Hertha Marks Ayrton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hertha Marks Ayrton

Hertha Ayrton
Born Phoebe Sarah Marks
(1854-04-28)28 April 1854
Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
Died 23 August 1923(1923-08-23) (aged 69)
Bexhill-on-sea, Sussex, UK
Nationality British
Education Girton College, Cambridge
Religion Agnostic

Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 23 August 1923), was an English engineer, mathematician, physicist, and inventor. She was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Institution of Electrical Engineers for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.

Early life and education

Hertha Ayrton was born Phoebe Sarah Marks at 6 Queen Street, Portsea, Hampshire, England on 28 April 1854. She was the daughter of a seamstress, Alice Theresa, and a watchmaker and jeweller, Levi Marks. At the age of nine, Sarah was invited by her aunts, who ran a school in north-west London, to live with her cousins and be educated with them.[1] She was known to her peers and teachers as a fiery, occasionally crude personality.[2] Through her cousins she was introduced to science and mathematics and by the time she was sixteen she was working as a governess. She attended Girton College, Cambridge where she studied mathematics and was coached by Richard Glazebrook. She was supported in her application by George Eliot who was working on Daniel Deronda. One of the Jewish characters, Mirah, was said to be based on Ayrton, but this is not accepted as fact.[3] During her time at Cambridge, Ayrton constructed a sphygmomanometer, led the choral society, founded the fire brigade, and with Charlotte Scott, Girton's first wrangler, formed a mathematical club.[1] In 1880, Ayrton passed the Mathematical Tripos but was not granted a degree because, at this time, Cambridge gave only certificates and not degrees to women. She successfully completed an external examination and received a B.Sc. degree from the University of London in 1881.[4]

Mathematics and electrical engineering work

Upon her return to London, Ayrton earned money by teaching and embroidery, ran a club for working girls, and cared for her invalid sister.[1] She also put her mathematical skills to practical use – she taught at Notting Hill and Ealing High School, and was also active in devising and solving mathematical problems, many of which were published in "Mathematical Questions and Their Solutions" from the Educational Times. In 1884 Ayrton patented a line-divider, an engineering drawing instrument for dividing a line into any number of equal parts and for enlarging and reducing figures.[5][1] The line-divider was her first major invention and, while its primary use was likely to be for artists for enlarging and diminishing, it was also useful to architects and engineers. Ayrton's patent application was financially supported by Lady Goldsmid and feminist Barbara Bodichon, who together advanced her enough money to take out patents; the invention was shown at the Exhibition of Women’s Industries and received much press attention. Ayrton honoured Barbara Bodichon by naming her first child, a daughter born in 1886, Barbara Bodichon Ayrton (1886–1950). Ayrton's 1884 patent was the first of many – from 1884 until her death, Hertha registered 26 patents: five on mathematical dividers, 13 on arc lamps and electrodes, the rest on the propulsion of air. Patents make a clear legal claim to intellectual property, especially important for a woman married to a more famous scientist.[6]

In 1884 Ayrton began attending evening classes on electricity at Finsbury Technical College, delivered by Professor William Edward Ayrton, a pioneer in electrical engineering and physics education and a fellow of the Royal Society. On 6 May 1885 she married her former teacher, and thereafter assisted him with experiments in physics and electricity.[1] Ayrton also began her own investigation into the characteristics of the electric arc.[3]

In the late nineteenth century, electric arc lighting was in wide use for public lighting. The tendency of electric arcs to flicker and hiss was a major problem. In 1895, Hertha Ayrton wrote a series of articles for the Electrician, explaining that these phenomena were the result of oxygen coming into contact with the carbon rods used to create the arc. In 1899, she was the first woman ever to read her own paper before the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE).[1] Her paper was entitled "The Hissing of the Electric Arc". Shortly thereafter, Ayrton was elected the first female member of the IEE; the next woman to be admitted to the IEE was in 1958.[1] She petitioned to present a paper before the Royal Society but was not allowed because of her sex and "The Mechanism of the Electric Arc" was read by John Perry in her stead in 1901.[2] Ayrton was also the first woman to win a prize from the institution, the Hughes Medal, awarded to her in 1906 in honour of her research on the motion of ripples in sand and water and her work on the electric arc.[3] By the late nineteenth century, Ayrton's work in the field of electrical engineering was recognised more widely, domestically and internationally. At the International Congress of Women held in London in 1899, Hertha presided over the physical science section. Ayrton also spoke at the International Electrical Congress in Paris in 1900.[6] Her success there led the British Association for the Advancement of Science to allow women to serve on general and sectional committees.

In 1902, Ayrton published The Electric Arc, a summary of her research and work on the electric arc, with origins in her earlier articles from the Electrician published between 1895 and 1896. With this publication, her contribution to the field of electrical engineering began to be cemented. However, initially at least, Ayrton was not well received by the more prestigious and traditional scientific societies such as the Royal Society. In the aftermath of the publication of The Electric Arc, Ayrton was proposed as a Fellow of the Royal Society by renowned electrical engineer John Perry in 1902.[1] Her application was turned down by the Council of the Royal Society, who decreed that married women were not eligible to be Fellows. However, in 1904, she became the first woman to read a paper before the Royal Society when she was allowed to read her paper "The Origin and Growth of Ripple Marks".[2]

Later life and research

Ayrton delivered papers on the subject again before the Royal Society in 1908 and 1911; she also presented the results of her research before audiences at the British Association and the Physical Society. Ayrton's interest in vortices in water and air inspired the Ayrton fan, or flapper, used in the trenches in the First World War to dispel poison gas. Ayrton fought for its acceptance and organized its production, over 100,000 being used on the Western Front.[1]

Ayrton helped found the International Federation of University Women in 1919 and the National Union of Scientific Workers in 1920. She died of blood poisoning (resulting from an insect bite) on 26 August 1923 at New Cottage, North Lancing, Sussex.[1] A blue plaque unveiled in 2007 commemorates Ayrton at 41 Norfolk Square in Padddington.[7]

Personal life and commemoration

Hertha Ayrton was agnostic, but retained close ties to the Jewish community.[8] In her teens she adopted the name "Hertha" after the eponymous heroine of a Swinburne poem that criticized organized religion.[9]

In 1885, Ayrton married the widower William Edward Ayrton, a physicist and electrical engineer who was supportive of her scientific endeavours. The couple had a daughter, Barbara Ayrton, called "Barbie", who later became a member of parliament for the Labour Party.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Mason, Joan. "Ayrton (née Marks), (Phoebe) Sarah (Hertha) (1854–1923), electrical engineer and suffragist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37136.  (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (1986). Women in science : antiquity through the nineteenth century : a biographical dictionary with annotated bibliography (3. print. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-15031-X. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Archives Biographies: Hertha Ayrton". Institution of Engineering and Technology. Retrieved 2011-03-23. 
  4. ↑ Riddle, Larry. "Hertha Marks Ayrton". Retrieved October 2012. 
  5. ↑ Hirsch, Pam. "Hertha Ayrton : Biography". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 19 October 2012. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Hertha Ayrton". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 19 October 2012. 
  7. ↑ "AYRTON, HERTHA (1854–1923)". English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-08-18. 
  8. ↑ Malley, Marjorie. "Hertha Marks Ayrton". Retrieved 2008-10-27. 
  9. ↑ "Hertha Ayrton". Retrieved 2008-10-27. 

Further reading

External links

Authority control
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.