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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 6 (September 1, 1938)

Otago University

Otago University.

His studies attracted the attention of the late Mr. G. M. Thomson, Science Master at the Otago Boys' High School, and father of Dr. Allan Thomson, the first New Zealand Rhodes Scholar. Mellor attended classes at the Technical School, of which G.M. was a Director and from there matriculated in 1892. By this time he had shown aptitude for mathematics also, and Mr. Thomson recognised a coming “genius” and arranged a bursary or scholarship to the University. He also assisted the arrangement with Sargood's whereby Mellor was permitted the necessary time off to attend lectures. I well remember the enthusiasm of Mr. Thomson after Mellor's fine work, “Higher Mathematics for Students of Chemistry and Physics” (to which students of mathematics could well have been added), was published in 1902, and his
The Mellor family group, showing J. W. Mellor, the world scientist to be, in the background.

The Mellor family group, showing J. W. Mellor, the world scientist to be, in the background.

page 11
J. W. Mellor in his B.Sc. grown, 1897.

J. W. Mellor in his B.Sc. grown, 1897.

loud entreaties to watch Mellor—“he's the coming man.” Like a modern Ulysses Thomson had, in the words of Tennyson, “drunk delight of battle with my peers” and wanted us also to “touch the Happy Isles And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.”

The Professor of Chemistry at Otago in those days was the veteran Professor Black, a fine scholar of the olden type and a generous enthusiast, who was delighted when he recognised, after a few years, that Mellor had outstripped him in his own field. When the time came for Black to retire, it was suggested by friends in Dunedin that Mellor, then at Owens College, Manchester, should be brought back to succeed Black. But “No, no,” the old man protested, “he would be wasted here.” Certainly the war would have been harder to win if Mellor had returned to Dunedin!

In 1897 Mellor won the Senior Scholarship in Chemistry from Otago University, in 1898 he gained first-class honours in Chemistry, and in 1899 was awarded the 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship in Chemistry.

It is interesting to remember that Rutherford won his Senior Scholarship in Mathematics at Canterbury in 1892, and was awarded the Exhibition Science Scholarship in Electricity in 1894, while J. A. Erskine, probably the greatest genius of the three, took the Senior Scholarship in Physical Science in 1893, and was awarded the Exhibition Science Scholarship in Electricity in 1896, also from Canterbury College. Verily, there were giants in those days!

His University career finished so brilliantly, Mellor taught at Lincoln Agricultural College for a few months until the benefits of the Exhibition Scholarship could be utilised. Here in his 30th year he married Miss Emma Bakes, a young lady from Lincolnshire who had been brought up in Auckland. His training finished, his happiness assured and brilliant prospects unfolding, Mellor and his wife sailed from Port Chalmers in August, 1899, to take up his Research Scholarship at Owens College, Manchester, under Professor H. B. Dixon.