Women and the establishment of Biochemistry in the UK, 1900-

45

Robert B. FreedmanSchool of Life Sciences, Warwick University

Founder members of the Biochemical Society at its 21st anniversary (1932/3)

Websites and acknowledgements

The work was funded by the Biochemical Society and supported by the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of WarwickI wish to thank Prof Hilary Marland, Drs. Vicky Long and Stephen Soanes for their valuable contributions

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm/research_teaching/womenbiochemists

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm/research_teaching/early_women_biochem

Head and staff of King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham, 1884

Women authors of papers in the Biochemical Journal (1906-1939)

• Vols 1-8 of Biochem.J. (1906 – 1914) included papers by 25 women (50 papers in all)

• In the period to 1939, 372 women authored papers in the Biochem.J. (1025 papers in all)

• Prolific contributors: Katharine Hope Coward (42), Ida Smedley (35), Harriette Chick (34), Marjorie Helen Dennison (26), Gladys Annie Hartwell (23), Marjorie Stephenson (23)

• Key addresses: Lister Institute (56 women); Cambridge Biochemistry (27); UC London (25)

Revised Constitution of the Biochemical Society, October 1912

Election of the first women members of the Biochemical Society, Feb 1913

Women members of the Biochemical Society (to 1928)

• Summer 1913: 3 women members out of 147• 1913-15: More women elected (all proposed by men

members) and more women read papers at meetings • 12/06/15: Mary Cunningham elected, first to be

proposed exclusively by women members• Summer 1919: 21 women members out of 209; 4

identify themselves by married names (of whom 3 are married to members!); 14 give workplace addresses; Ida Smedley is committee member

• 1928: Ida Smedley is first woman Chair of Society

Ida Smedley, campaigner for women’s equal status and multiple pioneer

Ida Smedley’s career (1877-1944)• Born into cultured Birmingham family; sister (Constance) a novelist

and feminist activist• King Edward VI HSG (1886), Newnham College Cambridge (1896),

briefly studies Medicine, then Chemistry (Bathurst Studentship); D.Sc. London (1905)

• Assistant Lecturer in Chemistry at Manchester Uni (1906) then Beit Scholar at Lister Inst; work on fats and lipid metabolism.

• Marries collaborator Hugh Maclean (1913) and has son and daughter; publishes extensively through 1920s and 1930s

• Campaigns on women’s issues and is multiple ‘first woman to…’; President of Biochemical Society (1927/8); Council of Chemical Society (1931); Founder-Secretary of British Federation of University Women (1907) and later President (1919, 1929-35)

Muriel Wheldale in her laboratory

Muriel Wheldale’s career (1880-1932)

• King Edward VI HSG Birmingham, then Newnham College Cambridge (1900), Bathurst Research Studentship (1904)

• Lecturer in Botany, Bristol Uni (1906-08) then returns to Cambridge as Demonstrator at the Balfour Laboratory (1909-14) and Research Fellow at Newnham College

• Early Mendelian; from 1911, works with Bateson at the John Innes (Merton), researching genetics of flower pigments

• Joins FG Hopkins’ group in Biochemistry (1914), with vision of linking genetics to biochemistry (via plant pigments)

• Marries collaborator Huia Onslow (1919-1922)• Publishes ‘The Anthocyanin Pigments of Plants’ (from 1916) and

‘Practical Plant Biochemistry’ (from 1920), ‘Principles of Plant Biochemistry’ (1931)

• Appointed Lecturer in Biochemistry, Cambridge (1926)

Muriel Wheldale as a member of Gowland Hopkins’ group in Cambridge

Marjory Stephenson (with Judith) outside the Cambridge Biochemistry Department

Marjory Stephenson’s career (1885-1948)

• Home schooling, then Newnham (1903-06)• Teaches in women’s domestic science colleges (1906-11), then invited to

UCL (by Plimmer) to research nutrition/metabolism• Wins Beit Fellowship (1913); puts it on hold for Red Cross war service --

nursing and organizing field hospital kitchens (France and Salonika); awarded MBE for work on invalid diets

• Continues Fellowship (1919); moves to Cambridge to work with Hopkins; applies his concept of ‘general biochemistry’ to bacteria; microbiology as basic science, not only in applied medical, agricultural or industrial context

• External MRC staff at Cambridge (1929); publishes ‘Bacterial Metabolism’ (1930); awarded Sc.D. (1936); appointed to Lectureship (1943); one of first two women elected FRS (1945)

The keen gaze of the founder of microbial biochemistry

Factors contributing to women’s progress in Biochemistry?

• Advances in secondary education for girls and access to higher education

• Women-only learning environments?• Novelty and lack of hierarchy of the subject?• ‘Appropriateness’ of the subject cf. traditional

female roles in hygiene, nutrition, botany?• Sympathetic, influential male mentors; creators of

woman-friendly environments• Positive and supportive women’s networks

Head and staff of King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham, 1884

The Balfour Laboratory for Women, Cambridge (1884-1914)

Was Biochemistry unusually open and non-exclusive?

• Chemistry and Physiology were older fields, but women had to battle longer and wait far later to gain membership of the Chemical Society and Physiological Society

• Chemistry and Physiology were directly linked to working lives in industry and medicine --- technical and professional fields with well-established male hierarchical structures

• Was it just that Biochemistry was new (lacking these established hierarchies)? That it attracted less rigid men? Or was it viewed as a ‘Domestic Science’?

Charles Martin and F. Gowland Hopkins: early supporters of women biochemists

The Lister Institute building today(now the private Lister Hospital)

Scientific staff of the Lister Institute, 1907

By 1933, 40% of the scientists at the Lister Institute are women

Hopkins’ research group, 1916

The Biochemistry Department, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge

‘Brighter Biochemistry’ notes the inevitability of workplace relationships

Joseph Needham and Dorothy Moyle on their wedding day, 1924

Stephenson, Wheldale and Moyle:Cambridge women in the front rank?

Dorothy (Moyle) Needham’s career (1896-1987)

• Girton, Cambridge (1915); attended Hopkins’ lectures on muscle metabolism; muscle and Cambridge from then on

• Research with Hopkins (1920) on interconversion of glycogen and lactate, then (independently as Beit Fellow) on general muscle metabolism, phosphate transfer, actomyosin

• Married Joseph Needham, developmental biologist (1924); married for 63 years, despite unusual pressures!

• Sino-British co-operation in wartime Chungking (1944-46)• Published ‘The Biochemistry of Muscle’ (1932) and ‘Machina Carnis’

(1971); FRS (1948)• ‘Lifelong multifarious involvements in humanitarian action and

progressive politics’. ‘She retained a certain innocence and freedom from worldliness.’

Dorothy Needham (Moyle)as meeting organizer, 1934

Dorothy Needham (Moyle) reflects

• “Looking back … I find it remarkable ... that although a fully-qualified and full-time investigator, I never received – or even applied for – any substantive post. I simply existed on one research grant after another, devoid of position, rank or assured emolument. In other words, I belong to that generation for whom it was calmly assumed that married women would be supported financially by their husbands, and if they chose to work in the laboratory all day and half the night, it was their own concern.”

Marjorie Stephenson and Dorothy Needham, both FRS and full Cambridge academics, 1948