Robert Hurst

Robert Hurst (3 January 1915 – 16 May 1996) was a New Zealand-born scientist. He was the first director of the experimental fast-breeder reactor complex at Dounreay, and later the director of the British Ship Research Association. During World War II, he worked in bomb disposal and mine detection, and was awarded the George Medal for his work as part of the team that defused the first V-1 flying bomb found intact in Britain.

Early life Hurst was born in Nelson, New Zealand, in 1915, the son of Percy Cecil Hurst, a commercial traveller, and his wife Margery Whitwell. He attended Nelson College from 1927 to 1932, and then was a student at Canterbury University College in Christchurch, from where he graduated with a Master of Science degree in physical chemistry in 1939. While at Canterbury, Hurst was a member of a student group assisting European Jews to escape the Nazis.

At the end of the war, Hurst saw service in Berlin, assisting with defusing unexploded Allied bombs.

Retirement and death Hurst retired to Poole, Dorset, in 1976, where he did voluntary work with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He died in 1996 following his third heart attack.