Lorna Arnold - United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)

Lorna joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 1959, and worked on the Windscale Accident Commission. Later, she would write a book about the Windscale accident, Windscale 1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1992). In the AHSB her first job was as a joint secretary of a committee on training in radiological protection, set up as a result of the Windscale accident. At the AHSB she worked for the first UKAEA Director of Health and Safety, Dr Andrew MacLean, who had been the Chief Medical Officer at Risley during the Windscale Fire and was to become the first Director of the National Radiological Protection Board on its formation in 1971.

In 1960 she transferred to the UKAEA Health & Safety branch.

In 1967 Lorna joined the UKAEA Historian's Office, initially working with the official historian, Margaret Gowing, who was then at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Lorna jointly authored the second part of the UKAEA official history with Professor Gowing, who became Regius Professor of the History of Science at Oxford. The monumental two volume treatise, “Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-1952”, which examined in detail the policy and execution of the UK atomic bomb project during 1945-1952 – the official history of the development and production of the first atomic bombs in this country was published in 1974. “Independence and Deterrence” is still in print today.

Eventually Lorna Arnold took over the role of official historian of the UKAEA, and wrote various books and articles on British nuclear programs, both civil and military. She worked at the UKAEA sites in London, Harwell, and Aldermaston, but her collaborations with American, European, and - eventually - Russian scientists and historians took her all over the world, from Vienna to Los Alamos.