Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS (30 August 1871–19 October 1937) was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics. It is the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1908 "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances".

In 1895 Rutherford travelled to England for postgraduate study at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (1895–1898).
In 1900 he gained a DSc from the University of New Zealand.
In 1907 Rutherford moved to Britain to take the chair of physics at the University of Manchester.
In 1916 he was awarded the Hector Memorial Medal.
He was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1925 and raised to the peerage as Baron Rutherford of Nelson, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridge in 1931.