Kathleen Lonsdale
Lonsdale, Kathleen (1903-1971), was an Irish-born British chemist and physicist whose studies of crystal structures led to important developments in physics and chemistry.
Kathleen Yardley was born on Jan. 28, 1903, in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, the daughter of a postmaster and the youngest of 10 children. After the family moved to England, she earned a scholarship to Bedford College in London at age 16 where she studied mathematics and physics. She began studying organic compounds through X-ray crystallography at the University of London.
In 1922, she was invited by English physicist William Henry Bragg to join his crystallography research team at University College in London (UCL). She went on to the Royal Institution, where she remained until 1946, except for brief periods. She married Thomas Lonsdale in 1927. In 1946, she joined the chemistry department of UCL and was promoted to professor of chemistry in 1949, and retired in 1968.
Lonsdale developed theories about organic crystal structures based on research using X-ray crystal photography and analysis techniques. Her improvements in X-ray crystallography became key to determining the structures of organic and inorganic compounds. This information provided the basis for many developments in physics and chemistry, including the development of new medicines. She also published X-ray analyses of the chemical compounds hexamethylbenzene in 1929 and hexachlorobenzene in 1931 that showed the arrangement of the carbon atoms in the benzene molecule.
In 1945, she joined microbiologist Marjory Stephenson in becoming the first women fellows of the Royal Society. She was awarded the society's Davy Medal in chemistry in 1957 and became the society's first woman vice president in 1960. In 1968, she became the first woman president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.