the General Physics Division. In 1949 he moved to the University of Liverpool to take up the Chair of Physics. He worked on completing the large cyclotron, started by his predecessor James Chadwick. In later years he took a leading role in the development of CERN. Family Herbert Skinner married Erna Abrahamsohn (or Wurmbrand) in 1931 in Bristol. They had one child, Elaine Auriol, who married Timothy F Wheatley in 1960. She died in Cambridge on 14 January 2012. When MI5 files on the spy Klaus Fuchs were released by The National Archives in May 2013, The Telegraph reported that “during his time at Harwell Fuchs spent most of his days living at the house of his best friend, Prof Herbert Skinner, the deputy head of atomic research. There, he appears to have developed a relationship with Skinner's 41-year-old Austrian-born wife, Erna”, a woman described by close friend Mary Flowers as someone who “craved the attention of men and usually got it” and who “frequently drank copiously”. In a recent book Professor Frank Close, particle physicist, described the close relationship between Erna and Fuchs and how, for example, they stayed at the Riviera Hotel, Maidenhead and the Palm Court Hotel in Richmond in January 1950. Erna Skinner died on 23 October 1975, age 68. Herbert Skinner died at the Hotel Bernina, Geneva on 20 January 1960, during a visit to the European Organization for Nuclear Research. He was buried at Alperton Cemetery, Wembley. References 1900 births 1960 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People educated at Rugby School People from Ealing British nuclear physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of the University of Bristol University of California, Berkeley faculty Academics of the University of Liverpool Manhattan Project people