Tag Archives: women in science

The catalogue of the archive of Dr Emilie Savage-Smith – available soon!

Dr Emilie Savage-Smith is a historian of science specialising in Islamic celestial globes. Islamic celestial globes are spherical maps of the sky that give the viewer a ‘God’s’ eye view of the stars and constellations, with Earth at the centre, originating from lands where Islam was the predominant religion.

Celestial globe

Savage-Smith graduated from DePauw University in 1962 and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969. She was professor of the History of Islamic Science in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2019, and a fellow and archivist of St Cross College, Oxford, 2004-2021.

She has authored several books, including Islamicate Celestial Globes: Their History, Construction and Use, 1985. She was named a fellow of the British Academy, 2010, and the Medieval Academy of America, 2020.

Celestial globe

This collection is the largest research archive of material on Islamic celestial globes in the world, with over two-hundred globes and instruments dating back to 1080 featured. It comprises her papers, photographs and drawings collected over the course of her career. Her collection of objects was donated to the History of Science Museum.

This collection will be available soon.

Catalogue of the archive of Dr Emilie Savage-Smith

Science in the Islamic World | History of Science Museum

 

A flying woman

Letter from the Viceroy of India to the 6th Earl of Clarendon, 1932

Letter from the Viceroy of India to the 6th Earl of Clarendon, 1932 [click to enlarge]

My dear Bertie

writes the Viceroy of India to his friend the 6th Earl of Clarendon in a letter of 15 March 1932:

Thanks so much for your letter, & the personal one enclosed. My poor boy has had a very rough time, & the girl appears to have gone mad about this pilot. […] it will be hard for him to start again all alone. I really thought my two young people were the happiest couple in the world.

When I read an opener like that I lean in for the whole story: please continue, Viceroy! But that, sadly, is all he divulges about the girl or her pilot.

Luckily, it was not difficult to find out more.

The ‘poor boy’ was the Viceroy’s son, Inigo Freeman-Thomas, and the girl was Maxine “Blossom” Miles. And she, it turns out, led an absolutely fascinating life.

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New catalogue – Oxford Women in Computing: An Oral History project

The catalogue of the Oxford Women in Computing oral history project is now available online.

This oral history project captures the experiences of 10 pioneering women who were active in computing research, teaching and service provision between the 1950s and 1990s, not only in Oxford, but at national and international levels. The rationale for the project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, through grants held by Professor Ursula Martin, was that women had participated in very early stages of computing; aside from a few exceptions their stories had not been captured – or indeed told. Among the interviewees are Eleanor Dodson, methods developer for Protein Crystallography and former research technician for Dorothy Hodgkin and Linda Hayes, former Head of User Services at the Oxford University Computing Service – now University of Oxford IT services. Leonor Barroca left Portugal in 1982 as a qualified electrical engineer to follow a boyfriend to Oxford – later that year she was one of three women on the university’s MSc in Computing course. Leonor also worked briefly as a COBOL (common business-oriented language) programmer for the Bodleian Libraries.

Themes throughout the interviews, which were conducted in 2018 by author and broadcaster Georgina Ferry, include:

  • career opportunities and early interests in computing
  • gender splits in computing
  • the origins and development of computing teaching and research in Oxford
  • development of the University of Oxford’s Computing Service and the commercial software house the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG).

The Oxford Women in Computing oral histories serve as a source for insight into nearly half a century of women’s involvement in computing at Oxford and beyond.  The collection will particularly be of use to those interested in gender studies and the history of computing.

The interviews can be listened to online though University of Oxford podcasts here.

Communications programmer Esther White in the early days of the University of Oxford’s Computing Service. © University of Oxford

 

 

IHR History Day 2018: Exploring our collections

Ahead of History Day 2018, in which the Bodleian will be in attendance, we thought we would explore the Bodleian Libraries Special Collections by asking our colleagues which items in the Special Collections are their favourites and why. The Bodleian Libraries’ Special Collections (at the Weston Library) holds the second largest collection of manuscripts and archives in Britain, the library holds collections in the following subject areas:

For a full breakdown of subjects see the Weston Library’s subject guides.

The following responses showcase the variety and depth of the materials held at the Bodleian, and also provide a unique insight into those that work with collections on a day to day basis.

Catherine McIlwaine, Archivist: Hodgkin’s Nobel Prize

Dorothy Hodgkin was an extraordinary chemist and x-ray crystallographer. During her long career at Oxford, as a Fellow at Somerville College, she determined the structure of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. In 1964 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. She received the news when she was in Ghana visiting her husband, Thomas. They sent a telegram to their daughter, Liz, who was teaching at a school in Zambia, and to keep costs down, they sent the shortest possible message, ‘Dorothy nobel chemistry’!. She is still the only British female scientist to have received a Nobel Prize.

                                       Telegram sent to Dorothy Hodgkin, 1964

The Bodleian holds an extensive archive relating to her life and career and this telegram is part of an additional donation of family papers made in 2014 by her daughter Liz.
MS. Eng. c. 8262, fol. 134

Charlotte McKillop-Mash, Project archivist: Admiral Lord John Fisher’s letter

This is an August 1912 letter from 71-year old former first sea lord Admiral Lord John Fisher to Francis Hopwood, who was a senior civil servant serving as an additional civil lord of the Admiralty.

Fisher retired from the Admiralty in 1910 but kept himself busy by chairing a royal commission on fuel oil, strongly advocating for Britain to build more submarines, and firing off effusive and opinionated letters about rearmament. An unorthodox and radical reformer during his time in the Admiralty, Fisher was a ferociously energetic and outspoken man who, unsurprisingly, alienated plenty of his colleagues along the way.

Fisher was often outspoken in his opinions, which on occasion caused alarm. Perhaps the most notorious example was his recommendation to Edward VII in 1904 that the British should ‘Copenhagen’ the German fleet—that is, emulate the example of Nelson and attack the German fleet in Kiel before it grew too powerful [DNB]

In 1914 Winston Churchill, then first lord of the Admiralty, re-appointed Fisher as first sea lord.

The Letter reads:

Eng. c. 7351/4, fol. 48, recto

Dear Hopwood – Lane’s letter splendid! I’ve written to him. All our experts want shoving over the precipice! I heard one d-d fool the other day say “Well, thank God! We’ve not killed 15 men like the Nuremberg firm in experiments with internal combustion engines!” We ought to be heartily ashamed that we have not killed any one!

What we want is a real bloody war to re-invigorate us!

The real serious thing is that the Germans will have 14 vessels at sea with the Internal Combustion Engines before we have one, thus gaining inestimable experience. We are awfully behind!

Eng. c. 7351/4, fol. 48, verso

And we are going deliberately to order steam oil-tankers instead of their being one & all fitted with oil engines! It’s damnable! All to save a little money – no other reason! All our experts expect the Internal Combustion Engine to be perfection before adoption. They strain at the gnat of perfection and swallow the camel of un-readiness! They expect the 100,000 Horse power Internal Combustion Engines of the 32 knot armoured cruiser “Non-Pareil” to emerge perfect like Minerva out of the head of Jupiter!

Yours till charcoal sprouts!

Fisher 24.8.12

The letter can be found in the Papers of Francis John Stephens Hopwood, Baron Southborough, 1737-1945. Shelfmark: Eng. c. 7351/4, fol. 48

 

Jeremy Mcllwaine, Senior Archivist: Conservative Party’s Official Christmas Card, 1938

My favourite item is from the Conservative Party Archive, it is the Conservative Party’s official Christmas card from 1938, when the Party was riding high in the polls on the back of Chamberlain’s success in preventing war over Czechoslovakia in September 1938, and features a facsimile of the supplementary agreement reached between Chamberlain and Hitler at Munich on 30th September, 1938.

Conservative Party’s Official Christmas Card, 1938 featuring Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler 

I like this item because it never fails to shock students when I show it to them during inductions on how to use archival material – not only because the idea of a British prime minister shaking hands and smiling with Hitler, who is wearing a swastika armband, seems so appalling, but because the Conservative Party chose to feature such a document within a Christmas card. But it also shows the danger of allowing hindsight to influence our interpretation of history. Chamberlain’s reputation has suffered ever since Munich because, as a policy, appeasement ultimately failed to prevent the Second World War. But at the time, there was widespread support in the country for avoiding war at all costs, even to the point of allowing Czechoslovakia to be sacrificed. On his return, Chamberlain received thousands of gifts from a grateful public, including a silver dinner service. Consideration was even given to calling a general election in order to reap the benefit of Chamberlain’s popularity, and the Conservatives would undoubtedly have won a landslide.

Historians will continue to debate appeasement and Chamberlain’s role in it, and whether, perhaps, he was right to pursue it, merely to buy Britain enough time to re-arm and prepare for War. The Christmas card is such a small document, but it represents so much controversy, not to mention a blatant example by a political party attempting to make political capital out of a crisis situation.

The postcard can be found in the Weston Library’s Conservative Party Archive, Shelfmark: CRD/D/3/1/3

Stuart Ackland, Bodleian Map Room: Clark’s Chart of the World

Population maps such as this are, in the field of cartography, a relatively recent product, with the first known examples being published in the early 1800s. Early maps would give tables showing population figures, this example from 1822 has one that is Christian only and colours parts of the World depending on the ‘Degrees of Civilization’.

Clark’s Chart of the World, 2nd ed, 1822. (E) B1 (151)

On the map’s coloured coded key the list of degrees of civilisations range from: ‘Savage’, ‘Barbarians’, ‘Half Civilised’, ‘Civilized’ and ‘Enlightened’.  In its religion section, the map  only covers Christianity (and its various denominations) and ‘Mahomedan’, with all others being listed as ‘Pagan’. The map provides a fascinating insight into British society’s views on the wider world in the 1800s.

Inset of Clark’s Map showing population table and legend

For other posts about the Bodleian’s maps see the The Bodleian Map Room blog.

Matthew Neely, Senior Archivist: The two Presidents

My favourite item is an entry for 11 June 1961 from Macmillan’s diary. In June 1961, John F. Kennedy arrived in London on his first visit as US President. Although somewhat apprehensive of the new youthful President, Macmillan and Kennedy soon forged a close relationship. Macmillan took the opportunity to record in his diary a comparison of his relationships with Eisenhower and Kennedy, contrasting the instinctive style of Eisenhower with the intellectually inquisitive approach of Kennedy.

Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

The entry can be found in the Catalogue of the papers of Harold Macmillan, 1889-1987 Shelfmark: Macmillan dep. d. 42, fol. 69

We look forward to seeing everyone at the Bodleian’s stand for History Day 2018  at Senate House, London on the 27th of March 2018 where we will be sharing information about our collections. Make sure to come and say hello.

Co-edited by Carl Cooper and Ben Peirson-Smith.

New catalogue: Archive of Dame Louise Johnson

The online catalogue of the Archive of Dame Louise Johnson is now available.

‘[T]he moment comes when you actually solve a problem—it may be quite a small problem—but for a few moments you stand there and think “Nobody else knows this but me”.’ – Dame Louise Johnson

RESEARCH

Never one to shy away from a challenge Dame Louise Napier Johnson (1940–2012), biophysicist and structural biologist, spent her long career solving many problems; mostly in the field of structural enzymology that she helped create.

One of the first she solved was when she, David Phillips, and Charles Vernon described the enzyme lysozyme and how it bound its substrates at a special meeting of the Royal Institution in 1965. This was at a time when structural biology was in its infancy and lysozyme was the second protein and first enzyme to have its structure elucidated. It was also the first time that the mechanism through which enzymes worked on a structural level was described.

Notes on the structure of lysozyme.

Notes on the structure of lysozyme.

This was more than just an interesting theoretical exercise; it had far reaching implications and showed that understanding structure could help in understanding biological processes. Its practical application to drug discovery changed the face of pharmaceutical research. By the 1970s pharmacological researchers were using rational drug design and looking at protein receptors and their properties and binding potential. Knowing the structure of molecules, they could look for potential binding sites and postulate possible interactions. They could then look for analogues or ‘build’ new molecules specific to targeted binding sites.

She went on to tackle larger and more complex proteins like ribonuclease S and glycogen phosphorylase, but the tools of the time meant that it was a long hard slog. In order to examine these proteins they had to be crystallised to achieve high resolution images. These crystals did not last long and in the early days of structural biology protein structures were studied using diffractometers that took days to record data sets, often going through several crystals at a time.

DIAMOND LIGHT SOURCE

Needing faster and higher resolution data acquisition she turned to synchrotron radiation, which at the time was used primarily for studying purely physical phenomena. She championed the use of synchrotron radiation in the life sciences and was heavily involved in plans for the construction of a third generation synchrotron, Diamond Light Source, in the UK.

Breaking ground for the 250m long x-ray imaging and coherence beamline.

Breaking ground for the 250m long x-ray imaging and coherence beamline.

She came on board Diamond as the Director of Life Sciences because she believed that good research needed good infrastructure and support. She was heavily involved in planning and testing the beamlines, spearheaded a collaboration with Imperial College London to build the Membrane Protein Laboratory and secured funding for the Harwell Campus for visiting researchers.

Robotic sample changers on the MX beamlines.

Robotic sample changers on the MX beamlines.

Her tireless work saw the number of researchers working in structural biology at Diamond rise to its current 40%.

But she didn’t just support researchers with funding and facilities. While Director she continued as head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics where her sympathetic management and light hand brought the best out of her research group.

LABORATORY OF MOLECULAR BIOPHYSICS

In 1967 Johnson joined David Phillips at the newly founded Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics at Oxford University; succeeding him as department head in 1990. Johnson was a constant in a department which endured considerable turnover of staff. The nature of Johnson’s field was very dynamic and it was common for researchers to move to and from other institutions regularly throughout their careers. One of twenty senior staff in 1975; by 2000 she was the only one remaining.

As head, she supervised around 80 people with an outside grant income in 2000 of almost £7 Million; overseeing a successful graduate programme while maintaining a nurturing environment for students and staff alike.

She routinely organised over 50 in-house and general research seminars annually. Many of them focused on the laboratory’s very productive output. Between 1995-6 alone, more than 30 protein and virus structures were solved. She trained a generation of Oxford crystallographers; as evidenced by the plethora of Protein Data Bank entries (including many forms of glycogen phosphorylase and cell cycle CDK/cyclin complexes) deposited by her lab; and kept the department running smoothly when they inevitably departed.

Johnson endeavoured to be a role model for other women. It was source of pride for Louise Johnson that of the six senior faculty members in her laboratory, three were women. She was also a trustee of the Daphne Jackson fund for scientists returning to research after career breaks. In September 2007 a symposium was held in her honour to recognise her continuing achievements and contribution the University.

– Emily Chen and Sean Macmillan

CREDITS

The archive of Louise Johnson came to us through the Saving Oxford Medicine project which sought to discover and catalogue collections relating to Oxford that have had an impact on the medical sciences. These papers were kindly donated by Professor Elspeth Garman and Johnson’s son Umar Salam.

New catalogue: The archive of Mabel FitzGerald

The catalogue of the archive of Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald is now available online.

Mabel FitzGerald (1872-1973) was of one of the first women to attend classes in histology, physiology and other pre-medical subjects at the University of Oxford in the 1890s, and despite being denied the opportunity to take a degree or enter medical school, she embarked on an eventful career as a physiologist and clinical pathologist which led her from Oxford to Denmark, to Canada, the USA and Edinburgh.

FitzGerald Archive postcard

She became most recognized for her pioneering research on the physiology of breathing and her participation in the subsequently celebrated medical expedition to Pikes Peak, Colorado, in 1911. Her findings, gathered during extensive travels to remote Colorado mining towns, and published 1913 as The Changes in the Breathing and the Blood at Various High Altitudes, remain the accepted account until today of how the concentration of CO2 in the lung and haemoglobin vary with altitude in full acclimatization.

Working with Sir William Osler, John Scott Haldane, CS Sherrington and other eminent scientists, FitzGerald also successfully pursued an eclectic variety of other research interests from bacteriology and immunology to neuroanatomy and gastroenterology – for example, investigating (…and discovering!) the origin of hydrochloric acid in the gastric tubules.
In 1915 FitzGerald took up a position as Clinical Pathologist at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and in 1920 was appointed Lecturer in Practical Bacteriology at the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges in Edinburgh. For years, she also sat on the Board of Management of the school, before retiring to Oxford in the mid-1930s.

Read more about FitzGerald’s extraordinary life, and her contributions to medical science, in our blog series.
Some of FitzGerald’s papers – relating to her work in Colorado – will be on display in the next Bodleian Treasures exhibition, which will open later this month.

In addition to Mabel FitzGerald’s personal and professional papers depicting the life and work of a female pioneer in science the archive contains family papers, diaries and correspondence dating back to the 18th century, revealing the history of a well-placed Hampshire/Buckinghamshire of notable standing in the community and many connections to renowned contemporaries.

Meet the FitzGeralds: Mabel (2nd left) with her siblings, her father Richard Purefoy FitzGerald (left) and grandmother Eliza (middle) at the family home North Hall, Preston Candover, c. 1890.

FitzGerald’s paternal grandmother, Sarah Anna Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ FitzGerald née Purefoy Jervoise was a ‘learned lady’ who corresponded with the poet Robert Browning and other literary and intellectual figures of the time, whilst the male members of the Purefoy-FitzGerald family pursued professional, academic or military (…and occasionally: cricket!) careers, adding their letters, notes and diaries to the family archive.

A treasure trove full of big adventures and little stories, scientific papers and family memorabilia, with much potential not only for research in the history of science and medicine, but also for military history, local history and genealogy.

The Wellcome Trust Research Bursaries scheme funds individuals working on small and medium-scale research projects that focus on library or archive collections supported by a Wellcome Trust Research Resources Grant – such as the FitzGerald Archive.

Please visit the Wellcome Trust website for further information.

Women in Science in the Archives: A seminar in pictures

Women in science and, indeed, scientists in general, are still underrepresented in the Bodleian’s archives, at least compared to our vast collections of political and literary papers. At the same time, scientists are often not aware of the ‘historical’ dimension of their work, the potential archival value of their lab notes, research proposals, publication drafts, professional and personal correspondence, CVs, funding applications, articles, photos, committee minutes, diaries … and the many other records they produce during their careers.

The Women in Science in the Archives Seminar, which took place at the Bodleian’s Weston Library on Thursday 8 September, was an attempt to bridge this archives / science divide — but first and foremost, it was a day of celebrating the achievements of historical female scientists in what used to be almost exclusively male-dominated disciplines, and exploring how archives can give a voice to those who are no longer able to speak for themselves. It was also an opportunity to invite today’s women of science into the archives, to discuss the lives and careers of female scientists in the early 21st century,  which kind of challenges they (still!) face, and not least, how these experiences can be preserved in the archives of the future.

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Event: Women in Science in the Archives, 8 September 2016

As part of the FitzGerald cataloguing project, we are organising an event around women in science in the archives, to take place on Thursday 8 September, at the Weston Library (Lecture Theatre) from 9.00am to 1.00 pm.

The half-day seminar will look at women’s engagement with science in the past through the Bodleian’s historical archives, trace the changing nature of their role, discuss the experiences of female scientists in the 21st century, and explore the challenges of preserving their archives in the future.

WiS image 10

Women in science, 1780-2016

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High-altitude research meets ostrich feathers: A letter from the 1911 Pikes Peak expedition

Mabel FitzGerald is today perhaps best known for her research into breathing at high altitude, in particular, for her work with J. S. Haldane and C. G. Douglas of Oxford, Y. Henderson of Yale, and E. C. Schneider of Colorado College on the Anglo-American expedition to Pikes Peak, Colorado.

During this expedition in Summer 1911, FitzGerald worked in Colorado Springs and then travelled Colorado’s mining towns to conduct research on the breathing of mining town residents over a range of altitudes from 6,000 to 10,780 feet above sea level, while her fellow researchers stayed at the summit house of Pikes Peak (14,110 feet above sea level) to investigate the process of acclimatisation of breathing to high altitude oxygen levels.

On 18 July 1911, about a week into the expedition, Mabel FitzGerald, writes from Colorado Springs to her sister Laura in Oxford:

Letter Mabel FitzGerald in Colorado Springs to her sister Laura in Oxford, 18 July 1919 (1v).

Letter Mabel FitzGerald to Laura FitzGerald, 18 July 1919 (1v). [Temp. box FitzGerald 3]

Written at the very early stages of the Pikes Peak Expedition, shortly after FitzGerald’s first brief visit to her colleagues at their temporary summit house laboratory on 16th July, the letter offers some wonderful insights into the day-to-day practicalities facing the researchers, FitzGerald’s own involvement as well as the more humdrum aspects of life during this time.

The letter does much to assert FitzGerald’s passion for science and scientific research as well as her sheer determination to continue in her scientific pursuits despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of such opportunities afforded to women at the time. Opening with a reference to the fact that she had been putting in a considerable number of hours in the laboratory, commencing work at “8.30 and leaving at about 8pm!”, FitzGerald describes a little later on (2r):

“I have not had a minute to do anything – but am enjoying the work immensely as we really are having great fun. Everyone is enjoying everything that comes along.”

Complaining of a slight headache she reassures her sister, (2r)

“…this is such a delightful experience that I do not regret decision.”

Part of the experience was a little self-experimentation where she walked with Dr Haldane, after dinner, up and down the steep part of the track from the summit which was used by her co-researchers as part of their experiments (2v)

“to see the effect on me. I could do it comparatively easily with heart going at 130. While his heart was only going at 96. And he was blowing and puffing!”

Indeed, it seems the men initially fared generally less well with FitzGerald ascribing a headache to Haldane and she states how Douglas “was laid low and Schneider did not know if he could hold on at all” with Henderson being the quickest to recover from the effects of altitude (2v).

Self experiments at Pikes Peak summit

While anticipating her own departure for Cripple Creek the following day Mabel appears to be armed solely with a letter of introduction from the president of the Portland mine in order to aid her in gaining entry into what was “a big gold mine which is the most difficult to get into” (3r).  Here she would monitor the breathing of mine workers and others living in the area.
Cripple Creek was one of the most significant mining regions in Colorado and at its peak in 1900 it was home to some 500 mines. Big mines like Portland, employing 700 workers, were connected to the railway, but some of the small mining camps FitzGerald set out to visit were very remote, and could only be reached on horseback or by foot.

Mabel FitzGerald's field notes from the Pikes Peak expedition, 1911.

Mabel FitzGerald’s field notes from the Pikes Peak expedition, 1911. [Temp. box FitzGerald 34]

This is in stark contrast to the Pikes Peak summit which boasted its own hotel accessed by cog railway and which afforded the men some home comforts for the duration of their work. FitzGerald describes how the summit house had granted them a private dining area “serving all the delicacies of the season” and bedrooms opening onto the laboratory (2v).

There was, however, the peril of the many day trippers who made the journey to the summit by rail. To keep them from disrupting the experiments in the laboratory, a practical measure was instituted by the team:

Mabel_3 cropped

At Pikes Peak summit: Portcullis…

“They have a barbed wire door which they call the portcullis which they put across as soon as the train comes” (3r). But this method of defence was clearly not fool proof as FitzGerald tells of how a lady asked to leave her hat in the laboratory which, she remarks, was “a huge one with trailing ostrich feathers. She thanked them for the ‘accommodation’ when she fetched it. We could just control our laughter til after she had gone” (3v).

Mabel_4 cropped_1

…and ostrich feathers.

Another aspect of life at Pikes Peak summit house which FitzGerald highlights, and one that would no doubt be greatly missed upon her departure for Cripple Creek, was the matter of the ice-cream soda fountain which had become a regular feature of daily life. FitzGerald describes how “we sat in a row at one each day before the evening meal having no means of getting tea at the laboratory” (3v). Such an image of camaraderie and good humour shows scientists working together at their best.

Dawn Sellars

The Mabel FitzGerald Archive, or: An extraordinary woman

Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald was, in many ways, an extraordinary woman. Born in 1872, the youngest child of Richard Purefoy FitzGerald and his wife Henrietta Mary neé Chester, she spent her first 23 years at the family home North Hall in Preston Candover, Hampshire. The family life was very much that of old country gentry:  the father, after his navy and army career, managing land and  participating in county politics, the mother running North Hall and organising the family’s extensive social life, the two sons pursuing navy and academic careers respectively. Mabel, along with her four sisters, was educated at home, and grew up to live the life of a country lady. Her teenage diaries tell of violin classes and country walks, painting and literature, amateur theatre, visits to relatives and family friends, formal dances and many other social events.

Mabel FitzGerald as a young woman

Mabel FitzGerald as a young woman

Against all odds: Medicine!

But Mabel FitzGerald also had an interest in medicine, and generally in science. With her sisters she attended local lectures on nursing and healthcare, read quite widely on the topic, and admired her brother Henry, who went up to study chemistry at Oxford University in 1892.

After both parents died unexpectedly in 1895, the five FitzGerald sisters moved from Preston Candover to live with their grandmother Sarah Anna Elizabeth FitzGerald neé Purefoy Jervoise in Shalstone, Buckinghamshire. Encouraged by both her grandmother, a ‘learned lady’ who corresponded with the poet Robert Browning and other literary and intellectual figures of the time, and the local doctor G.H. De’ath, with whom she went on patient visits and discussed medical topics, Mabel FitzGerald decided on a career in medical science.

In 1896 she moved to Oxford with her sisters and started studying premedical subjects. She did so unofficially, as women were not yet admitted to study for a degree – but soon impressed her tutors with her thoroughness, dedication and critical spirit. She went on to research positions at Oxford in histology (with Gustav Mann) and physiology (with Francis Gotch), and in 1901/1902 worked with Georges Dreyer at the Sate Serum Institute in Copenhagen.

Mabel FitzGerald and Georges Dreyer, Copenhagen State Serum Institute 1901/1902

Mabel FitzGerald and Georges Dreyer, Copenhagen State Serum Institute 1901/1902

From Oxford to Pike’s Peak

From 1905 to 1908 FitzGerald worked in Oxford with J.S. Haldane on the physiology of the respiratory system, and with W. Osler and James Ritchie on bacteriology and pathology. She then travelled to North America on a Rockefeller fellowship to work with H. Naguchi in New York on bacteriology and with A.B. Macallum in Toronto on physiology.

Upon her return to Oxford she was invited by J.S. Haldane to participate in the subsequently celebrated 1911 medical expedition to Pikes Peak, Colorado, to study the effects of altitude on the respiratory system. Whilst the men in the expedition party went up the mountain to set up their laboratory in the summit house, FitzGerald travelled Colorado to measure the long-term effects of altitude on the respiratory systems of the population in the remote mining towns.

Two years later she went to North Carolina to gather data for lower altitudes and compare them with the Colorado results.  Her observations on ‘the changes in breathing  and the blood in various high altitudes’, published 1913 and 1914, are what she became most recognized for.

The Pike's Peak expedition 1911: Haldane, FitzGerald, Schneider, Henderson and Douglas.

The Pikes Peak expedition 1911: Haldane, FitzGerald, Schneider, Henderson and Douglas.

…but Medical School? Yes, as a teacher!

Alongside her extensive lab and field work, Mabel FitzGerald continued to attend lectures and demonstrations and by 1910 had completed at least 900 hours of courses in physiology, histology, pathology and chemistry, along with three years of clinical classes with Osler. Still, when she applied to study medicine at Cornell University Medical College she was rejected for not having the necessary qualifications. By 1915, the time of her second application to medical school, this time at New York, she had attended at least another 800 hours of classes, done years of lab and field work and had published eleven papers – but again, she was rejected (…this time, on the grounds of poor algebra test scores!).

In 1915, FitzGerald moved to Edinburgh to work as a clinical pathologist at the Royal Infirmary. She also applied to medical school in Edinburgh, as it was one of the few in Britain which admitted women. Again, she was rejected as a student – it was considered too much work for her to both attend lectures and fulfil her duties as a clinical pathologist. During her fifteen years in Edinburgh Mabel FitzGerald found her way into Royal College Medical School anyway – as a teacher in practical bacteriology in the 1920s.

Late recognition

In the late 1930s, she retired to Oxford to care for her ageing sisters, who, all unmarried, still lived together in a house in Crick Road. For more than two decades, Mabel FitzGerald was almost forgotten by scientists, until she was ‘rediscovered’ in the course of the centenary celebrations of her mentor Haldane’s birthday in 1960.

But it took until her own hundredth birthday in 1972 before FitzGerald received the academic recognition she deserved for her scientific work. She was finally awarded an honorary M.A. from Oxford University, and she was made a member of the Physiological Society, with her papers being quoted for comment in the 1973 Oxford University examinations.

Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald, M.A., died at the grand old age of 101 in August 1973 in Oxford.

Mabel FitzGerald, M.A., after the degree award ceremony in Oxford 1972

Mabel FitzGerald, M.A., after the degree award ceremony in Oxford, 1972

The FitzGerald Archive at the Bodleian Library

After FitzGerald’s death, her personal and academic papers, along with family papers from her Oxford home in Crick Road, came to the Bodleian Library. Family letters and diaries, personal documents and photographs, academic correspondence and lecture notes, lab books, patient cases and research data, working papers for publications and articles – the history of a Hampshire family and the biography of an extraordinary scientist condensed to  40 boxes.

FitzGerald Archive boxes

Full to the brim with history: 20 of the 40 FitzGerald boxes

The archive is particularly rich in documentation of FitzGerald’s time of ‘unofficial learning’ in Oxford, academic study and work in Copenhagen, in Canada and in the USA, and her professional appointments in Edinburgh. Work with Mann, Gotch and Osler in Oxford is documented through lecture notes, lab notebooks, scientific data and correspondence, and so is the close collaboration with Haldane on the Pikes Peak expedition. Other connections to the medical community in Oxford and beyond include the geneticist J.B.S. Haldane (J.S. Haldane’s son), the physiologist Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, Lady Osler and many others; FitzGerald’s correspondents abroad include the American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing.

In addition to FitzGerald’s personal papers depicting the life of a female pioneer in science, the archive contains family papers, diaries and correspondence dating back to the 18th century, revealing the history of a well-placed Hampshire/Buckinghamshire family of notable standing in the community and with many connections to renowned contemporaries, including Jane Austen, Henry Acland, Robert Browning and the Tennysons. Not least, the letters and journals of the male members of the Purefoy-FitzGerald family relating to their army and navy careers provide much potential for military history research, as for example, they include accounts of the front-line during the Napoleonic wars, and a first-hand account of the sinking of HMS Victoria in 1893.

The cataloguing project

The FitzGerald Archive has always received attention from researchers, but the fact it was largely unsorted and uncatalogued made it very difficult to access and use the papers. A new initiative to open up the archive came up during the the Saving Oxford Medicine Project, which lead to a funding proposal being submitted to the Wellcome Trust in early 2015.

Wellcome LogoWith funding granted for a 12-month project to sort, preserve, catalogue and make accessible the FitzGerald Archive, work on the collection started in November last year with surveying the papers, identifying conservation needs and priorities, establishing a high-level arrangement and not least a lot of background research on the topics and biographies included in the collection.

An archives assistant has since joined, and we are now a few weeks into the second phase of the project: the item level sorting, which goes hand with basic preservation work such as removing paperclips, with repackaging, and with collecting more detailed information in preparation for cataloguing.

FitzGerald letters

In the FitzGerald Archive: Bundles of letters…

FitzGerald research notes

…and publication drafts.

At this stage, we are looking at every individual letter to identify the writer and the addressee, the date it was written, and the events, people and places the letter is referring to, and sorting clinical notes and research papers, many of which have been left in a mess after decades of use. More than hundred journals and diaries are still awaiting attention by archivists and conservators, and so are hundreds of photographs.

Deciphering 19th century handwriting, identifying names, reconstructing dates, establishing details of biographies and family connections – all this is quite intricate work, requiring a lot of patience a good portion of detective work. But we get rewarded with fascinating findings almost every day, and the many links we find to contemporary events, people and topics in the world of science and beyond are astonishing.

We will make sure to share our discoveries, along with regular reports on the project progress – so watch this space for more big stories and little treasures from the life and work of Mabel FitzGerald.


Further reading
Martin Goodman: The high-altitude research of Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald, 1911-13

John B. West: Centenary of the Anglo-American high-altitude expedition to Pikes Peak
R.W. Torrance: Mabel’s normalcy: Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald and the study of man at altitude
Martha Tissot van Patot: The science and sagacity of Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh: Library and Archives Blog (March 2015)
International Women’s Day: Remembering Mabel Purefory FitzGerald