Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Science

The First Eleven Women to Become Fellows of the Royal Society 1945-54

Stella Butler

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• eBook ISBN:
  9781803999609
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Technology & Engineering

In 1945, for the first time in history, women joined the ranks of the Royal Society, the UK's premier scientific academy. Over the following decade, eleven women would break through its barriers to become Fellows of the Royal Society. Few of these women are well known, yet they all made extraordinary contributions to science, helping shape the post-war world.

From Dame Honor Fell, whose research laid the foundations for IVF, to Dorothy Hodgkin, who worked out the structure of penicillin, these women battled prejudice and hardship but ultimately made cracks in the glass ceiling of science, paving the way for later generations of women to enjoy careers in areas traditionally dominated by men.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Science pays tribute to these remarkable women and their achievements and asks why many have slipped from our memories, even though their legacies have endured.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell CH DBE FRS
• Introduction: Breaking the Glass Ceiling
• 1 Dame Kathleen Lonsdale FRS (1903–71): Physicist who pioneered the use of X-rays to work out the structure of organic chemicals
• 2 Marjory Stephenson FRS (1885–1948): Biochemist who developed techniques for using bacteria to investigate the chemical reactions within cells
• 3 Agnes Arber FRS (1879–1960): Botanist whose encyclopaedic knowledge of grasses and other monocotyledons was sought by colleagues around the world
• 4 Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright FRS (1900–98): Mathematician whose work on radio waves inspired chaos theory
• 5 Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin OM FRS (1910–94): Chemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 for work on the structure of penicillin
• 6 Muriel Robertson FRS (1883–1973): Zoologist who worked out the life cycle of the microorganism responsible for sleeping sickness
• 7 Sidnie Milana Manton FRS (1902–79): Zoologist who plotted the development of shrimp embryos, cell by cell, and worked on the 1928–29 Great Barrier Reef Expedition
• 8 Dorothy Mary Moyle Needham FRS (1896–1987): Biochemist who worked out the chain of chemical reactions that occur when skeletal muscles contract
• 9 Dame Honor Bridget Fell FRS (1900–86): Director of the Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge, where she devised techniques for culturing animal tissues in the laboratory and became an expert on the development of bones
• 10 Marthe Louise Vogt FRS (1903–2003): Physiologist who demonstrated how the release of the hormone cortisone is controlled
• 11 Rosalind Venetia Pitt-Rivers FRS (1907–90): Biochemist who separated out the iodine-containing thyroid hormone T3, and showed that it is more powerful than the thyroid hormone T4
• 12 Unsuccessful candidates: Irène Joliot-Curie, Dame Harriette Chick, Marie Victoire Lebour and Frances Mary Hamer
• Afterword
• Acknowledgements
• Select Bibliography