{"id":1180,"date":"2023-02-21T13:36:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T18:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researchbdev.wpengine.com\/zorina-khan\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2023-02-21T20:10:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T01:10:23","slug":"women-inventors-in-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/life-on-the-margin\/women-inventors-in-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Notable Women Inventors in Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fans of the history of technology can quickly name a dozen significant British inventors, but very few would be able to identify any women with noteworthy discoveries.\u00a0 In its 200-year run, the London Times<\/em> published fewer than six articles on the subject. In fact, many earlier references to \u201cthe woman inventor\u201d in English newspapers were actually about Americans, who were regarded as especially ingenious by observers in other countries.<\/p>\n

Want is the Mistress of Invention<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Any accounting of British female inventive activity must start with Amy Everard, the first woman inventor on record to obtain a patent, no. 104, in 1637. She claimed to possess \u201cthe mystery, skill, and invention\u201d of making essential tinctures from saffron, roses, and other flowers.\u00a0 The widowed inventor was allowed to pay the hefty patent fees on an installment plan, but even so must have been quite wealthy or else very confident in the commercial prospects for her potions.<\/p>\n

To Susannah Centlivre, author of The Busy Body<\/em><\/a> (1709), \u201cWant [is] the mistress of invention,\u201d and this is clearly true of the numerous women who tried to improve their lives by designing more comfortable clothing. The patent records are rife with new and improved corsets, cycling togs that didn\u2019t affront modesty, and other forms of innovative apparel, leading the British Patent Office to start publicizing statistics for this category towards the end of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

Part of the impetus for such efforts can be illustrated through the experience of Jane Vanef , of Westminster.\u00a0 She produced hoops for skirts, which at the time were so voluminous and unwieldy that a good deal of quasi-engineering skill was required to construct them.\u00a0 Fashionable garments could balloon out to a diameter of five feet or more, which created logistical problems in negotiating confined areas.\u00a0 Vanef\u2019s 1737 patent<\/a> was to protect her discovery of \u201cA way of compressing the hoops of skirts to allow for entry and exit into carriages, churches and other enclosed spaces.\u201d Spoiler alert: think collapsible, hinges, and whalebones.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Busy Body\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Sarah Guppy (1770-1852) was the wife of a wealthy Bristol merchant, and she obtained four patents, the first filed at the age of 41 and the last when she was 74.\u00a0 Much has been made of her 1811 suspension bridge invention, including unfounded charges that famous male engineers stole\/were gifted\/purloined her idea; however, there is no evidence that her bridge design was ever commercialized or embedded in any other construction. Indeed, the uncharitable might point out<\/a> that any claim of originality was merely due to a lack of knowledge about the plethora of such inventions already in existence. But, speaking of beds, Ms. Guppy did invent a novel fourposter with attached exercise equipment to ease the sluggish into a busy day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The energetic Mrs. Guppy, like many other women inventors, turned her attention in 1812 to ensuring greater efficiency in the kitchen.\u00a0 Her compendium urn allowed the user to simultaneously brew tea or coffee, boil eggs, and keep toast and foods warm. The patent document included the following modest endnote (look up apophasis<\/a>): \u201cOBSERVATIONS BY THE PATENTEE.\u00a0The superior utility of these urns is so\u00a0very evident, that it is quite unnecessary to say anything in their favour\u2014they speak for themselves; and those persons who have already used them speak highly of their convenience: and as the additional expense is trifling, it is presumed no person will deprive themselves of the accommodation on account of their cost.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Endnote by the uncharitable<\/a>: \u201cObservations:– If a trifling luxury (the boiling of eggs) at the breakfast table of the opulent be worthy of a separate and expensive apparatus, surely Mrs. Guppy’s invention, which is intended and perhaps calculated to render this luxury less expensive, … will entitle herself to the thanks, and her invention to the adoption, of the sons of fortune!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Engineering the Art of Invention<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is a single improvement sufficient to justify billing as an eminent inventor? This was the case with Henrietta Vansittart (1833-1883,) who is often featured as a prominent inventor (and an engineer, in the Dictionary of National Biography<\/em>), but described herself as a \u201cmechanical artist.\u201d \u00a0Her father, James Lowe, had patented and worked on a ship\u2019s propeller for several decades, and after his death she continued improving on his invention through numerous practical experiments.\u00a0 Her version ended up \u201ccombining several of his peculiarities<\/a>, together with some novel points.\u201d The Lowe-Vansittart propeller was noted for its smooth operation without any vibrations, and efficiency in consumption of fuel while maintaining speed and steering ability. In 1868 she was granted Patent No. 2877<\/a> , and the propeller was used in warships and mercantile vessels \u201cwith good results.\u201d\u00a0 In 1869, Vansittart applied for provisional patent protection<\/a> for another screw propeller improvement, but never completed the application.<\/p>\n

Successful inventors benefited from a support network, and this was especially true of women.\u00a0 When asked what factors were most important in encouraging the development of female engineers, Verena Holmes noted that \u201cthe most desirable assets are a father in an influential position in the profession and sufficient means to tide over training and periods of unemployment.\u201d Perhaps one of the reasons why Henrietta Vansittart stands out today is that she was indefatigable in promoting her father\u2019s work and her own, including exhibits at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition<\/a> of 1876, and the bestowing of models and artifacts to prominent museums.<\/p>\n

Hertha’s Arc<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hertha Ayrton<\/a> (1854\u20131923) has been described as \u201cBritain\u2019s foremost women inventor,\u201d and \u201cthe most distinguished woman scientist\u201d in the country at that time.\u00a0 Ayrton came from a poor background but, in the absence of a rich father, was fortunate in attracting the attention and financial support of well-positioned patrons, which allowed her to study mathematics at Girton (Third Class Honours), and electrical engineering through evening classes.\u00a0 Like Vansittart, she benefited from association with a family member \u2013 she married her instructor, the eminent William Ayrton<\/a>, a pioneering inventor in electricity.\u00a0 (Hertha Ayrton added, on notifying her mother about the proposal, \u201cHe is also going to let me go on with my electrical work, and of course he can help me in it in every way.\u201d) She published influential papers in\u00a0The Electrician<\/em>\u00a0and was the first female member of the\u00a0Institution of Electrical Engineers. Her nomination for membership<\/a> at the Royal Society<\/a> was rejected because married women were deemed ineligible, but she was awarded a prestigious prize.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Suffragist backers financed Hertha Ayrton\u2019s 1884 British and U.S. patents for an elegant mathematical line divider<\/a>. \u00a0She was credited with saving numerous soldier\u2019s lives during World War I when she invented a simple hand-held fan to dispel poison gas in the trenches.\u00a0 Towards the end of the war, about 100,000 fans were dispatched to the front, owing to her own lobbying efforts.\u00a0 She later applied similar principles in several inventions for the propulsion of noxious gases<\/a> in industrial settings.\u00a0 Her most significant technological contributions owed to her electricity research, \u00a0including anti-aircraft searchlights and arc lamp technology. \u00a0Patents for these discoveries were filed internationally, including France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria (which has led to double counting of her inventions by many scholars, and misleading claims that she filed \u201c26 British patents.\u201d) By the 1920s, her occupation was listed on these documents as \u201cscientist,\u201d and Ayrton was certainly a notable scientist; but was she indeed \u201cBritain\u2019s foremost woman inventor\u201d?<\/p>\n

The Votes Are In<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

My own vote for the foremost British woman inventor in the early twentieth century would go to Verena Winifred Holmes (1889-1964).\u00a0 It’s remarkably difficult to find documented information, or even photographs, for her career — even Sarah Guppy gave more interviews to the popular press. Holmes was brought up in an ordinary middle-class home, and succeeded through her own hard work and disciplined mind.\u00a0 Like many women who were drafted into work during the First World War, Holmes developed technical skills on the job. She worked as an apprentice at a propeller company, and studied at night classes, finally succeeding in attending engineering college. During the Second World War she worked for the Admiralty on such complex mechanisms as valves for torpedoes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Holmes developed a wide range of well-cited innovative marine and locomotive engines, diesel engines, and internal combustion engines. \u00a0Between 1921 and 1958, she successfully applied for at least fifteen British patents, along with foreign patents from the United States, France and Canada.\u00a0 Their subject matter spanned a diversity of fields and technologies, including medical instruments, valves for internal combustion engines, diving suits, safety paper guillotines, scissors and stencil machines, and a speaker to amplify sounds.\u00a0 Many of these inventions were successfully commercialized, and after 1946 some of these devices were manufactured at her own engineering firm, which employed only women.<\/p>\n

Verena Holmes was the first female member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers<\/a> (the link is to its membership page).\u00a0 An ardent supporter of women\u2019s technical education, she was also a founding member of the Women\u2019s Engineering Society<\/a> (her 1931 Presidential speech<\/a> on locomotive valve gears, appears on pages 119-128 of the society\u2019s journal.)<\/p>\n

A Summing Up<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Women inventors have always encountered numerous obstacles in their attempts to commercialize their creativity. British laws such as exceptionally high patent fees and weak married women\u2019s property rights<\/a> inhibited their inventive activity.\u00a0 At the Patent Office, the first female patent examiner was not appointed until Miss F. M. Shepherd, a graduate of the University of London, filled the position in 1930. Women who circumvented such institutional barriers tended to come from rather privileged backgrounds, or to have influential connections \u2013 patent rosters include a cotillion of aristocratic ladies, countesses, baronesses, and even a duchess or two.\u00a0 However, biographies such as Verena Holmes\u2019s demonstrate that individual initiative could be just as potent as wealth, patronage, and self-promotion in generating notable technological innovation and social change.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fans of the history of technology can quickly name a dozen significant British inventors, but very few would be able to identify any women with noteworthy discoveries. Women who could circumvent institutional barriers tended to come from rather privileged backgrounds, or to have social connections \u2013 patent rosters featured many aristocrats, including a cotillion of countesses, baronesses, and even a duchess or two. However, studies of female patentees demonstrate that individual initiative could be just as potent as wealth, patronage, and self-promotion in generating technological innovation and social change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":1186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,6],"tags":[28,27,24,35,10,23,22],"class_list":{"0":"post-1180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-life-on-the-margin","8":"category-of-patents-and-prizes","9":"category-women-in-the-republic-of-enterprise","10":"tag-diversity","11":"tag-gender","12":"tag-innovation","13":"tag-intellectual-property","14":"tag-patents","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-women","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/zorina-khan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}