Hertha Marks Ayrton

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Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 23 August 1923), known in adult life as Hertha Ayrton, was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist, and inventor. She was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.

Ayrton attended Girton College, University of Cambridge, where she studied mathematics and was coached by physicist Richard Glazebrook. George Eliot supported Ayrton's application to Girton College. Eliot was writing her novel Daniel Deronda at the time. One of the novel's characters, Mirah, was said to be based on Ayrton, but this is not accepted as fact. During her time at Cambridge, Ayrton constructed a sphygmomanometer, led the choral society, founded the Girton fire brigade, and, together with Charlotte Scott, formed a mathematical club. In 1880, Ayrton passed the Mathematical Tripos, but Cambridge did not grant her an academic degree because, at the time, Cambridge gave only certificates and not full degrees to women. Ayrton passed an external examination at the University of London, which awarded her a Bachelor of Science degree in 1881.

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. She also began her own investigation into the characteristics of the electric arc.

Ayrton died of blood poisoning (resulting from an insect bite) on 26 August 1923 at New Cottage, North Lancing, Sussex.

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April 28, 1854: Jewish-British engineer, mathematician, physicist, and women's rights advocate Hertha Marks Ayrton was born in Portsea, Hampshire. She studied mathematics and physics at Girton College, Cambridge, but since Cambridge didn't award degrees to women at the time, she was given her Bachelor of Science degree by the University of London in 1881. In 1899, she was the first woman ever to read her own paper before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and shortly after was elected the first female member of the IEE. The Royal Society did not receive her well at first, but in 1904 she became the first woman to read a paper before them and in 1906 she was awarded the Royal Society's prestigious Hughes Medal. As a teenager, she became deeply involved in the women's suffrage movement, joining the WSPU in 1907, and it was through suffrage activism she met suffragist and co-founder of Cambridge's Girton College, Barbara Bodichon, who made it possible for her to study at Girton and would go on to financially support Ayrton throughout her education and career.
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Ayrton.html

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