First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title verso, "Sir Henry Dale, in gratitude and admiration, Margaret Gowing, September 1964"; with Dale's ownership signature on the front pastedown. This is Gowing's first work in nuclear history, gifted to Dale, a member of the Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy as the wartime President of the Royal Society. Conceived by Gowing (1921-1998), an historian and civil servant, as the first of three chronological volumes, "Britain and Atomic Energy was a triumph. [Keith] Hancock, who had read the text in draft, pronounced it 'first rate'. Its success inspired Sir Mark Oliphant FRS - the distinguished Australian veteran of the Manhattan Project, and Hancock's former colleague at Birmingham, now returned to Australia - to seek the appointment of a historian to work with the new Australian Academy of Science in Canberra. The philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin, then exploring new frontiers at the Nuffield Foundation and the University of Sussex, thought that 'no better example of contemporary narrative history of science has yet appeared'. Amidst the grey precincts of official history traditionally dominated by worthy accounts of transport policy and export controls, hers was possibly the most interesting book" (MacLeod, pp. 78-9). In her preparations, Gowing was granted unlimited access to classified papers by the UK Atomic Energy Authority and befriended many of the key players in the field, including Bohr. Britain and Atomic Energy was followed in 1974 by a two-volume sequel, Independence and Deterrence. A pharmacologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Dale (1875-1968) became the chairman of the post-war committee on the medical and biological application of nuclear physics and the radioactive substances advisory committee. Laid in are two typescripts in photostat copy: a two-page letter from Dale to Churchill encouraging him to meet with Niels Bohr - a proposition described on pages 346 to 366 in the book - and a single-page letter from Dale to Lord Cherwell, Churchill's scientific advisor, about delivering the former missive. Dated 11 May 1944, the letter begins with an apology for Dale's "intrusion of this letter upon your notice, at a time of your known tremendous preoccupation with tremendous responsibilities" and the assurance that "nothing could excuse my doing so but the deepest sense of obligation to science and to the world". Dale explains that he felt duty-bound to ask Churchill to meet with Bohr "as one of only two men in whose power it may yet lie to take effective action [and] take decisions which will determine the future course of human history" (the other man being Roosevelt). Bohr, here described by Dale as "second to no authority in the world in theoretical physics", was extremely concerned with the political implications of atomic weapons and sought to encourage collaboration between the major powers in formalizing their control. Dale's efforts were successful, and Bohr was granted an audience with the prime minister on 16 May 1944. However, the meeting did not go well, and ended with Churchill's assertion that in the future "he would always be honoured to receive a letter from Professor Bohr but hoped that it would not be about politics" (p. 355). Provenance: from the library of Alexander R. Todd, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1957 and a President of the Royal Society. Todd was married to Dale's daughter, Alison, a pharmacologist. Laid in is a 16-page booklet of an obituary speech delivered by Todd for Dale, printed in both English and German. Roy MacLeod, "Margaret Mary Gowing CBE FBA. 26 April 1921 - 7 November 1998", Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 5867-111, 2012. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt on black ground framed in gilt. With dust jacket. Offered together with a 16-page booklet in original blue wrappers and near-contemporary reproducti
