Submitted by Administrator on Sun, 28/04/2013 - 10:12
Professor John Mollon looks back to a significant event in the history of the Department
On 14th May, 1913, the Special Board for Moral Science recommended to the University that "...subject to the continuance in office of the present Director of the Psychological Laboratory, an Assistant in Experimental Psychology be appointed for a period of five years from 1 October, 1913 at a salary of £175 per annum."
The Director, Charles Myers of Caius, having himself raised the funds for the Laboratory, had long been pressing the University to provide him with an assistant; and the University had long avoided this grave expense. But now the Special Board wrote: "The subject of Experimental Psychology is of great and growing importance, not only for its own sake and in relation to Moral Sciences Studies, but also in connexion with other departments – such as Education and Medicine. The new Psychological Laboratory, opened at the beginning of the Michaelmas Term, has at length provided the University with excellent accommodation and equipment for psychological work. Few Universities have a building so admirably fitted for the purpose."
One minor problem was that the proposed salary of £175 p.a. was more than they paid Myers himself, but the Board took comfort in the fact that there was a precedent in the case of Astrophysics. And so, in September 1913, the first Assistant was duly appointed. His name was Cyril Burt.