Abstract
The article describes how the characteristic working pattern of the Cavendish Laboratory developed under the leadership of J.J. Thomson, being particularly stimulated by Rontgen's discovery and by the coincidental admission of research students from abroad, of whom Rutherford was among the first. The effect of two world wars is described, showing especially how the second led to a conscious diversification away from Rutherford's concentration on nuclear physics. As a result new initiatives in radioastronomy, low-temperature physics and, above all, molecular biology considerably widened the influence of the laboratory in world science. The account concludes with a brief resume of the relationship between mathematics and physics in Cambridge, Mott's restoration of theoretical physics to a central role in the Cavendish.