Robinson, Gertrude

In a 1917 paper written with Gertrude Robinson, they stated that... 

Gertrude Walsh Robinson developed a new method for the synthesis of high-molecular-weight fatty acids, and she was active in penicillin research during the Second World War. Baker writes (1954) "It is perhaps not generally known that she was the first chemist to prepare synthetical material with genuine antibiotic character of the penicillin type" (567). 

Robinson, Robert, and Gertrude M. Robinson. "Researches on Pseudo-Bases. Pt. II. Note on some Berberine Derivatives and Remarks on the Mechanism of the Condensation Reactions of Pseudo-Bases," JCS 111 (1917) ... 

Gertrude Walsh Robinson and Robert Robinson met as students in Chaim Weizmann s chemical laboratory at Manchester. Like Edith Hilda Usherwood Ingold and Christopher K. Ingold, the Robinsons co-authored some of their research. 

Cyclotriveratrylene was first prepared by Gertrude Robinson in 1915 (Scheme 7.2). Robinson was interested in following up earlier work on the synthesis of anthracene derivatives and concluded that her product (empirical formula, C7H10O2, was 2,3,6,7-tetramethoxy-9,10-dihydroanthracene (7.43), the dimer of the intermediate veratryl cation (7.42). During the 1950s, CTV was again reformulated erroneously as a hexamer (7.44) and it was not until 1963 that the onset of a variety of modern techniques established a trimeric formula. 

Both Robinson and Ingold married chemists -Gertrude Maude Walsh (1886-1954) and Edith Hilda Usherwood (1898-1988), respectively. At various times both wives acted as research assistants (usually unpaid) to their husbands. Their important contributions in this way have been discussed.32... 

In a report dated 1915, Mrs Gertrude Maud Robinson (the first wife of Sir Robert Robinson) showed that the acid catalyzed condensation of veratryl alcohol produced, in excellent yield, a solid, m.p. 227 °C, which she considered to be 2,3,6,7-tetramethoxy-9,10-dihydroanthracene [1], In making this proposal (which, however, was not entirely accepted by her husband [1]), she was perhaps influenced by an earlier, hardly justified claim by Ewins (1909) that piperonyl alcohol, under acidic conditions, furnished a high-melting compound similar in many respects to hers described as being with considerable probability 2,3,6,7-dimethyl-enetetraoxy-9,10-dihydroanthracene [2]. 

Scott-Moncrieff, R. (1981). The classical period in chemical genetics Recollections of Muriel Wheldale Onslow, Robert and Gertrude Robinson and J. B. S. Haldane. Notes and Records of the Royal Society, London 36 125-154. 

The research relationship between the married biochemists Dorothy Moyle (see Chap. 8) and Joseph Needham could better be described as autonomous rather than independent, as their research overlapped to a significant extent. We will see below that the descriptor autonomous also fits the research profile of Gertrude Walsh with Robert Robinson. Finally, Muriel Wheldale s collaboration with Huia Onslow (see Chap. 8) might be considered farther along the collaborative spectrum as semi-autonomous. Nevertheless, most active women spouse-chemists were part of a collaborative couple. 

Walsh drove around Oxford in her Standard 12 car, as Smith recalled Mrs. (Gertrude) Robinson was not a good driver she not only forgot to wear her glasses, but she sat so low that she peered through the steering-wheel. One was often surprised at the positions in which her car stood outside the D. P. [Dyson Perrins Laboratory]. 56... 

The facile condensation reaction between formaldehyde and phenols or their derivatives provides a major route into rigid macrocycles used in supramolecular chemistry. Calixarenes, the best-known class of phenol-derived macrocycles, are prepared this way, as are spherands and their relatives. Cyclotriveratrylene, however, is an excellent exemplar of the molecular basket type of ligand and has been known for the best part of a century. The basic cyclotriveratrylene synthesis is shown in Figure 3.1. The original procedure by Mrs. Gertrude Maud Robinson [1] has since been refined by others and many variations are known [2,3]. 

Cartulary of Saint Elias. "History and Cartulary of the Greek Monastery of Saint EUas and Saint Anastasius of Carbone. Edited and translated by Gertrude Robinson. Orientalia Christiana 15 (1929) 121-275. 

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