 In 1925 , Oliphant heard a speech given by the New Zealand physicist , Sir Ernest Rutherford , and he decided he wanted to work for him – an ambition that he fulfilled by earning a position at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1927 . He applied for an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship on the strength of the research he had done on mercury with Burdon . It came with a living allowance of £ 250 per annum ( equivalent to AUD $ 17 @,@ 000 in 2010 ) . When word came through that he had been awarded a fellowship , he wired Rutherford and Trinity College , Cambridge . Both accepted him . 
