Frederick Alexander Lindemann, Viscount Cherwell, 1886-1957

Abstract

Frederick Alexander Lindemann, Viscount Cherwell, was born on 5 April 1886, at Baden-Baden, where his mother was taking the cure. His father A. F. Lindemann was a naturalized British subject of French-Alsatian origin and was an engineer who had played some part in the making and laying of one of the earliest transatlantic cables. A. F. Lindemann was a keen scientist and had an observatory and well-equipped laboratory at his large and pleasant country house in Devonshire, where his family of two sons and two daughters were brought up by governesses and tutors. The mother was an American whose father was born British. At the age of 11 F.A.L. was sent, with his elder brother,* to a Scottish school run by a friend of his father, which specialized in preparing army candidates. F.A.L. was an outstanding pupil with a remarkable memory, but took a pride in not working much. When at home he spent much of his time in the laboratory. In 1902 or 1903 his father was persuaded to send both the brothers to a school in Darmstadt where F.A.L. quickly acclimatized himself to German methods and passed into the ‘Hochschule’. Here also he distinguished himself and was accepted by Nernst into his Physikalisch Chemisches Institut in Berlin, where he took his Ph.D. in 1910. His school and University days were by no means all work. He played a great deal of tennis at which he won many prizes, and later, as an Oxford professor, he competed at Wimbledon.