Lorna Arnold

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Lorna Arnold
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
Scientific career
FieldsHistory of science
InstitutionsUnited Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Lorna Margaret Arnold

OBE (née Rainbow; 7 December 1915 – 25 March 2014) was a British historian who wrote several books connected with the British nuclear weapons
programmes.

A graduate of

Bizonia, and remained at the Pentagon
until 1949.

In January 1959, she joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), where she worked within its Authority Health and Safety Branch (AHSB), coordinating the investigation of the 1957 Windscale fire, about which she would later write a book. In 1967, she joined Margaret Gowing in writing the history of the British nuclear weapons programmes. As its second official historian, she had access to previously secret documents and personally knew many of the people involved. She produced histories of the 1957 Windscale fire, the nuclear weapons tests in Australia and the British hydrogen bomb programme. In her old age she was still an active participant in intelligence/historical community debate.

Early years

Lorna Margaret Rainbow was born at 35 Craven Park,

Royal Navy Air Service.[2] After the war he became a farmer, and the family moved to a farm called Flexwood near Guildford.[3] She became a vegetarian when she realised at dinner one night that a cow her parents had sold had probably not found a better home.[4]

Rainbow attended

upper second-class honours.[11]

After graduation, Rainbow trained as a teacher at the

teaching certificate, which allowed her to secure a position teaching English at Belper School in 1938. She began having fainting spells, and returned to the family's Little Prestwick Farm in 1940.[14]

Second World War, Berlin and Bizonia

fire warden. The windows of her office at the War Office were blown in twice, and were then replaced with scrim.[15]

Soon after D-Day in 1944, Rainbow transferred to the

Foreign Office to head a section of the secretariat of the European Advisory Commission (EAC) at Norfolk House, making arrangements for the post-war administration of Germany.[16] In June 1945, she moved to Berlin as part of the Allied Control Council. For a time, she slept with a revolver under her pillow during the turbulent times just after the Battle of Berlin.[8][17] After the Second World War, Allied-occupied Germany was divided into four zones, managed by the British, American, French and Russians. Berlin was also divided into four zones, and Rainbow worked as the UK secretary in the Economic Directorate alongside counterparts from France, America and Russia to co-ordinate administering the districts and supplying food to the population.[8][18]

Britain had very limited resources at the end of the war, but the British Zone was the most populated, most industrialised, and most devastated by Allied bombing, and therefore the most expensive for the occupier. The British government decided to reduce the cost by sharing the burden with the United States. Rainbow returned to London to work on this project, and was then sent to Washington, D.C., as part of the British negotiating team.

P Street which she shared with two other women from the British Embassy. She attempted to get the best possible deal for Britain; whenever possible, purchases were made in sterling, and shipping was with the Cunard Line. Eventually, the British government found even half the cost of Bizonia too much to bear, resulting in further negotiations. In 1949, she returned to England on the RMS Mauretania.[22]

Marriage and family

Rainbow took a position with the

National Trust by Benton Fletcher. The lower floors of the building were a museum for the instruments.[24]

In late 1952, the National Trust moved the collection of keyboard instruments to

Fenton House, and the family moved to Brondesbury Road, and then, in 1953, to a house they bought in Oxgate Gardens. Robert worked for the BBC as a studio manager for The Goon Show and the BBC World Service, and then for EMI, where he was involved with the development of stereophonic sound and the LP record. Her health deteriorated after Stephen's birth, and she had a hysterectomy. Her aunt Phyl took care of the children while she recovered. In 1955, her husband, unable to reconcile his lifestyle with his homosexuality, returned to the United States, and she became a single mother. She returned to work, initially in a biscuit factory, and then in a series of clerical jobs.[25]

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

A chance lunchtime meeting with a wartime colleague in 1958 led Arnold to apply for a position at the

Ministry of Health. The Director of Establishments there asked if he might forward her details to his counterpart at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), which he knew was expanding due to the 1957 Windscale fire, there being multiple inquiries into the disaster. To her surprise, her secretariat skills in writing and coordinating reports and studies were exactly what the UKAEA was looking for, and she was hired. After a security background check, she commenced work on 2 January 1959,[26] with the Authority Health and Safety Branch (AHSB).[27] She worked on the Veale Committee on Training in Radiation Safety,[28] and, after it wound up, as personal assistant to the director, Andrew MacLean.[29]

In 1967, Arnold was abruptly reassigned as the UKAEA Records Officer, vice

1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, American secrets had been shared with the United Kingdom, so the job also involved liaison with American archivists. To be closer to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, she sold her house in London and bought one on the outskirts of Oxford, from which she could more conveniently reach these establishments via the A34.[30]

Gowing and Arnold published their two-volume Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945–52 in 1974, covering the

Her Majesty's Stationery Office did not market it well, and it was not available in Australia. She later produced an updated edition, Britain, Australia and the Bomb: The Nuclear Tests and Their Aftermath in 2005 with Mark Smith from the University of Southampton.[34]

Arnold returned to working on the hydrogen bomb book, but 1987 was the 30th anniversary of the

Katherine Pyne, an aircraft engineer working on a history degree, who became her research assistant for two years. However, the end was in sight. The UKAEA no longer had responsibility for nuclear weapons, and management was not interested in it. With funds for the project almost exhausted, the UKAEA Council decided that Arnold should retire in 1996. She loaded her notes into her car and took them home. Sympathetic friends at the Ministry of Defence found some money to cover her expenses, and she doggedly worked on it from home. Britain and the H-Bomb finally appeared in 2001.[36]

Later life

Arnold was a Fellow of the

Doctorate of Letters from the University of Reading for her work in nuclear history.[38] She was introduced to Scilla Elworthy, one of the leaders of the Oxford Research Group, one of the UK's leading advocates for alternatives to global conflict, in the 1980s by her friend, physicist Rudolf Peierls.[39] Through Elworthy, Arnold became active in the movement for nuclear disarmament. She participated in a series of video presentations on issues of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy for Talkworks, an organisation that focused on dangers associated with nuclear weapons.[37] She also worked with television productions, including two BBC television documentaries on Windscale in 1990 and 2007, and a six-part documentary The Nuclear Age. which was cancelled by the BBC.[40] In an episode of the BBC radio programme A Room with a View, she visited the room at the University of Birmingham where Peierls had worked on the Frisch–Peierls memorandum.[40]

Arnold became legally blind in 2002,

Daily Telegraph, "chronicled the life of one of the many thousands of women denied greater eminence because of their sex."[4] She died at Oxenford House care home in Cumnor, Oxfordshire, on 25 March 2014 after suffering a stroke.[1] She was survived by her two sons.[4][8]

Published works

Notes

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.107788. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ a b Stout, Kate (15 October 2013). "Ancestors of Lorna Margaret Rainbow" (PDF). Retrieved 3 June 2017.
  3. ^ Arnold 2012, p. 14.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Lorna Arnold – obituary". Daily Telegraph. 4 May 2014. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
  5. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 20–24.
  6. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 25–26.
  7. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 35–36.
  8. ^ a b c d Cathcart, Brian (27 March 2014). "Lorna Arnold obituary | Environment". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  9. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 40–41.
  10. ^ a b Arnold 2012, p. 45.
  11. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 53, 60.
  12. ^ Arnold 2012, p. 53.
  13. ^ Burton, Nikki. "Hughes Hall achieves full college status". Varsity. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  14. ^ a b Arnold 2012, p. 63.
  15. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 67–78.
  16. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 78–81.
  17. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 83–86.
  18. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 87–94.
  19. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 96–97.
  20. ^ Carden 1979, pp. 537–538.
  21. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 98–100.
  22. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 103–109.
  23. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 113–117.
  24. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 117–125.
  25. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 128–131.
  26. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 134–139.
  27. ^ Arnold 2000, p. 255.
  28. ^ Arnold 2012, p. 142.
  29. ^ Arnold 2012, p. 147.
  30. ^ a b Arnold 2012, pp. 150–156.
  31. ^ Fox, Robert (20 November 1998). "Obituary: Professor Margaret Gowing". The Independent. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  32. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 158–159.
  33. ^ "No. 47102". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 30 December 1976. p. 9.
  34. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 160–165.
  35. ^ Arnold 2012, pp. 165–166.
  36. ^ a b Arnold 2012, pp. 170–171.
  37. ^ a b Arnold 2012, p. 188.
  38. ^ "University of Reading awards Honorary Degrees to nuclear weapons programme expert and a former President of its Council". University of Reading. 15 December 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  39. ^ Arnold 2012, p. 179.
  40. ^ a b Arnold 2012, pp. 176–178.

References

External links
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