Women Chemists and the Dyson-Perrins

Despite the misogyny of the Alembic Club, a significant number of women chemists worked in the Dyson-Perrins Laboratory (DP) in the 1930s. Oxford had hoped that the arrival of Frederick Soddy75 from Aberdeen (subsequently to be rejoined by his research assistant, Ada Hitchins see Chap. 7) would usher in a school of radiochemistry, but Soddy s attentions were more on economics. It was to be organic chemistry that mainly provided Oxford with its chemical claim to fame. The impetus was the construction of the DP, for long the envy of all other university chemistry departments. 76 And it was the DP which 

Sydney Plant83 was another DP researcher to take on women students, one of whom was Kathleen Margaret Rogers.84 Rogers was born on 30 December 1911 and educated at St. Swithun s School, before entering St. Hilda s in 1932. She completed her B.Sc. in 1935, her research at the DP being published in 1935 

The first woman chemist appointed as a Fellow at Oxford was Margaret Augusta Leishman.88 Leishman was bom on 3 June 

The DP even attracted postgraduate women chemists from elsewhere, the most notable being the Japanese chemist, Chika Kuroda.89 Kuroda, born in Japan on 24 March 1884, arrived at Oxford in 1921 as a Japan Minister of Education overseas student. She spent two years working with W. H. Perkin, Jr.,90 before returning to her homeland to become Japan s most well-known woman chemistry researcher. 

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