Women in the Sedgwick Museum Archive

At Cambridge women were present on geological field trips from approximately the 1880s. This was due in part to the influence and encouragement of Professor Thomas McKenny Hughes, his wife Mary Caroline Hughes, and Dr John Edward Marr.

'The Professor is determined to make each girl do her best, and is determined not to allow of shirking, scamping, inattention, idleness in any possible form'_{'A Pleasure Party' The Queen, The Lady's newspaper, August 1890}

The principal of Newnham College, Eleanor Sidgwick wrote to Professor Hughes in October 1892 asking him a series of questions about teaching mixed classes. She had been asked to collect information as an 'effort is being made to get the classes of Trinity College, Dublin open to women'. She was aware that the geological excursions Professor Hughes led often included men and women.

In response to the question 'do you think the presence of women interferes with the successful teaching of men' the Professor simply replied 'no'.

Fieldwork facilitated interaction between men and women during a time when this was still very rare. 

This photograph depicts students during an excursion to Wales in 1885. It was taken 11 years before women were officially permitted to become members of the Sedgwick Club.

Four women were present on the trip, and apart from Mary Hughes, they all became teachers. There were few other acceptable options for employment before marriage at that time.

Ellen Stones (1855-1953) was an Assistant Mistress at private schools in Reading, Carmarthen, Dulwich, and Chichester. She also worked for the Missionary Settlement for University Women, Bombay 1895-1903.

Beatrice Taylor (1863–1934) became an Assistant Mistress in Oxford and London, and a visiting teacher of science in Southport.

Anny Mary Adams (1851–1931) became an Assistant Mistress at Plymouth High School and was on the Chiswick School Board from 1896 until 1926.

Other roles that women took on before the 1880s, in the field of geology included:

• Artists & illustrators
• Collectors and commercial sellers - including Mary Anning (1799–1847)
• Translators
• Writers and editors
• Museum curators and owners
• Research Assistants

The Geological Society of London was founded on 13th November 1807. However, it was not until 21st May 1919, that the first female Fellows were elected.

A Cambridge University geological excursion to the Malverns in 1892 included some of the women who would become the first female fellows. These were Gertrude Elles, Margaret Crossfield, Ethel Skeat (all elected in May 1919) and Ethel Wood (elected in 1920).

Margaret Chorley Crossfield (1859-1952) returned to studies in 1889 after ill health and was given permission to only study geology. She later worked with Ethel Skeat on Carmarthen stratigraphy & Silurian rocks of Clwydian, and Mary Johnston on Wenlock limestone of Shropshire.

Ethel Gertrude Skeat (1865-1939) was the third daughter of Professor William Walter Skeat, a Philologist. She worked with Margaret Crossfield during her career. After marrying Henry Woods in 1911 she became a lecturer at the Cambridge Training College for Women. She is buried at the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge.

Ethel Wood (1871-1946) became a research assistant to Professor Charles Lapworth at Mason College, Birmingham. She began working with Elles on the Monograph ‘British Graptolites’ (1901-1918), preparing the illustrations whilst Elles wrote the text. The outbreak of the First World War all but put a permanent halt to her promising career in geology.

She helped found and became honorary secretary of the Association of Pension Committees and served on the War pension committees of Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield.  She also sat on the Special Grants Committee of the Ministry of Pensions between 1917 and 1926, a service that was recognised with an MBE in 1918 and a DBE in 1920.

The Geological Society centenary in 1907 included 34 women amongst its 263 guests. 20 were wives or daughters of academics, and nine were there in their own right (Catherine Raisin, Mary K Andrews, Gertrude Elles, Ethel Wood, Margaret Crossfield, Dorothea Bate, Ida Slater, Maud Healey, and Enid Goodyear).

A visit to Cambridge took place as part of the celebrations, and a meal was held in St John's College on Tuesday 1st October 1907. The seating plan, in the Archive, suggests that no women were present.

In 2019 a conference took place at the Geological Society to celebrate 100 years since Women became fellows.

You can read about the conference in the 'History of Geology Group' (HOGG) newsletter (number 66) here.

For more information about female fellows of the Geological Society, you can visit an online exhibition here.

'She could never have become a cloistered scholar’ _{Alice White née Dale, 1961}

Gertrude Lilian Elles was born in Wimbledon to Jamison Elles (a merchant in Chinese goods) and Mary Chesney Elles.

She rose from being an undergraduate and assistant demonstrator, to become a university lecturer in the Department of Geology in 1926. Ten years later, she became the first female reader.

After graduating in 1895, Elles did a year's research in Lund, Sweden, with Sven Tornquist before returning to Cambridge. Together with her Newnham contemporary Ethel Wood, she studied Lower Palaeozoic strata in Wales, specialising in fossil graptolites, extinct marine animals.

In collaboration with Charles Lapworth (1842-1920), Gertrude Elles and Ethel Wood produced a pioneering Monograph on British Graptolites (1901-1918). It described and illustrated all the then known graptolites and their biozonal distribution in time.

She prepared the text and Wood the illustrations with Lapworth acting as editor. In later life she also worked on metamorphic rocks in the Highlands with Cecil Edgar Tilley.

'A woman geologist was a rare phenomenon in those days, but Gertrude worked easily with men and she was accepted on her merits' _{Alice White née Dale, 1961}

Gertrude Elles features in many Sedgwick Club records, from student participant in 1896, to expedition leader in 1921.

Her first paper to the Sedgwick Club was entitled ‘Structure of Graptolites'. She gave this on 3rd March 1896, less than two months after 'lady members' were admitted.

Gertrude Elles presented an impressive 19 papers over 55 years covering a range of topics and localities- from the Highlands and islands of Scotland to the Great Rift Valley in Africa.

Miss Elles sat upon a heap ....And knowledge round dispenses..... 3 brought her smudges on a slate.... She said ‘riccartonensis' _{Verse of a Limerick in the account of excursion to Dolywern Excursion (ref. 02/02/16)}

The Sedgwick Museum is fortunate to have a large collection of geological hammers, two of which belonged to Gertrude Lillian Elles.

Elles’s fossil collections, many unearthed with the use of these hammers, total over 3,700 specimens, mostly graptolites.

The geological hammer was often described in Sedgwick Club excursion notes as ‘indispensable’ for field work. However, it was also a recognisable feature of an emerging profession. It was a badge of honour.

Gertie, as she was affectionately known, spent a great deal of time working in the Woodwardian (and later Sedgwick) Museum, writing catalogues and captions.

At Newnham College Archives there are testimonials from Professor McKenny Hughes, Professor Lapworth and Dr Marr. These were sent in support of Gertrude Elles election to the Newnham Fellowship of Research Students.

'What she is doing in this Museum would not interfere with that work, but rather greatly aid it, and I would urge in the interests of science than any restrictions should be carefully worded so as to not prevent her keeping in touch with the many sides of such an investigation..' _{Thomas McKenny Hughes, 25th July 1900. Newnham College Archives, AC/3/3/5.}

Gertrude Elles also worked for the Red Cross during the First World War as a Commandant at a hospital in Newnham Walk. You can see her service card here.

She was awarded an MBE in 1920.

Elles became vice principal of Newnham College, from 1925 to 1936. She died in November 1960 in Helensburgh, Scotland.

'The doyen of women geologists’ _{Oliver Bulman, former research student and 12th Woodwardian Professor, 1955-1966.}