Battersea Polytechnic College

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. 

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... 

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. 

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. 

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