was an expensive state-of-the-art piece of equipment.

In March 1935, Chadwick received an offer of the Lyon Jones Chair of Physics at the University of Liverpool, in his wife's home town, to succeed Lionel Wilberforce. The laboratory was so antiquated that it still ran on direct current electricity, but Chadwick seized the opportunity, assuming the chair on 1 October 1935. The university's prestige was soon