A history of physics
in Paisley
Teaching and research in Physics at Paisley have been carried out for over 50 years. What is presently UWS was, until 1992, Paisley College of Technology. Post 1992 we became the University of the West of Scotland until 2007 when upon merger with Bell College we became the University of the West of Scotland. Given below is a personal perspective on the history and development of Physics in Paisley written by Emeritus Professor Leslie Barr, who was a member of the Physics staff at Paisley from 1954 until 1992.
When I graduated in physics at the University of Edinburgh in 1954 the total number graduating in that subject in the whole of the UK was about 750. This was typical of many subjects and only about 3% of the population had a university education. This output was clearly not meeting the demand for qualified graduates in the UK. While there was expansion in existing universities and new ones were created, by the mid to late 1960s the demand for highly qualified technology graduates was out stripping supply leading to the creation of polytechnics in England and Central Institutions, of which Paisley College of Technology was one, in Scotland. These institutions taught to degree, honours and higher degree level overseen by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) rather than having individual charters.
When, in 1969, I was offered the post of Head of Department (later professor) of the newly created Department of Physics, Paisley had been running CNAA degrees for almost three years but had not yet had a graduating class. I was hesitant about accepting; I had been engaged in academic and industrial research for twelve years and while I had held a lectureship in Edinburgh I was out of touch with university affairs and one of the principal remits was to create a university level department. By chance I was examining a thesis at Imperial College and mentioned the offer to one of my co-examiners. He immediately said “it must be a remarkably good place, we recruited one of our best theoretical post-graduates from there a couple of years ago. He had taken highest honours in physics in the London University External Examinations and had been superbly taught”. That remark swung my opinion and I accepted the offer.
The staff, I found, were every bit as good as had been suggested; most of them had worked in industry and had a very clear notion of the needs of a working physicist. They had also been teaching at degree level for London External degrees for a number of years. The first honours class graduated in 1970 and the first doctorates in 1974 following the start of a research programme in 1969. One of the first PhD graduates later became a division head at the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB).
So well was the degree course designed that only small modifications were necessary mainly in the 3rd and 4th years where a variety of small courses were consolidated into two main options, namely Industrial Physics I and II in the 3rd and 4th years and Astronomy in the 3rd and Terrestrial Physics (1/3) meteorology and (1/3) geophysics) in the 4th year. This latter course meant that Paisley was teaching about CO2 atmospheric concentrations and continental drift before many of the older universities. I recall an enthusiastic tutor from Oxford University where one of our graduates had gone for teaching training writing to me to comment that the Paisley degree gave a superb background for a physics teacher. The Astronomy/Terrestrial physics group was also attractive to the Royal Navy and the RAF and several graduates joined these services to become pilots and naval officers.
The industrial physics option was equally successful particularly when the North Sea oil and the microelectronic industries took off. One component was non-destructive testing and I recall students going on regular visits to the RAH to see ultrasonic scans on patients. A result was a number of students going into hospital physics although there was no purely medical physics in the option.
In addition to teaching CNAA degrees the department ran a course leading to the honours degree of the Institute of Physics. This was particularly popular, taken part-time, with teachers with ordinary BScs from the older Scottish Universities. The course was enormously successful and Paisley repeatedly dominated the awards. One particularly successful year I was at AERE Harwell when one of the directors came up to me to ask how Paisley was so successful. That year in addition to several upper honours, one of the students was awarded the gold medal of the IoP. “Good students and good teaching” was my reply. I should add that the student who won the medal was approached by Cambridge University to do a doctorate there and he subsequently became the head of science at Charterhouse, one of the most eminent English Public schools.
Much effort was put into infra structure, the equipment and buildings. A new building with the top floor devoted to physics (C block) was opened in the 80s. In addition to workshop and laboratories and a small telescope dome on the roof, the building housed a planetarium and a “Learning Unit” where students could study using the then new technology of tape slide programmes. Later the Department was able to install a scanning electron microscope and a suite of clean rooms equipped with ultra vacuum systems and associated surface spectroscopes. This was used for teaching on the Physical Science for Microelectronics degree. Happily this process of continually re-equipping the department has continued and the amount of research has steadily increased. Of course all this equipment requires first class technician support which has always been available thanks to a policy of continued technician training mainly by part-time study. The emphasis has shifted gradually over the years from mechanical workshops to electronics and computers while the level of technician training has gone from at the best, HNC qualifications to increasing numbers with degrees and honours degrees. In one case a technician who entered with no qualifications as a youth opportunity trainee ended with a 1st class honours degree in electronics and an MSc with distinction in the same subject. Some of our own graduates have entered this new field of employment. I recently met one who took the Astronomy option and won an award to spend a summer at the Siding Spring Mountain Observatory in Australia. He is now the chief technician in Optics and Astronomy in Glasgow University and told me he had just come back from the La Palma Observatory in the Canary Islands where he was installing equipment and making observations.
In 1991/1992 Paisley College of Technology became the University of the West of Scotland thus fulfilling one of the original remits of my appointment. For this reason I decided to retire and leave it to someone younger to complete the integration of the Department into the university sector. However, the main task is unchanged: to respond to external demands for trained graduates in such a way as to produce people equipped to make successful and satisfying careers in the endlessly fascinating fields of modern physics.
6th September 2007
A brief profile of
Professor Leslie Barr
Physics research at Paisley was rejuvenated by the arrival of Professor Barr from AERE Harwell in 1954. His research expertise was the measurement of diffusion in solids using tracer radioisotopes, and he strongly encouraged other staff to engage in their own research. His knowledge and enthusiasm for all things scientific, and his inexhaustible fund of scientific anecdotes, have illuminated and entertained many gatherings, from lecture-demonstrations for schools to major international conferences.
He is currently an Honorary Vice-President of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow. LDF