiery personality and fine features

offset her lack of height, for though under five feet tall she was a formid-

able person with a temper to match. She and Selmar were married and

soon after left Somerset East for Grahamstown, where he had been

appointed curator of the Albany Museum, the second oldest in the country

with a fine collection of botanical, palaeontological and geological speci-

mens dating from the early years of the century. There, Selmar pursued

his botanical research with enthusiasm and began a collection of dried

plants which, over a period of forty years, was to increase to 100 000 speci-

mens. However, there was more to the man than the mere collector, for he

was a scientist at heart and he sorely missed the worlds of Oxford and Kiel

and their communities of scholars. Grahamstown must have its own seat

of learning—a university—and he devoted himself to the task of establish-

ing one in his adopted home. What is now Rhodes University owes its very

existence to this gentle, sharp-eyed botanist, Selmar Schönland [3].

1896 was a climactic year in South Africa’s history. It was the year of

the fiasco of the Jameson Raid. This ill-timed and equally ill-thought-out

venture was the springboard from which the Boer War was to be

launched some three years later. Dr Leander Starr Jameson was the con-

fidant and close colleague of Cecil Rhodes, then Prime Minister of the

Cape Colony. In every way Jameson was Rhodes’s right-hand man [4].

Frustrated by the duplicity of President Kruger of the Transvaal Republic,

and urged on by champions of Empire, Jameson led a body of irregular

horse across the border from Pitsani in British-controlled Bechuanaland

with a view to ousting the old Boer and claiming the place for his

Queen. But calamity soon struck. On 2 January 1896, Jameson’s raiders

were surprised, surrounded and out-gunned. After a brief skirmish

they surrendered to the Boers when almost on the outskirts of Johannes-

burg, the seat of Uitlander (lit. ‘Outlander’) power in the Transvaal and

Jameson’s ultimate destination. Of the six hundred men who had

ridden with him from their camp near Mafeking, 65 were dead or

wounded and Jameson himself was led away, in tears, to Pretoria and

jail. The plan, such as it was, was intended to foment a revolution in

Johannesburg, to be supported by the Uitlanders, that would unseat

Paul Kruger and take over the Transvaal for the British Empire. It failed

and Rhodes resigned as Prime Minister of the Cape [5].

2

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

War was now on the horizon, but in Grahamstown, almost a thou-

sand kilometres away, life continued with an air of what one rather

acerbic commentator of the time described as ‘old world ecclesiasticism’,

and into that world Basil Schönland was born.

*

*

*

He was an extremely tiny baby, so tiny, almost bird-like, in fact, that his

first cot was a shoe box and he was fed with a pipette from a fountain pen

[6]. Such an unusual method of infusion seemingly had no ill effects

because Basil soon grew into an active, alert little boy with qualities of

independence and inventiveness much in evidence. The Schönlands

first lived in a house in Francis Street but soon moved to ‘Bellevue’ in

Oatlands Road. Two brothers followed. Felix was born in 1899 and

Richard, to be known as Dickey and later Dick, six years later. Basil and

Felix, naturally closer, shared similar interests, with Basil clearly the

leader and much admired by his younger brother. Walking in the hills

surrounding Grahamstown was a regular weekend pastime, usually

with groups of friends, but frequently the elder Schönland would go off

alone to enjoy the challenge and the isolation of the veld. At Howieson’s

Poort, a favourite picnic spot, he kept in a cave on the hillside a cache of

tinned sardines, coffee, sugar and condensed milk; his ‘secret store’, he

called it [7]. As well as an air of independence, soon to emerge were an

artistic flair and a hint of organizational ability, for Basil became the orga-

nizer of regular circus performances staged in the stable and coach house

of the Schönland home. The price of admission was a button, but as the

frequency of these events increased the mothers of the audience soon

complained to Mrs Schönland that their children’s clothing was rapidly

falling into a state of some disrepair. Some other currency or at least a

diversionary activity was required.

Basil Schönland’s first formal exposure to the educational process

began at the Victoria Infants school and continued, at the age of six,

when he was enrolled at St Andrew’s Preparatory School. He was imme-

diately seen to be a good scholar. His school report for that year had him

in fourth place in the form but first in Arithmetic and History and second

in both English and Scripture. The teacher’s comments alongside these

marks were ‘good’ throughout, with English earning extra praise, being

both ‘very good and improving fast’. However, one detects signs of

an intellect not fully stimulated by the curriculum on offer because his

conduct was described as ‘Good, but rather too fidgetty [sic] & talkative’

[8].

St Andrew’s was renowned for the quality of its stage productions

and they were much appreciated, since the performance of original

plays in Grahamstown was something of a novelty according to Grocott’s

Daily Mail, the local newspaper. It described Miss Mullins’s production in

3

Early Years

June 1903 of the Shaming of the Two in the typically expansive prose of the

day by suggesting that if she ‘continues to provide such capital fun from

her pupils’ acting, in future a larger hall must be procured.’ Basil Schön-

land’s role in this epic, which involved ‘such exciting material’ as robbers,

dwarfs, a cave, magic, a prince and much other royalty to boot, was that of

a Page. His friend Rupert White-Cooper, who would emerge again in

other rather different roles in later years, played the not-unusual part,

in an all-boys school, of a princess. At the conclusion of the entertainment,

the ‘table containing the prizes was put ready’ for distribution to the

worthy winners by the Bishop of Grahamstown who was accompanied

by the Rev Dr McGowan, the Principal of ‘the College’—St Andrew’s

itself. That year Basil Schönland won the prize for Arithmetic.

By the following year Basil had himself been elevated to playing the

part of a lady. In this case it was Lady Olga in the school’s production of

The borrowed clothes of Princess Rose, again written and produced by the

redoubtable Mullins sisters. Rupert White-Cooper now found himself

cast as a shepherdess. Again, the report in the local newspaper was

effusive in its praise and, once again, the worthy bishop, shadowed by

4

Figure 1. Basil Schö nland in Grahamstown at the age of eight in 1904. (Reproduced by kind

permission of Dr Mary Davidson.)

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

the headmaster of the College, handed out the prizes. Schönland won

those for Scripture and Latin, while emerging was evidence that he was

also something of an all-rounder. His lack of physical size was naturally

a handicap on the sports field but he more than made up for it by a steely

determination that saw him coming in third over 56 yards, a distance no

doubt thought appropriate for boys of his age [9].

While Basil was so engaged, Dr Selmar Schönland, in his quiet

though very determined way, was applying himself to the task of raising

the money for the building of a university in Grahamstown. He turned,

remarkable as it may have seemed to some, to the man who until recently

had been languishing in jail in England for his misguided adventure up in

the Transvaal seven years before. Now, Dr Jameson, having been released

early from prison for health reasons, was back in South Africa and very

much back in politics.

Cecil Rhodes, though, was dead. The events of the closing years of

the century had finally taken a heavy toll on a man who, forty years

before, was thought to be unfit for the rigours of the English climate.

The African sun was recommended and so the young Rhodes arrived in

the country where he was to leave an indelible mark. However, in

death, just as during all those years when he dominated both the political

and financial worlds in Cape Town and Kimberley, he left another legacy

which, to this day, bears his name: the Rhodes Trust and the scholarships

to Oxford it has provided to the scholars of selected nations around the

world. Jameson was now a Rhodes Trustee and also the recently elected

Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, but of much more importance to the

canny Selmar Schönland was the fact that Jameson’s parliamentary seat

was in Grahamstown. Schönland therefore approached his MP for a sub-

stantial grant from the Rhodes Trustees for the building of a university to

serve his constituents and Jameson readily agreed. Thus, £50 000 would be

made available and Selmar Schö nland had his university, at least on paper.

However, the word of politicians is so often tempered by factors beyond

the grasp of mere mammon and, almost inevitably, the promised grant

was not forthcoming. Evidently, Jameson had taken his magnanimous

decision without consulting his fellow trustees, his continued support

by the good citizens of Grahamstown being the more pressing need at

that time. However, he soon found himself under severe restraining

pressure from a member of his own Cabinet, the redoubtable and parsimo-

nious Sir Lewis Michell, who had been banker to Cecil Rhodes and was

himself a Rhodes Trustee. Progress immediately stalled but Selmar

Schönland was not to be thwarted and travelled to Cape Town to see

Michell himself. There he patiently explained, for one and a half hours,

just why the money was needed. Whether it was through sheer exhaustion

or the force of argument from this dogged German botanist is not

recorded, but Sir Lewis capitulated and Grahamstown was to get its

5

Early Years

money and thus its university, soon to be known as Rhodes University

College [10].

*

*

*

Basil Schönland entered St Andrew’s College in 1907 having been

awarded, at the age of ten, the first prize in the Junior Division, an exam-

ination taken by pupils throughout the Cape, most of whom were some

years his senior. His talents apparently knew few bounds and even

extended to poetry. Though Kipling’s verse and the embers of Empire

may have been fading elsewhere, they still smouldered in Grahamstown

and certainly at St Andrew’s. On 9 March 1906, a memorial to the British

soldiers who had fallen during the Boer War was unveiled in the city and

this colourful event prompted Basil Schönland to write, with much gusto,

five verses of his own [11].

Blow sweet and cool O winds today

O southern Sunshine bright

For we are gathered here to pay

A last and solemn rite

We see the boyish figure

We hear the pleasant laugh

Gaily in manhood’s vigor [sic]

Stepping out on glory’s path

They fought for king and native land

Our dearest and our best

But God put forth his mighty hand

And took them to their rest

The last post sounds in every ear

The list of names is read

The volleys three each one does hear

In honour of the dead

O bright and burnished statue

Stand out against the sky

Telling to all who see you

How brave men went to die

Schönland’s arrival at College was somewhat daunting, as well it

might have been for a boy so much younger than his peers. He entered

form III in 1907 with the school number of 2163. One must presume

that his skipping of forms I and II, though nowhere recorded, was due

to his academic precociousness displayed while at the ‘Prep’. In a letter

written some years later to his brother Felix he admitted that he ‘was

horribly frightened at first’ [12], but with the grit that was always a feature

6

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

of his character, as man and boy, he soon made his mark. The College

Magazine recorded in its December 1907 issue that Basil Schönland, at

the recent Cape Town eisteddfod, had been awarded first prize for

letter-writing. ‘As he is only 11 years old this result is highly creditable’,

it said. His name was to appear again amongst the prize-winners in the

September 1908 issue; this time he was awarded the Beit Scholarship—

the first of many to come his way. For all this, Schönland was no book-

worm. He was greatly interested in sport, especially rugby football,

even though he lacked the physical stature usually associated with its

more successful proponents. As a ‘day boy’ at a boarding school he was

a member of the imaginatively titled Day House, those English Public

School traditions being much a feature of such schools in South Africa

too. Basil represented his House at rugby in the somewhat unusual posi-

tion, given his lack of physical size, as a forward and though he did not

distinguish himself he exuded great energy on the field and much

enthusiasm for the game. His team-mates must similarly have lacked

the necessary bulk and talent because the College Magazine recorded

their heavy defeats in 1908 to the tune of 24 nil, 21 nil and 16–3 at the

hands, or feet, of those more hardened boarders [13].

However, Basil Schö nland’s academic performance was excellent, as

reflected in his school report for 1908, the year in which he took the School

Higher Examination. He was first out of 23 pupils in all subjects except

Latin and French, in which he appeared second. His mathematics

master penned alongside a mark of 73%: ‘An excellent worker with

plenty of ability—did well in Arithmetic in Exam but his Algebra was

poor’. An undoubtedly prophetic remark was that from the Acting

Principal of the College, one Theodore Cornish, that Schönland was an

‘Excellent worker. A very promising boy’ [14]. And all this at the age of

twelve with just two years left at school was promise indeed.

1909 was a relatively uneventful year by Schönland’s standards. By

then he was in the fifth form and in a class where the average age was

seventeen. His school report yielded an entirely expected result. First

place out of twenty-six with only one mark below 70%, that being 54%

for Greek, a subject he had just started the year before [15]. At the

annual prize-giving ceremony in September, his hand was shaken repeat-

edly as he collected the prizes for French, Latin, Mathematics and Science

[16]. His subject-spread is illuminating: Mathematics, Chemistry, Latin,

Greek, English and French. Not only is an obvious ability with language

evident in one who was soon to distinguish himself as a scientist, but the

fact that he seemingly studied no Physics is intriguing. One can only

presume that St Andrew’s had no Physics master! But the best was yet

to come.

Schö nland entered the sixth form at St Andrew’s in 1910. He was not

quite fourteen and was the youngest in the class by almost four years, but

7

Early Years

his talents and his burgeoning self-confidence belied his age. He spoke in

the Debating Society in May opposing a motion which averred that ‘The

sword has done more to advance civilization than the pen’. Schönland

stoutly contended that the evidence against this was overwhelming.

The College Magazine recorded that ‘in a detailed and well-worded

speech [he] drew notice to the achievements of printing, from which

point of view the pen had undoubtedly been a more potent factor’ [17].

In August, the motion for debate addressed an issue, then very topical

at the time, with one B Schönland proposing ‘That in the opinion of this

house women should be allowed suffrage’. The same source records

that he opened the debate by hoping that his audience would not be ‘pre-

judiced by the tales of hat pins and strenuous suffragettes’. But they

clearly were and though he and his supporter, R F Currey, struggled

manfully, prejudice abounded and Schönland’s motion was defeated in

a division by a large majority! [18]

South Africa itself, in 1910, was on the brink of parliamentary

change. The defeated Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange

Free State became, with their former colonial neighbours in the Cape

and Natal, members of the Union of South Africa under the premiership

of one of the most illustrious Boer generals, Louis Botha. His minister of

Mines, Defence and the Interior was J C Smuts, the brilliant Cape- and

Cambridge-educated lawyer, who had been State Attorney in the Trans-

vaal at the outbreak of the Boer War and who then took to the field as a

Boer general of considerable daring and enterprise [19]. But now, a

decade later, Afrikaner and Englishman were united under one flag

but, as if to satisfy both, the levers of power were distributed between Par-

liament in Cape Town and the seat of Government in Pretoria. South

Africa, though, had even greater divisions because the mass of its popula-

tion, those of another hue, were excluded from Parliament altogether.

Women, as long as they were white, got the vote in 1930.

The young Schönland will have followed these events closely and

undoubtedly knew of Smuts for his name was already part of the St

Andrew’s College legend. Late in 1901, with the Boer War now a guerrilla

struggle, Smuts and his bedraggled commando appeared on the outskirts

of Grahamstown. The town was at their mercy since all the garrison

troops had long since been sent to the battlefields. However, all was not

lost. The College Cadet Corps, along with those of their sister schools in

the town, were immediately mobilized to defend the good citizens of

Grahamstown against a possible incursion. Smuts, however, declined to

invade and moved on to continue harassing the real enemy, the British

army in the field.

Now, nearly a decade later, when not engaged in the affairs of State,

Jan Smuts found his own relaxation in botany [20]. An encyclopaedic

memory and a mind of formidable dimensions allowed him to interact

8

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier

easily with the professionals in the field. Not surprisingly, therefore, his

path soon crossed that of Selmar Schönland’s. Quite soon he would

come across the name of the younger Schönland, too.

In 1910 Basil Schönland sat his final examinations for the matricula-

tion. Challenging him for first place in a class of thirty was Ronald Currey,

his debating colleague, who was later to become the chronicler of the

histories of both St Andrew’s College and Rhodes University. Schön-

land’s progress was now being closely observed by the College Principal,

the Rev P W H Kettlewell MA (Oxon), who also took the boys of the unre-

markable Day House under his wing, and so he saw the young man from

many angles. In a letter to Selmar, Kettlewell stated emphatically: ‘I am

confident he will get a high place’. He did indeed. When the results

were announced in Cape Town there was jubilation at St Andrew’s.

Basil Schönland, though only fourteen years of age, not only obtained

the First Class pass expected of him in this national examination but

was also placed first in the ‘whole of South Africa’ [21]. The College

certainly had good reason to be proud because Ronald Currey was

placed second. Grahamstown’s newspaper carried the results under the

headline of ‘Latest Telegrams’, and in the accompanying article it

enthused in its congratulations to St Andrew’s, calling the feat ‘a remark-

able triumph’. In addition, said the editor, the ‘friends of both these young

men are to be felicitated on the excellent promise thus shown’. The Schö n-

land household in Oatlands Road received its share of felicitations too

from the Bishop of Grahamstown, on the one hand, to the Government

Entomologist on the other [22].

Once again the annual prize-giving was the major event in the

College calendar. In 1910 the occasion was made even more significant

by the presence of General Lord Methuen as the guest of honour.

Methuen had been the commander of the force of eight thousand soldiers

whose objective, some eleven years before, had been to relieve Kimberley

and its fabulous diamond mine from the besieging Boers. The fact that he

failed in this and then enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the last

British general to be captured by the Boers [23] in no way diminished

the applause which greeted him on entering the splendidly decorated

College Drill Hall on 10 October. After all, had not England been trium-

phant in 1902 and, therefore, Grahamstown too? In 1908, Lord Methuen

returned to South Africa as General Officer Commanding all forces in

the country and so was clearly a hero amongst admiring friends who

were steadfastly maintaining the English Public School tradition in argu-

ably the most British of South African towns at that time.

Methuen’s address to the assembled College and guests followed

shorter orations from the Principal and the Bishop of Grahamstown.

Whereas they had dealt with matters on a broad front, the General had

but a single target in his sights—the Cadet Corps and its role in producing

9

Early Years

the future leaders of the land. To cheers and acclamation he reminded the

boys that they were beginning life at the same time as South Africa was

beginning hers and ‘although we may have aided in making South

Africa what she is going to be, it will remain with you to carry out the

work which we have begun’. ‘Hear, hear’ was the resounding chorus.

Though some always derided cadets as merely playing at soldiers, the

General was quick to assert that:

there is nothing a master likes more than a cadet corps in a college.

It means discipline, cleanliness and self-esteem; it means the power

of obeying, and for the boy the rifle becomes a [sic] second nature.

The boy is able to command when he leaves college. That comes of

volunteering, discipline and drill. There is no school in England in

which a cadet corps is not regarded by master and boy as a good

thing.

Since both speakers before him had congratulated the boys on their disci-

pline and ‘tone’, the General’s words certainly fell on receptive ears. The

world was at peace and a British soldier was there to maintain it in South

Africa. Basil Schönland might even have written another burst of verse.

However, such euphoria was not to last. In four short years many in

that audience would find themselves in uniform and in just such positions

of command in ‘the war to end all wars’, and Schönland would be

amongst them. But happier things lay ahead of them that night and

Schönland was much fêted amongst the prize winners. Between himself

and Ronald Currey they were to take all the VI form prizes except that

awarded for Dutch, a subject Schönland had not studied. They shared

those for Classics and English, while Schönland won that for French,

and Currey those for Mathematics and Science. Basil Schönland was

also declared the Jubilee Scholar for 1910.

The evening was brought to a close by the School Concert: a selec-

tion of musical pieces, both instrumental and vocal, performed by the

boys, the College Choral Society and by the occasional master. Included

amongst renditions of violin solos and the lusty singing of The Sergeant

of the Line was a pianoforte solo, Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat, performed

by none other than one B F Schönland [24].

10

Schonland: Scientist and Soldier