Battersea Polytechnic

The role of women in polytechnics has been almost totally overlooked and yet they were an avenue for predominantly lower-social-class women to acquire chemical education, either pure or applied,48 and for women to find teaching positions in chemistry. 

Courses Total students Female Percent female 

Battersea Polytechnic, in particular, attained considerable academic success, leading to an application for recognition as a School of the University of London in 1911.49 However, the application was rejected and only in recent times did Battersea gain university status as the University of Surrey. Battersea Polytechnic was organised into six main departments mechanical engineering and building trades, electrical engineering and physics, chemistry, women s subjects, art, and music. 

In addition to the academic subjects, domestic science flourished in the polytechnics. The Domestic Science Training College at Battersea Polytechnic, renamed from the Department of Women s Subjects, had the largest number of students of any domestic science department in the country. There was significant chemistry content in most of the Domestic Science programmes as an example, Fig. 3.1 provides the Calendar entry for the chemistry component of the Diploma in Advanced Cookery 

Chemistry (Theoretical and Applied).—Air. Water. Chemical theory. Acids, alkalies and salts. Carbon and its oxides fuels. Soaps. Textile fabrics. Water softeners. Sugars, starch, alcohol, acetic acid. Proteins. Fats. Yitamines. Yeasts, moulds and bacteria. Study of certain foods. Preservation and sterilisation of food stuffs. The practical work will be partly illustrative of the lectures, and partly experimental craft work, i.e. — 

---

We also introduce an issue which bedevilled the teaching of chemistry to women whether it should be academic chemistry to enable matriculating girls to take their place alongside men in university laboratories, or domestic chemistry that would be relevant to women s lives. We revisit the issue in Chap. 3 in the context of King s College of Household and Social Science and of Battersea Polytechnic. 

As students could obtain external degrees from the University of London, we find Battersea Polytechnic and Nottingham in the list, both offering London external B.Sc. (Chemistry) degrees during this time (as did Exeter, Northern Polytechnic, and others). In addition to those women chemists identifiable with a particular college, an additional 39 women had London chemistry degrees with no indication of their affiliated institution. 

Table 3.1. Department of Science, Chemistry aggregate examination results, Battersea Polytechnic Institute, 1897-1911 (from Note 49).

Fig. 3.1. The chemistry (theoretical and practical) component of the Advanced Cookery and General Housecraft, with Cognate Chemistry Diploma Programme at Battersea Polytechnic, 1919-1920. (Source Battersea Polytechnic Calendar).

The Domestic Science Training College was staffed very largely by women. It was to Battersea Polytechnic that Marion Soar, Helen Masters, and Phyllis Garbutt had moved from King s College for Women. In addition, the two chemistry positions — Chemistry Physics, and Chemistry as Applied to Household Processes — were traditionally held by women. For example, in the 1919-1920 Battersea Polytechnic Calendar, the staff for both subjects were Claudia McPherson and Marjorie Sudds. 

Arrowsmith s history of Battersea Polytechnic specifically mentions the hiring of Masters in 1926 as a key figure in the success of the Department ... 

Though many feminists were opposed to academic Domestic Science, particularly domestic chemistry, women chemists had more opportunities of employment as lecturers of domestic chemistry at King s College of Household and Social Science and at the polytechnics, such as Battersea Polytechnic, than in mainstream chemistry. 

From 1919 until 1949, Hurst was affiliated to the Chemistry Department at Battersea Polytechnic. During that period, she married A. John Wright and had three daughters. In the Second World War, when bombing prevented her reaching her laboratory, she set up her chemical equipment on the kitchen table of her home in Esher, Surrey. She commented after that, I kept one table for cooking and one for chemistry. 31(b)... 

We have shown that women became Demonstrators and Lecturers outside of the university system, such as at Battersea Polytechnic (Chap. 3) and the London School of Medicine for Women (Chap. 4). Women chemists taught at other institutions, and we have chosen the lives of three women as examples. 

G. A. H. Elton (Battersea Polytechnic, London) In introducing his paper (Lecture 37), Dr. Waters mentioned that there is now some evidence for the belief that ion-pairs or ionic complexes may be important catalyzing agents in the Sandmeyer reaction. 

C. H. JOHNS AND G. A. H. ELTON Battersea Polytechnic, London, England... 

Another early course in England was that at the Battersea Polytechnic (London). In the 1914-1915 session a course entitled Chemical Engineering was set up, the basic operations being dealt with more explicitly than in Davis handbook (36, 37). 

---