Henry Brose

Henry Herman Leopold Adolph Brose (15 September 1890 – 24 February 1965) was an Australian physicist. Born in Adelaide, he attended Prince Alfred College and graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1910 with a B.Sc. in mathematics. A member of the Adelaide University Athletics Club, Brose as awarded a University Blue for Athletics in 1910. In 1911-12 he taught French at Prince Alfred College, and in 1913 was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship for South Australia.

Brose went up to Christ Church, Oxford to study mathematics. While visiting relatives in Hamburg in 1914, he was arrested by the German authorities and interned as a civilian prisoner for the duration of the First World War. During his captivity Brose became interested in the Theory of Relativity and translated some German texts into English. On return to Oxford, he was awarded B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1919, and in 1925 he completed a D. Phil. on the motion of electrons in oxygen, under the supervision of John Sealy Edward Townsend. He then went on to hold a number of academic positions including Lecturer in Physics at the University of Sydney and Professor of Physics at the University of Nottingham. From 1920 and 1936 he translated sixteen physics texts from German into English. Brose later went on to work in cancer research, holding positions as a physicist, a pathologist and a biochemist.

Brose made an enormous contribution to the scientific world of his time both in Australia and across the world, as indicated by his vast collection of Manuscripts still archived in the University of Adelaide.