Street to be named after nuclear physicist

Sir Ernest Marsden was born in Rishton in 1889

An internationally famous Lancashire scientist who helped unlock the secrets of the atom is to have a street named after him in his hometown.

Nuclear physicist Sir Ernest Marsden will be honoured in a new 30-home estate on the site of the former Albert Mill in Rishton.

On Wednesday Hyndburn Council's street naming committee will be asked to approve the title of Ernest Marsden Close for the road leading off Mary Street.

Sir Ernest - who was born in Rishton's Hermitage Street in 1889, and attended Blackburn's Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School - conducted ground-breaking work into the construction of the atom while an undergraduate at Manchester University in 1909.

'Old mills and canals'

Working in the dark, the young physicist painstakingly counted the flashes produced when recently discovered alpha particles hit a piece of gold foil.

Two years after his work was published his professor Lord Ernest Rutherford - credited with splitting the atom in 1932 - was able to assess the implications.

Sir Ernest's study found that only a tiny part of the atom is made up of a charge, rather than the whole atom, helping the understanding of how they attract each other.

Nuclear physics was born, enabling new mathematical calculations and leading to many of the advances of the 20th Century.

Sir Ernest died in 1970 aged 81 in New Zealand where he has worked as leading academic.

The naming of the new street after him was proposed by Rishton councillors Kate Walsh and Bernard Dawson and backed by Hyndburn MP Sarah Smith.

Councillor Walsh said: "While I am proud of our industrial heritage it would be lovely to give the children of Rishton a former resident to look up to whose scientific work was internationally recognised.

"We aren't just old mills and canals but renowned scientists too."

In 2002 Sir Ernest was honoured with the unveiling of a plaque at his birthplace, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.