Women Chemistry Students

At IC Chemical Society meetings, the women chemistry students were expected to serve tea. In a 1904 issue of the College newspaper, The Phoenix, a male student reported back to his parents that You buy a six-penny ticket, and grab what you can get, whilst you ask one of the lady students, who are quite a jolly lot, for a cup of tea. 66 

However, attitudes towards women among some other male students were more negative. The following commentary in 1905 titled Some Fallacies about US shows how many males considered it more appropriate for women to study biology  

Holloway and Bedford Colleges possess but a few lonely votaries of the science...07 

The article concluded with a note that 14 of the 15 women students then at IC agreed totally with the sentiments expressed in the article. 

This was the period of the suffragette movement, and an article in a 1907 issue of The Phoenix promoting the right of women to vote08 provoked an ominous response  

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Nothing could be further from the truth there were significant numbers of women chemistry students and women chemists. For example, we have identified 896 who were members of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and/or the Chemical Society during our time frame of 1880-1949. In this book, we provide biographical accounts of 141 women chemists, together with brief notes on an additional 21. 

Which Schools Produced Women Chemistry Students ... 

For the 898 women chemists who became Associates or Fellows of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and/or Fellows of the Chemical Society between 1880-1949, we found information on the college or university attended for 841 of them.98 The institutions where 10 or more women chemistry students obtained their undergraduate degree during that period are shown in Table 1.3. 

The arrival of women chemistry students at UL had a considerable effect on the student chemistry culture. The Liverpool University Chemical Society (LUCS) had been founded in 1892,35 and the social life of the society focused on the men-only Annual Dinner and the Annual Kneipe (Beer Party). The latter event was an evening spent in drinking beer, smoking, singing songs, and telling stories. 

Membership did not result in equality for women. As at Imperial College (see Chap. 3), the women chemistry students were expected to serve tea to their male colleagues. A cutting letter to the LUCS Magazine in 1923 commented Lady Chemists are overwhelmed by the extreme courtesy paid to them at Chem. Soc. teas. To the Victorian male mind, they still serve as Hewers of Bread and Drawers of Tea. 37... 

The Yorkshire College had a scientific society to which women were welcome, the first woman speaker noted being a Miss Findlay who spoke on Recent Attempts in Colour Photography on 16 December 1897.55 The society changed its name to Leeds University Cavendish Society in 1910, with discussions solely on chemistry and physics topics. A report on a meeting of early 1916 indicates that women chemistry students had begun to play a more active role The meeting was... 

Women students had been admitted since 1886 by the antecedent institutions of University College, Sheffield.72 Yet, as elsewhere, co-education did not necessarily imply that women students were accepted as equals. Attitudes towards the women chemistry students at Sheffield seem to have evolved from bemusement by their male colleagues in the early years through to hostility as the 20th century progressed. 

His classes ceased in 1879 with the completion of chemical laboratories at Newnham and Girton. With their own facilities within the walls of the women s colleges, women chemistry-students no longer needed chaperones to attend the laboratory sessions. A chemistry student, Marguerite Ball, recalled that the standard attire of Newnham students was also worn in the laboratory ... 

However, after 1913, upon the retirement of Ida Freund (see below), women chemistry students from Newnham had to undertake the experimental component of their courses in the University Chemistry Laboratories. The women at Girton were able to keep their own laboratory until Beatrice Thomas (see below) retired in 1935. In the University Chemistry Laboratories, an entirely different atmosphere prevailed, as the arrival of women students was against the wishes of the male laboratory staff. They made life difficult for the women pioneers, as Ball remembered ... the lab boys took a delight in leaving some essential bit of apparatus out of our lists so that we had to walk the whole length of the lab to the store to ask for it. An ordeal for some of us, especially as they appeared to be too busy to attend to us for several minutes while we waited at the door. 32... 

Masson, M. (1966). Early women chemistry students at Aberdeen. In Masson, M. R. and Simonton, D. (eds.), Women and Higher Education Past, Present and Future, Aberdeen... 

The majority of women chemists entered the analytical field. Women were probably more accepted for this work, as repetitious and exacting analyses were considered compatible with women s talents. Throughout the war, there was a demand for analytical chemists some to determine purities of explosives and of their precursors and others, the purities of pharmaceuticals.36 Even graduating high school women chemistry students were taken on for the war effort, as was mentioned above. 

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