Some of the early power reactor pioneers have some form of biography to memorialize them, others do not. “Ben” (W. B.) Lewis, the Englishman who took over as the second head of Canada’s Chalk River in 1946 and then loomed large over Canadian reactors for decades, fascinates because of a fulsome bio. Apparently the daughter of another British-Canadian physicist, Ruth Fawcett was only in her early thirties when she penned Nuclear Pursuits: The Scientific Biography of Wilfred Bennett Lewis.
Books like this one, I can return to again and again to picture personal details of professionals I’ve grown to “know” somewhat through their contribution to reactor history. Listen to Fawcett:
Life at the hotel was relaxed and communal. Meals, served in a large dining area, provided an opportunity for people working in different branches to meet. On Sunday evenings, residents gathered in the lounge and listened to records. Lewis joined them, bringing letters to write while enjoying the classical music. … Although Lewis remained a bachelor, he moved after a few years from the staff hotel to a two-storey white clapboard house on Beach Avenue. Running parallel to the river, this street housed the senior scientists at the plant. Its large homes with gardens stretching down to the river’s edge made it a desirable area to live. Lewis asked his mother (his father had died during the war) to join him in Deep River. Mrs Lewis adapted quickly to life in town and looked after the more practical aspects of Lewis’s life, leaving him free to concentrate on his work. … Lewis joined the [yachting] races in his boat, named Celia (the name gave rise to much speculation but no answers) … Remembered as a taciturn and not very good sailor, Lewis nonetheless participated doggedly in these competitions. … Lewis was an avid hiker and spent most of his holidays walking in Canada’s national parks … or in England’s Lake District. But he was definitely more a man of the mind than the body.
Fawcett, Ruth. 1994. Nuclear Pursuits: The Scientific Biography of Wilfred Bennett Lewis. McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 65-68.
