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Kathleen Lonsdale

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(Redirected from Dame Kathleen Yardley Lonsdale) British crystallographer and activist (1903–1971)

DameKathleen LonsdaleDBE FRS
Lonsdale in 1968
BornKathleen Yardley
(1903-01-28)28 January 1903
Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland
Died1 April 1971(1971-04-01) (aged 68)
London, England
Alma materBedford College for Women
University College London
Known forX-ray crystallography
AwardsDavy Medal (1957)
Fellow of the Royal Society
Scientific career
FieldsCrystallographer
InstitutionsUniversity College London
Royal Institution
University of Leeds
Doctoral advisorWilliam Henry Bragg

Dame Kathleen Lonsdale DBE FRS (née Yardley; 28 January 1903 – 1 April 1971) was a British crystallographer, pacifist, and prison reform activist. She proved, in 1929, that the benzene ring is flat by using X-ray diffraction methods to elucidate the structure of hexamethylbenzene. She was the first to use Fourier spectral methods while solving the structure of hexachlorobenzene in 1931. During her career she attained several firsts for female scientists, including being one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1945 (along with Marjory Stephenson), first female professor at University College London, first woman president of the International Union of Crystallography, and first woman president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Early life and education

She was born Kathleen Yardley in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. She was born to English born Harry Yardley, the town postmaster, and Jessie Cameron a Baptist of Scottish descent.

She was the youngest of ten children, four of whom died in infancy. During her time living in Newbridge she attended St. Patrick's National School, and her earliest memories were of the local Church of Ireland service and the Methodist Sunday school.

Kathleen's father had issues with alcohol, which meant her family was often short on money. As the unrest in Ireland became more severe Kathleen's mother separated from her father and took the rest of the family to England.

Her family moved to Seven Kings, Essex, England, when she was five years old. The family's financial troubles meant the four older children left school early to support the family. For the same reason, her brother Fred was unable to take up an educational scholarship, though he later become one of the first wireless operators.

Kathleen attended Downshall Elementary school from 1908 to 1914. She studied at Ilford County High School for Girls, then transferred to Ilford County High School for Boys to study mathematics and science, because the girls' school did not offer these subjects. Kathleen had the highest score in physics that any student at London University ever had. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree from Bedford College for Women in 1922, and Master of Science (MSc) degree in physics from University College London in 1924.

Career and research

In 1924 she joined the crystallography research team headed by William Henry Bragg at the Royal Institution. Following her marriage in 1927, she moved to the University of Leeds, but continued to correspond with Bragg. From 1929 to 1934, she started a family and largely stayed at home while continuing her work calculating structure factors. Her husband Thomas Lonsdale was a textile chemist who supported his wife's research. He encouraged his wife to work from home and to go back to work when offered. He worked at Silk Research Association in Leeds after they were married.

In 1934, Lonsdale returned to work with Bragg at the Royal Institution as a researcher. She was awarded a DSc from University of London in 1936 while at the Royal Institution. In addition to discovering the structure of benzene and hexachlorobenzene, Lonsdale worked on the synthesis of diamonds. She was a pioneer in the use of X-rays to study crystals. Lonsdale was one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1945 (the other was the biochemist Marjory Stephenson).

Lonsdale returned to University College London (UCL) in 1946 with the rank of reader. In 1949, she was appointed Professor of Chemistry and head of the Department of Crystallography at UCL. She was the first woman to be made a professor at UCL, an appointment she held until 1968 when she was named professor emeritus.

As a keen table tennis player, Lonsdale made use of ping pong balls to demonstrate the molecular structure to her students. One such model—of the silicate group Si2O5—is in the Science Museum collection

During her later career, she became interested in stones and minerals produced in the human body e.g. kidney stones or gall stones. Some of her crystallographic models are in the collection of the Science Museum in London.

Selected publications

Library resources about
Kathleen Lonsdale
By Kathleen Lonsdale
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  • Simplified Structure Factor and Electron Density Formulae for the 230 Space Groups of Mathematical Crystallography, G. Bell & Sons, London, 1936.
  • "Divergent Beam X-ray Photography of Crystals," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 240A: 219 (1947).
  • Crystals and X-Rays, G. Bell & Sons, London, 1948.
  • “Human Stones”, Science Vol. 159, Issue 3820, pp. 1199-1207,  15 Mar 1968
  • Quakers visit Russia, Edited by Kathleen Lonsdale : an account of a visit to the Soviet Union in July 1951 by seven British Quakers, 145 pages. Published by the East-West Relations Group of the Friends Peace Committee. Other authors: Margaret Ann Backhouse, B Leslie Metcalfe, Gerald Bailey, Paul S Cadbury, Mildred Creak, Frank Edmead.
  • Removing the Causes of War, 1953.
  • Is peace possible? (1957)
  • Forth in Thy Name: The Life and Work of Godfrey Mowatt (1959)
Photograph of a building in grey stone with columns.
The Kathleen Lonsdale building at University College London

Personal life

Lonsdale plaque, Newbridge
Pamphlet written by Kathleen Lonsdale on Prison Reform in 1943
Pamphlet written by Kathleen Lonsdale on Prison Reform in 1943

After beginning her research career, in 1927 Yardley married Thomas Jackson Lonsdale. They had three children – Jane, Nancy, and Stephen. Stephen became a medical doctor and worked for several years in Nyasaland (now Malawi).

Lonsdale was a vegetarian and teetotaller.

Pacifism

Though she had been brought up in the Baptist denomination as a child, Kathleen Lonsdale became a Quaker in 1935, simultaneously with her husband. Already committed pacifists, both were attracted to Quakerism for this reason. She was a Sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union.

She served a month in Holloway prison during the Second World War because she refused to register for civil defence duties, or to pay a fine for refusing to register. During this time she experienced a range of issues which would eventually result in Lonsdale becoming a prison reform activist and she joined the Howard League for Penal Reform.

"What I was not prepared for was the general insanity of an administrative system in which lip service is paid to the idea of segregation and the ideal of reform, when in practice the opportunities for contamination and infection are innumerable, and those responsible for re-education practically nil"

In 1953, at the Yearly Meeting of the British Quakers, she delivered the keynote Swarthmore Lecture, under the title Removing the Causes of War. A self-identified Christian pacifist, she wrote about peaceful dialogue and was appointed the first secretary of Churches' Council of Healing by the Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple.

Death

Lonsdale died on 1 April 1971, aged 68, from cancer.

Legacy and honours

References

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  2. ^ Lonsdale, K. (1929). "The Structure of the Benzene Ring in C6 (CH3)6". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 123 (792): 494–515. Bibcode:1929RSPSA.123..494L. doi:10.1098/rspa.1929.0081.
  3. Lonsdale, K. (1931). "An X-Ray Analysis of the Structure of Hexachlorobenzene, Using the Fourier Method". Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 133 (822): 536. Bibcode:1931RSPSA.133..536L. doi:10.1098/rspa.1931.0166.
  4. Lonsdale, K. (1944). "Diamonds, Natural and Artificial". Nature. 153 (3892): 669. Bibcode:1944Natur.153..669L. doi:10.1038/153669a0.
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External links

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