Polly Porter

There were two women who contributed to the work of Miers group Florence Isaac and Mary (Polly) Winearls Porter.4 Isaac was Miers main collaborator on the study of the growth of crystals, co-authoring five publications. However, it was Porter who provided the link to the first generation of women X-ray crys-tallographers. 

Porter, bom on 26 July 1886, had little in the way of formal education, as her father was a travelling correspondent for The Times. When Porter was 15, her mother became ill in Rome, requiring a lengthy stay in the city. While there, Porter became a collector of fragments of Roman artefacts that she found at classical sites in the city. Her brothers were impressed with her potential and suggested to their parents that she should be given a formal education, but they refused. 

The First World War interrupted their studies, but with its end, the Braggs decided to divide the crystal world between them. W. H. Bragg chose to work on organic structures and also quartz, while W. L. Bragg was allotted inorganic substances 

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Near the end of her first year at Oxford, Crowfoot attended T. V. Barker s lectures in the Crystallography Department, and Barker became an early mentor of Crowfoot. Both Barker and her Chemistry tutor, F. M. Brewer, encouraged her to undertake X-ray crystallography in her final year. Polly Porter was another influence, as Crowfoot noted in her recollections ... 

Before that [her decision to stay at Oxford] Polly Porter... 

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