Walsh, Gertrude

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). 

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. 

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... 

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... 

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