Background
Rivett was born on December 4, 1885, at Portuguese Esperance, Tasmania, Australia. Rivett was the son of a Congregational clergyman, Albert Rivett, who immigrated to Australia from Norwich, England, in 1879, and Elizabeth Cherbury.
University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Rivett was educated at the University of Melbourne, where he majored in chemistry. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours in 1909, and a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours in 1910.
1935
Rivett was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St GeorgeOrder of St Michael and St George.
Sir David Cherbury Rivett, CSIR Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Russell Grimwade, donor of lathe, and Mr. Boas, Chief, CSIR Division of Forest Products, on the occasion of the peeling of the first log in the Veneer Laboratory. Source: CSIRO Archives.
Examining an electron diffraction camera. From left: David Rivett, Richard Gardiner Casey (Minister in Charge of CSIRO), Ian Clunies Ross (CSIRO Chairman), and Walter Moritz Boas (Chief, CSIRO Division of Tribophysics). Photo: CSIRO.
Wesley College, St Kilda Road, Glen Waverley & Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia
Rivett was first educated at Wesley College in Melbourne.
University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Rivett was educated at the University of Melbourne, where he majored in chemistry. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours in 1909, and a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours in 1910.
Sir Albert Cherbury David Rivett
Royal Society, London, England, United Kingdom
Rivett was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941.
administrator chemist scientist
Rivett was born on December 4, 1885, at Portuguese Esperance, Tasmania, Australia. Rivett was the son of a Congregational clergyman, Albert Rivett, who immigrated to Australia from Norwich, England, in 1879, and Elizabeth Cherbury.
Rivett was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, and at the University of Melbourne, where he majored in chemistry. In 1907 Rivett was elected Rhodes Scholar for Victoria. At Oxford, where he shared a laboratory bench with Henry Tizard, he studied physical chemistry under Sidgwick and obtained the Bachelor of Arts in 1909 and the Bachelor of Science in 1910. During 1910 he worked under Arrhenius at the Nobel Institute of Physical Chemistry in Stockholm, where he broadened his research interest in equilibria within heterogeneous systems. He obtained his Doctor of Science degree in 1913 from the University of Melbourne.
In 1911 Rivett returned to Australia as a lecturer in the chemistry department of the University of Melbourne. During World War I, Rivett worked on the production of ammonium nitrate at the government munition works in Swindon, England. He later became an associate professor of chemistry at Melbourne (1921) and succeeded to the chair of chemistry (1924). He published Phase Rule and the Study of Heterogeneous Equilibria (1923). In 1927 he left the university to take up a full-time post at the newly formed Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Australian colonial legislatures gave scant support to science. But federation at the turn of the century and the influence of the war encouraged the concept of national scientific development, and the Institute of Science and Industry was founded by an act of Parliament in 1920. The plan proved ineffectual; and it was not until 1926 that a new, liberally endowed and politically independent organization, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, was established by the federal government to direct and encourage scientific research in the agricultural and pastoral industries, to train scientific workers, and to serve as a liaison with governments and scientific institutes abroad.
As chief executive officer and deputy to the chairman, Sir George Julius, a practical engineer, Rivett exercised responsibility for initiating programs of research in animal health and nutrition; parasites and pests; economic botany; soil and pasture improvement; food preservation; forests and fisheries; and, with the decision of the government in 1937 to extend scientific and technical assistance to secondary industry, develop a national standards laboratory and establish divisions of industrial chemistry, aeronautics, and radiophysics. Rivett’s own scientific background influenced his approach.
He placed a marked emphasis on original and fundamental research; gave broad responsibility to his division chiefs; and sought to ease the deep-rooted tensions between the modestly funded universities and the growing colossus of government science. His conviction that science could flourish only in an atmosphere of free and open inquiry led to the ultimate separation of the aeronautical division from the council in the late 1940s. Conceding little, Rivett was thus able to give his organization a remarkable measure of independence from the normal machinery of government.
After his father died when he was young, Rivett spent his formative years with a Quaker. After completing a theology course at Harley College, East London, he was sent to Australia in 1879 by the Colonial Missionary Society. He was temporarily at the Independent Church, Brunswick, Melbourne. In 1915 he resigned from Whitefield Congregational Church, Sydney, because of growing differences with church officials over his attitude to World War I.
Rivett was a strong proponent of freedom of expression in scientific matters; his stand on this point was, unfortunately, misinterpreted by some.
Rivett was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941. From 1954, he was a founding fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
Sir David Rivett was frank and forthright in expressing his views, exceedingly approachable with colleagues or subordinates, ever helpful to those in trouble, and an aspiration to those of his research staff who had contact with him. Unfortunately, his administrative duties did not allow him to visit the research workers in their laboratories as much as he would have liked.
In 1911 Rivett married Stella Deakin, the second daughter of former Prime Minister of Australia Alfred Deakin. Sir David and Lady Rivett had two children: journalist Rohan Deakin Rivett (1917–1977) and academic economist Doctor Kenneth Deakin Rivett (1923–2004).