Requisitioned for the war effort and then a world-leading manufacturer of radioactive materials
The Grove Centre , located in a residential area on the outskirts of the market town of Amersham in Buckinghamshire , has been on an amazing journey over the past 80 years from a residential house and grounds , requisitioned for the war effort , to become a world-leading manufacturer of radioactive materials for medical , industrial and domestic use .
The story starts in the early months of the Second World War . With the aim of enabling the UK to independently manufacture radium-based self-luminous paint for military purposes , the British Government invited Thorium Ltd to refine confiscated pitchblende ore ( bound from Portuguese mines to refineries in Germany ) which had been impounded at London Docks .
A telegram was sent to young chemist Dr Patrick Grove , asking him to contact Thorium “ concerning work of national importance ”.
He was released by the Admiralty in February 1940 and quickly set out to find premises suitable for laboratory work , ideally less than 30 miles from Westminster and close to Thorium ’ s office in Wembley .
Chilcote House in White Lion Road was purchased on 10 April 1940 for £ 600 by Thorium Ltd . Radioactive work began in May under primitive conditions , using the kitchens , cottages and garages as laboratories , household pots and pans as equipment and one gold leaf electroscope to measure radioactivity . On 17 October 1940 , some three months from the start of refining , the first 250 milligrams of pure radium
By Neil Seymour MSRP Neil is one of 10 SRP members based at The Grove Centre and he is also a member of the Radiation Protection Today Editorial Team .
bromide were sealed . The first bombs fell that night but the precious powder , housed in fragile glass capillaries , was safely stored in lead pots lowered in a bucket down a 40ft shaft in the front garden .
While on a secret trip to the US in 1944 to participate in The Manhattan Project , Dr Grove met Nobel Prize winner Professor James Chadwick ( 1891-1974 ), discoverer of the neutron . Chadwick championed the idea of a national centre for radioactive materials production at the Chilcote site . In September 1946 , terms were agreed for the Ministry of Supply to buy the premises , plant and equipment for £ 40,000 with the business continuing to be managed by Thorium Ltd .
In May 1949 , Britain ’ s press was allowed its first look inside the site and the company name became established as The Radiochemical Centre ( TRC ), also abbreviated for many years as RCC . TRC was a pioneer in the production of radioactive isotope tracers ( such as carbon-14 and tritium ) which enabled major advances to be made in molecular biology and the initial work on sequencing DNA .
During the 1950s , TRC became part of the Ministry of Supply ’ s Atomic Energy Research
20 Radiation Protection Today www . srp-rpt . uk