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African Science and One Man's Vision
Brian Austin
The emergence of a pan-African programme of scientific cooperation, at least
amongst those nations south of the Sahara, could not have
happened without the efforts of one man, in a very different world, more than
half a century ago.
 During
World War Two, Basil Schonland was a colonel in the South African army. He had
volunteered for service, just as he had done in the First World War of 1914
-1918, but he was not a regular soldier. He was a scientist with
an international reputation in the field of geophysics and especially the
subject of lightning. His special expertise soon led to the development of South
African radar equipment which began functioning in December 1939, just
three months after the outbreak of war. Men of such calibre were in great demand
in Britain - then almost under siege from Hitler's formidable
military machine - and Schonland became Superintendent of the Army Operational
Research Group in London.
In 1942, Schonland seized an opportunity to put the case for science on the
African sub-continent. The occasion was a meeting in London of the committee
charged with what was called Imperial Scientific Collaboration and Schonland
spoke out strongly on the subject he called "Lost Chances and Science in
Africa". While he enlightened his British colleagues about Africa's lack of
scientific infrastructure, Schonland's contribution was positive,
thought-provoking and constructive. The matter soon reached the ears of the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and it was decided to take some action just as
soon as the war was over.
After the war, Schonland founded what is now Africa's largest research
organisation, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In
1946, as CSIR president, he led his country's delegation to the Empire
Scientific Conference in the United Kingdom and there he called for the
establishment of an African research committee to look closely at the
special requirements of the continent. National boundaries should not stop
the investigation of fundamental scientific problems, particularly those
that affected the health of millions of people. Again the Schonland magic
worked and a resolution was passed that recognised the need for a long-term
research programme concentrating specifically on the problems and opportunities
of Africa. Its implementation fell to Schonland and to South Africa, and plans were made to hold the first African Regional
Scientific Conference in Johannesburg.
According to the Sunday Times: "The first step in a pan-African
scientific campaign to inspan knowledge against the continent's
"darkness" … to plan a co-ordinated science and research front to
tackle diseases attacking men, beasts and plants in Africa".
That historic event opened in 1949 with more than a hundred delegates in
attendance from 25 countries south of the Sahara. Amongst the research bodies
involved were the Institute of Central African Surveys at Brazzaville, the
French Institute of Dark (sic) Africa and the Institute of Scientific Research
in Tananarive, Madagascar. In addition, the major European powers, plus the
United States and Australia, were also represented
at what was truly a panoply of nations never before seen under one roof in
South Africa. Specialist sessions addressed areas such as the physical
environment, soils and plants, zoology and animal husbandry, health and
medical research, social research and technology. The conference stressed the
need for "regular consultations and specialist conferences; and the setting
up of special regional research organisations with exchange of research workers
between different countries".
After two weeks of deliberations during which the scientific priorities of the
African continent were identified, the member governments were called upon to
give serious consideration to forming a Scientific Council for Africa South of
the Sahara, soon to be known in abbreviated form as the CSA. Its purpose was to
ensure that the available scientific resources were used to best advantage in
the development of the human, natural and material resources of the continent.
All delegates readily acknowledged that Basil Schonland was the father of the
scheme.
Looking back now, some fifty years later, one has to ask what became of this
inspirational idea for harnessing our scientific resources. The CSA duly met for
the first time in 1950 at South Africa House in London with Schonland
representing South African interests. The Commission for Technical Co-operation
in Africa South of the Sahara originated in an international agreement in London
during 1950 among the governments of Belgium, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, France,
Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
Thereafter, during the following ten
years, the CSA convened in various African countries and significant progress
was reported across a broad front of scientific programmes. However, cost,
increasingly racist governments in South Africa and the growth of independence
movements elsewhere in Africa began to impede developments. By 1960 the
"winds of change" were blowing across the continent and the old
colonial links started to sever. Science was relegated to a lower rung on the
ladder of priorities.
Schonland resigned, in 1962 as Rhodes University's first Chancellor in
protest at the South African government's apartheid legislation that ultimately
segregated the previously "open" universities. He believed that
everyone, regardless of race, should have the opportunity to be educated to the
highest level of their abilities, whatever the speciality.
South Africa was no longer able to offer any leadership. Its political
philosophy of separating races, known as apartheid, was anathema to the
world. In 1965, by now riven with political differences, the CSA was
dismantled.
By then, Schonland had left Africa. In 1954, Basil Schonland was invited to
England where, four years later, he became director of the Atomic Energy
Research Establishment at Harwell. The Scientific Council for Africa South
of the Sahara, though one of his lesser- known achievements, must be seen as one
of great significance as it was surely the forerunner of those bodies now set up
to foster scientific collaboration throughout the continent of Africa.
Schonland was knighted by the Queen in 1960 for his services to British science,
but for all his stature abroad he had not been forgotten by his
fellow-countrymen in South Africa. In 1999, as the end of the millennium
approached, Grahamstown-born Sir Basil Schonland was elected South Africa's
"Scientist of the Century" some 27 years after he died in England
after a lifetime as a scientist of distinction. And now in December 2002, Sir
Basil Schonland was awarded posthumously the Order of Mapungubwe: Gold for his
services to science in South Africa. The order, named after an extinct Northern
Province kingdom, is awarded to South African citizens for excellence and
exceptional achievement on the international stage.
Sir Basil Schonland was born in 1896 and died in 1972.
More Information:
Dr Brian Austin is an electronics engineer who graduated from the University
of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1969. He worked for
ten years as a research engineer in the laboratories of the Chamber of Mines of
South Africa where he led the team that developed a radio system for use
underground. He then spent more than twenty years as an academic, first at his
alma mater and then at the University of Liverpool in England.
In 2001 his biography of Sir Basil Schonland was published. Entitled "Schonland
- Scientist and Soldier", it is available from the Institute of Physics
Publishing, Bristol (ISBN 0 7503 0501 0) and University of the Witwatersrand
Press, Johannesburg (ISBN 1 8681 4375 9).
Visit: www.bookmarkphysics.iop.org
and www.witspress.wits.ac.za for
details.
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