Chemsitry Was Their Life: Pioneer British Women Chemists, 1880-1949

561 Pages·2009·2.67 MB·English

by  Geoff Rayner-Canham

Chemistry

Was Their Life
Pioneer British Women Chemists,
1880–1949
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Chemistry

Was Their Life
Pioneer British Women Chemists,
1880–1949
by
Marelene Rayner-Canham
Geoff Rayner-Canham
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Imperial College Press
ICP
Published by
Imperial College Press
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Covent Garden
London WC2H 9HE
Distributed by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
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UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
CHEMISTRY WAS THEIR LIFE
Pioneer British Women Chemists, 1880–1949
Copyright © 2008 by Imperial College Press
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.
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ISBN-13978-1-86094-986-9
ISBN-101-86094-986-X
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Email: [email protected]
Printed in Singapore.
Wanda - Chemistry was their life.pmd 1 12/12/2008, 6:33 PM
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Acknowledgements
Our research could never have been successful without the help
of the archivists at each of the many institutions we have visited
to undertake the research. They responded promptly to our
e-mail enquiries, and during our visits we found the rarely
accessed material needed for our investigations. In addition, we
must express our gratitude to the long-suffering Ms. Elizabeth
Behrens, Associate University Librarian, Sir Wilfred Grenfell
College (SWGC), Memorial University (MUN), Corner Brook,
Newfoundland, Canada, who, over decades, has tracked
down copies of articles from long-defunct journals and found
interlibrary loan sources for equally obscure late 19th- and early
20th-century books. For each major quotation, we have done our
best to obtain copyright permission.
Through the many years that our research was in progress,
the Administration at SWGC and the Research Office at MUN
have been very supportive. In particular, we thank Memorial
University for a MUN Vice-President’s/Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council grant for U.K. travel in 1998, and
Sir Wilfred Grenfell College for a SWGC Principal’s research
grant to support U.K. travel in 2001. Memorial University has
a campus at Old Harlow, Essex, and we have been fortunate to
sojourn there each time we have had the opportunity to visit the
U.K. to hunt down primary material. In this context, we wish to
thank the staff at the Harlow Campus for their hospitality and
helpfulness. Our travel needs, primarily the indispensable
BritRail passes, were organised by the unflappable Ms. Frances
Drover, LeGrow’s Travel, Corner Brook.
v
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vi Chemistry Was Their Life
It is vital to have other pairs of eyes survey the manuscript,
and we have been particularly fortunate in finding three indi-
viduals who generously gave up their time to provide a different
perspective on shortcomings of our first drafts. They were
Dr. David Waddington, Professor (retired), Chemical Education,
University of York, York; Dr. Hannah Gay, Professor (retired),
History of Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British
Columbia, Canada and Imperial College, London; and Dr. David
Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor, Centre for the History of
Science, Technology and Medicine, Imperial College, London, all
of whom gave helpful comments on the manuscript. Though we
like to think we have reasonable competence in the English lan-
guage, we wisely asked a professional English scholar,
Ms. Heather (Doody) Wellman, to read the final manuscript and
make constructive grammatical and punctuation corrections.
Finally, we are grateful to Imperial College Press and World
Scientific Publishing for publishing (and hosting the accompa-
nying website) what we contend is an important missing piece
of the historical record in British chemistry. In particular,
Ms. Lizzie Bennett, Imperial College Press, is thanked for her
enthusiasm and encouragement; and Ms. Wanda Tan, World
Scientific Publishing Company, is thanked for her excellent
editing and proofreading.
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Contents
Acknowledgements v
Introduction 1
Documentation 1
The Pioneer Women Chemists 2
Setting the Scene 4
The Colleges and Universities 5
Favoured Fields for Women Chemists 7
Options for Women Chemists 8
Commentary 9
1. Getting an Education 11
Education for Girls 11
Pioneering Schools 13
North London Collegiate School 15
The Girls’ Public Day Schools 17
Cheltenham Ladies’ College 19
King Edward VI High School for Girls 21
Manchester High School for Girls 23
Chemistry in the Girls’ Schools 24
Which Schools Produced Women 27
Chemistry Students?
What Sort of Science? 29
University for Women? 33
The New Girl 33
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viii Chemistry Was Their Life
University Women: For and Against 35
Who Went to University? 38
The Choice of University 40
School–University Links 41
Commentary 42
2. The Professional Societies 53
The London Chemical Society 54
The Society for Analytical Chemistry 55
Isabel Hadfield 55
The Royal Institute of Chemistry 56
Emily Lloyd 56
Rose Stern 57
The Biochemical Society 58
Ida Smedley (Mrs. Smedley Maclean) 58
Harriette Chick 61
The Chemical Society 62
The 1904 Petition 64
The Effect of the Petition 68
The Proponents and Opponents of Women’s 72
Admission
The 1909 Letter 74
The Lesser-Known Signatories of the Letter 77
Admission at Last 78
The Lesser-Known Initial Members 79
The Women Chemists’ Dining Club 82
The Royal Society 84
Commentary 87
3. The London Co-educational Colleges 95
Admission of Women to the University of London 95
Examinations
University College 98
Emily Aston 98
Katherine Burke 99
Other Women Researchers 100
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Contents ix
King’s College 101
The Women’s Department of King’s College 102
Margaret Seward (Mrs. McKillop) 105
Chemistry at the King’s College 107
of Household and Social Science
Helen Masters 108
Marion Soar 109
Agnes Browne (Mrs. Jackman) 109
Mary Thompson (Mrs. Clayton) 110
The Laboratory of Professor Huntington 111
Battersea Polytechnic 112
Mary Corner 115
East London College (Queen Mary College) 115
Kathleen Balls 116
Cecilie French 116
Dorothea Grove 118
Imperial College 119
Women Chemistry Students 120
Martha Whiteley 122
Margaret Carlton 124
Frances Micklethwait 124
Helen Archbold (Mrs. Porter) 125
Commentary 127
4. The London Women’s Colleges 135
Queen’s College, Harley Street 135
Bedford College 137
The Founding of the Chemistry 137
Department
Women Staff of the 1920s 139
Mary Lesslie 141
Violet Trew 143
The Next Generation of Women Staff 145
Women Chemistry Students 146
Edith Humphrey 148
Rosalind Henley (Mrs. Pitt-Rivers) 150