Alexander William Bickerton

Professor Alexander William Bickerton was the first professor of Chemistry at Canterbury College in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is best known for teaching and mentoring Ernest Rutherford. He was a natural teacher though an eccentric one, who taught science in an exciting way. His differences werent limited to teaching as he formed a socialist community in Christchurch, which he later set up as a theme park. His partial impact theory explaining the appearance of temporary stars was the major work of his lifetime.

Alexander William Bickerton, was born onJanuary 1842, at Alton in Hampshire, England, the second son of Richard Bickerton, a builders clerk, and Sophia Eames. His parents had both died before he left school. After not excelling at grammar school his uncle found him work in a railway workshop and later he worked in an engineering office. With inheritance money he set up a woodworking factory using machines that he had invented, but by 1864 the factory was in debt.

Source: Wikipedia