Jesse Slater

Slater was invited to work with J. J. Thomson57 at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where she studied the decay products of thorium from 1903 to 1905. That year, she accepted a position as Science Teacher at KEVI, staying there until 1909, when she took up an offer of Science Teacher at Cheltenham Ladies College. In 1913, she returned to Newnham, this time as Assistant Lecturer in Physics and Chemistry, being promoted to Lecturer in 1914. 

Slater obtained leave from Newnham to undertake war-related duties, and, for the first 3 years, she was a part-time nurse. She was then called for full-time duty as a radiographer 

With few exceptions, the end of the war resulted in the termination of employment for women chemists. The government closed the explosives factories, while the male chemists returned from their war duties and reoccupied their former faculty and research positions. The respondent to Agnes Conway from the Sheffield Steel Company of Thos. Frith noted On the signing of the Armistice most of the women were replaced by returning soldiers, but two [of 16] in the General Laboratory have become so proficient that their services have been retained. 35 

The women chemists with specialised training stood the best chance of survival. For example, according to Knowles letter to Conway, the graduates of the metallurgical analysis course at Sheffield seemed to survive  

That women have been an undoubted success in this branch of industry, is proved by the fact that notwithstanding so many of the men (who are now demobilized) have resumed duty, a large proportion of the women who desired to stay on have retained their positions to the present time.33 

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