Malcolm Nokes

Malcolm Nokes

Malcolm Nokes in 1923
Personal information
Born 20 May 1897
Edmonton, London, Great Britain
Died 22 November 1986 (aged 89)
Alton, Hampshire, England
Sport
Sport Athletics
Event(s) Discus throw, hammer throw
Club Achilles Club
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s) DT – 38.43 m (1927)
HT – 52.75 m (1923)[1][2]

Malcolm Cuthbert Nokes MC MA BSc (20 May 1897 – 22 November 1986) was a British schoolteacher, soldier, research scientist and Olympic athlete, who competed in the hammer throw and discus throw.

He won the bronze medal in the hammer throw at the 1924 Summer Olympics. Four years later he finished eleventh in the 1928 Olympic hammer throw competition. In 1923 he beat the British hammer throw record, but did so in a demonstration rather than a competition, so his throw did not count for record purposes.[3]

He won the gold medal for England in the 1930 British Empire Games in the hammer throw contest and finished fifth in the discus throw event. At the 1934 British Empire Games he won again the gold medal in the hammer throw competition.[1]

Nokes was the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) Champion from 1923 to 1926 and placed second in 1921–22 and 1927–28.[1] He was chairman of the AAA's Coaching Committee, and also a member of the Achilles Club.

He was a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied chemistry and wrote a thesis on metaphenetidine. Nokes served in the World War I in the Royal Artillery in the trenches and then as an observer in the Royal Flying Corps. He was awarded a Military Cross for his service,[1] becoming MC Nokes MC. In the Second World War he served as an officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (Training Branch) while a schoolmaster.[4]

He taught chemistry at Malvern College and later at Harrow School, where he was appointed Head of Science. His practical demonstrations of the reaction of sodium with water were popular and famous among his pupils. These often entailed an explosion as MC Nokes put more than the recommended quantity of sodium into the water, and as the smoke cleared and noise subsided, MC Nokes would say "Note the small report." He was a member of the Science Masters' Association.[5] Later he worked at Harwell and then was Head of Laboratories[6] at CENTO Institute of Nuclear & Applied Science in Tehran. In retirement he lived in Honiton, Devon, and then in Alton, Hampshire. His nicknames included "Nokey", "Glaxo" and "Stally."

The chronology of his career was:

During his time at Harrow, he served as a councillor in what is now Harrow London Borough Council, being elected as a Conservative for the ward of Harrow-on-the-Hill & Greenhill.[9] During his service as a borough councillor, he proposed and was instrumental in bringing into service one of the first electric dust carts to be used in England, as part of the modernization of public health services in Harrow.

He married Elizabeth, and is survived by two sons.

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Malcolm Nokes. sports-reference.com
  2. Malcolm Nokes. trackfield.brinkster.net
  3. "Record Hammer Throw". Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (1884–1942), 22 August 1923, Page 12.
  4. London Gazette, supplement, 21 May 1946. p. 2398. Royal Air Force service number 86246. Resigned commission 1 May 1946.
  5. New Scientist. 26 December 1957. p. 7.
  6. M.C. Nokes (1963) Demonstrations in Modern Physics. Heinemann Educational Books.
  7. Bishop's Stortford College, Website, page "OS Olympians", retrieved 2 July 2015
  8. Magdalene College, Oxford University, Archives of Magdalene College, "MC:P229 Photograph Album of Malcolm Cuthbert Nokes (1897–1986)"
  9. Gray, Colin. Website "Elections in Harrow 1894–2015", Entry for 1954, Appendix A, Retrieved 2 July 2015, "Members of Harrow Council seeking Re-election, 1954"
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