Abstract
What would happen to the British biological warfare programme after the Second World War? It was by no means obvious that research would continue. The anthrax cattle cakes and the rudimentary bomb were significant for their originality, but were nonetheless relatively modest achievements when compared with other wartime technologies such as atomic bombs, radar or operations research. Germany had neither employed biological warfare nor treated their research programme with any seriousness. Furthermore, as this chapter describes, many staff at the Biology Department Porton returned to civilian employment leaving the new Superintendent, David Henderson, with a struggling and emaciated organization.
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Notes
Harris, R. and Paxman, J. (1982) A Higher Form of Killing: the Secret Story of Gas and Germ Warfare (London: Chatto and Windus).
See Falk, Richard (1990) ‘Inhibiting Reliance on Biological Weaponry: the Role and Relevance of International Law’, in Wright, S. (ed.) Preventing a Biological Arms Race (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press) pp. 240–66;
McElroy, R.J. (1991) ‘The Geneva Protocol of 1925’, in Krepon, M. and Caldwell, D. (eds) The Politics of Arms Control Treaty Ratification (New York: St Martin’s Press — now Palgrave) pp. 125–66.
PRO, WO188/667. BW(47)32. Chiefs of Staff Committee, BW Subcommittee, Division of Responsibilities (3 November 1947). See also Johnson, F.A. (1980) Defence by Ministry (London: Duckworth) for a more general account of the organization of Government defence.
Edgerton, D. (1992) ‘Whatever Happened to the British Warfare State? The Ministry of Supply 1945–1951’ in Mercer, H., Rollings, N. and Tomlinson, J.D. (eds) Labour Governments and Private Industry: the Experience 1945–1951 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
PRO, WO188/667. BW(47)32. Chiefs of Staff Committee, BW Subcommittee, Division of Responsibilities (3 November 1947). See Agar, Jon and Balmer, Brian (1998) ‘British Scientists and the Cold War: the Defence Policy Research Committee and Information Networks, 1947–1963’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 28, 209–52.
For a general discussion of this theme see Jasanoff, J. (1987) ‘Contested Boundaries in Policy-Relevant Science’, Social Studies of Science, 17, 195–230;
also Krige, J. (1990) ‘Scientists as Policymakers: British Physicists “Advice” to Their Government on Membership of CERN (1951–1952)’ in Frängsmyr, T. (ed.) Solomon’s House Revisited: the Organization and Institutionalization of Science (Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications USA) pp. 270–91.
Agar, J. and Balmer, B. (1998) ‘British Scientists and the Cold War: the Defence Policy Research Committee and Information Networks, 1947–1963’, Historical Studies in the Physicial Sciences, 28, 209–52.
The commission had been established on 24 January 1946 to deal with ‘the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction’. See SPRI (1971) The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare. Vol. IV: CB Disarmament Negotiations 1920–1970 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell).
See Carter, G. (1992) Porton Down: 75 Years of Chemical and Biological Research (London: HMSO); PRO, WO 195/11643. AC11647/BRB91. BRAB. Report by the Chairman on the Work of the Board during 1951 (10 November 1951).
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© 2001 Brian Balmer
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Balmer, B. (2001). The Growth of Biological Warfare Research. In: Britain and Biological Warfare. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508095_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508095_4
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