Situated on State Highway 6 at Brightwater about 20km from Nelson going West is the Rutherford Memorial.

The memorial to scientist Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937)  features a statue of him as a young boy. Rutherford was born at nearby Spring Grove. His family moved to the Wai-iti valley, near Foxhill, when he was five, and to Havelock when he was 11. He won a scholarship to Nelson College in 1883 and went on to Canterbury College before going overseas in 1895. For his research into the chemistry of radioactive substances Rutherford was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1908. Considered to be New Zealand’s greatest scientist, he made outstanding contributions to science including the Rutherford–Bohr nuclear model of the atom. He was also the first to split the atom.

Its a very interesting Memorial to stop at. It has quite a number of story boards and photographs of his life and work.  It took me almost an hour to read it all as I did have a personal interest of old with his achievements. It's always nice to learn more about our most famous.