Professor William Lawrence Bragg, c mid-20th century

Sir William Lawrence Bragg, born 31 March 1890, died 1 July 1971. Bragg was an Australian-born, British physicist, who won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics with his father William Henry Bragg, for their services to the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays. He is also known for Bragg’s law (1913). He is the youngest ever Nobel laureate in any science as of 2025, having been 25 at the time of award. Bragg attended the University of Adelaide at the age of 16, graduating in 1908. In 1908, his father accepted a position at the University of Leeds, and the family moved to England. Bragg then enrolled at the University of Cambridge at Trinity College, receiving a scholarship. He graduated with first class honours in 1911. He then was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College in 1914. Bragg was commissioned om WWI, and worked on sound ranging to locate enemies from the sound of their gunfire. For his work in WWI, he was awarded the Military Cross and was appointed as an OBE. Bragg married Alice Hopkinson in 1921, and they had four children. He worked for the University of Manchester between 1919 to 1937, after which Bragg returned to Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. During WWII, Bragg served as a civilian advisor for hot wire sound ranging. He worked at Cambridge until 1954, and then worked for the Royal Institution in London until 1971. Famously, Bragg was the director of the Cavendish Lavatory at the University of Cambridge when Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA in 1953. Bragg died in 1971, aged 81. Bragg was given many awards in his lifetime, including the Royal Medal in 1946, and the Copley Medal in 1966. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1941.