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Rutherford was born in New Zealand's Tasman district to James and Martha Thompson Rutherford.
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While still in college at Canterbury (University of New Zealand), he invented a new type of radio receiver and was awarded a research fellowship.
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This fellowship, bestowed by the Royal Commission, allowed him to attend graduate school at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory.
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His work at Cavendish included research that allowed him to identify radio waves from over half a mile, which was a world record at that time for electromagnetic wave detection.
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He lost this distinction in 1896 to Marconi.
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In 1898, Rutherford was awarded the opportunity to become a physics professor at McGill University in Montreal.
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He returned to England in 1907 to head the physics department at University of Manchester.
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After returning to Cavendish in 1919 as department chair, several Nobel prizes were awarded to researchers in his department for different contributions to physics.
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Rutherford served as President of the Royal Society before becoming president of the Academic Assistance Council. This council was responsible for securing almost 1,000 refugee students from universities in Germany.
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The work that Rutherford both did and oversaw in his various academic leadership roles is responsible for the current understanding of the nuclear level structure of atoms. Under his leadership over his students, the first experiment in splitting an atom was a success, as was the discovery of the neutron.
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Element 104, rutherfordium, is named after him.
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Despite his designation as the father of nuclear physics, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908.
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He is believed to be the only Nobel Prize recipient to conduct his most famous research after earning the Prize for a different line of research.
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Rutherford was knighted in 1914 for his contributions in science, and inducted as a member of the Order of Merit. These titles expired upon his death.
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