ABSTRACT
Professor J P Baxter, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology (as the University of NSW was called in 1956), was an impressive man, who was a chemical engineer with experience in the UK nuclear fuels industry having come to Sydney as the Foundation Professor of Chemical Engineering. Following a short period in this role, his political skill enabled him to capture the post of Vice-Chancellor. Since his background was industrial rather than academic, he was more used to a hierarchical structure of command in which those of lower rank obeyed orders. On the other hand he was very positive and during the early stages of developing a new university this was supposed to be an asset. He had also been the prime mover in getting the Australian Atomic Energy Commission established. The Commission had acquired an extensive site in wild bush-covered hills called Lucas Heights about 20 miles south of Sydney, its plan being to build a test nuclear reactor with associated laboratories-basically a reduced version of the Atomic Energy Establishment at Harwell in England. Clifford Dalton, a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar whom I had met in Oxford, was about to become the Laboratory’s Chief Engineer and another New Zealand acquaintance, Charles Watson-Munro, had accepted the more senior post of Chief Scientist.
