Consultation on draft New Museum Site Framework Supplementary Framework Development Planning Document.

Topic: the original Cavendish Laboratory

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on these proposals. I tried to send your online form but for some reason it wouldn't go so I hope this email will do instead. My comments refer to paragraph 5.1.13 on page 41 of the document.

I agree with Simon Schaffer that "there is, perhaps, no other scientific building in this country as important as the original Cavendish".

Not only was the building designed by one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, the Cavendish's founding director James Clerk Maxwell, it has been the site of some of the most important scientific discoveries, including the electron and the structure of DNA. Among the world-leading scientists who have worked there are Cavendish's second director Lord Rayleigh, its third director J.J. Thomson, and Ernest Rutherford.

It is a historic and irreplaceable building, which should be lovingly restored, not mutilated.

Basil Mahon

Author of The Man Who Changed Everything: the Life of James Clerk Maxwell and Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity. Joint author of Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics.