Peter Mason

Who was Peter Mason?

Peter Mason was an English-born Australian physicist, educator and science communicator.

He was born at St Pancras in London to chemist Alfred George Mason and Winnie, née Wheeldon. He attended Eriva Deene School, St Clement's Mixed School and Bournemouth School before attending the University of London, winning first-class honours in mathematics and physics. From 1943 to 1946 he was employed at the Ministry of Supply studying the military applications of quartz crystals, and in 1945 he became an associate member of the Institute of Physics. He married Sheila Mabelle Clegg at Bournemouth on 7 June 1945; Mason was a committed pacifist, which went well with his wife's Quaker faith, although he did not become a Quaker himself. Mason and his wife were early supporters of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

From 1946 to 1953 Mason worked with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and from 1953 to 1961 with the British Rubber Producers' Research Association. He received his PhD in 1960 with a thesis on the visco-elasticity of strained rubber, and in 1962 moved to Australia to study keratin on a post-doctoral fellowship with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Sydney, becoming principal research officer. He was foundation professor of physics at Macquarie University in 1966 and gave the university's first undergraduate lecture in 1967. He served two terms on the university council, and also remained politically active, opposing the Vietnam War and standing as a Senate candidate for the Australian Reform Movement in 1967.