Cavendish Professor of Physics However, it was poorly advertised, so it was only to his students that he laid out his plans for physics at Cambridge. When Maxwell began the actual course a few days later with a lecture on heat, it was attended by academics in formal dress, in the belief that it was the first lecture. Maxwell spent the next three years supervising the construction of the dedicated Cavendish Laboratory, and published in 1873 A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Maxwell's health deteriorated a short time into his tenure, and he died in 1879, aged 48. Lord Rayleigh replaced Maxwell immediately upon
Cavendish Professor of Physics something of a contradiction, dressing as a Victorian gentleman but working on the cutting edge of physics. Rutherford died suddenly in 1937, marking the end of an era for the Cavendish. Sir Lawrence Bragg became Cavendish Professor just before the outbreak of the Second World War, which resulted in many staff joining various defence research establishments, notably to develop radar. Work on neutron physics performed at this time was translated into the Manhattan Project to build an atom bomb. In 1971 it was renamed from the "Cavendish Professorship of Experimental Physics" to the "Cavendish Professorship of Physics". Until Brian Pippard