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Pioneers in science

At the National History Museum

Women’s Pioneer Housing counted not one but three Natural History Museum (NHM) researchers amongst its early residents [the National History Museum was known as the British Museum (National History) until 1992]. NHM first began recruiting women scientists in the 1920s, but they were employed on part-time temporary contracts and paid less than male employees. WPH’s homes were convenient because they were affordable; many properties were also located close to NHM in London’s South Kensington.

This photograph of the NHM’s Geology Department, taken in 1938, shows Helen Muir-Wood (front row left) and Dorothea Bate (front row right) were two of only three women working in a department which had 42 employees in total. NHM Images ©The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

Isabella Gordon (1901- 1988), Biologist and Zoologist 

Dr Isabella Gordon NHM Images ©The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

Unlike many of the early WPH tenants who came from wealthy or middle-class backgrounds, Isabella Gordon was the daughter of a farm labourer and a domestic servant. Unusually for that time, her parents were unmarried when she was born, and her mother had two older illegitimate children by different fathers. Isabella clearly showed academic talent early on - she was awarded a bursary that allowed her to continue in education beyond the age of 14 when most working-class children would leave school. In 1918, she won a place to study Zoology at Aberdeen University. During her studies, she supported herself financially by demonstrating practical classes to junior students.

After graduating with a BSc in Zoology, she studied at teacher training college in Aberdeen before winning a research scholarship that allowed her to undertake a PhD at Imperial College, London. With help from another grant (the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship), she carried out research in Jamaica and the USA, focussing on crustaceans, her lifelong passion. In 1928 she joined NHM as an Assistant Keeper and remained working there until her retirement.

Isabella enjoyed a long and distinguished career, publishing widely in scientific journals and speaking at conferences all over the world from 1935-1963. In 1961, she received an OBE and was a distinguished guest at the 60th birthday of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who was a keen amateur marine biologist.

Isabella was a WPH tenant between 1938 and 1944, after a recommendation from her NHM colleagues Helen Muir-Wood and Dorothea Bate.

Dorothea Bate (1878-1951), Palaeontologist

Dorothea Bate and a workman clearing two fossil elephant teeth in Bethlehem in 1933 NHM Images ©The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

Dorothea grew up with a love of nature and was largely self-taught - she commented later in life that her education was ' only briefly interrupted by school.' In 1898, she moved from Carmarthen to London aged just 19 and managed to secure a job at the NHM sorting bird skins and preparing fossils. As women were not allowed to become official members of the scientific staff until 1928, Dorothea’s job was low paid piece-work (meaning that she was paid by the number of fossils she sorted).

Despite these barriers, Dorothea flourished. She published her first scientific paper in the Geological Magazine in 1901. By 1924, she was the NHM’s Curator of Ice Age Birds and Mammals. Alongside working at the museum, Dorothea carried out frequent important research trips to Cyprus and other Mediterranean islands, the Middle East and China, often travelling at her own expense. She made several key discoveries and breakthroughs on these trips and her identification expertise was relied on by archaeologists such as Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos, Crete, and anthropologists like the young David Attenborough. She was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1940. Along with her sometimes collaborator Professor Dorothy Garrod, she was an early pioneer in the field of archeozoology.

In a proto-Me Too incident, Dorothea experience sexual harassment at the hands of the British Vice Consul of Mallorca. She publicly criticized him, declaring ‘I hate old men who try to make love to one and ought not to in their official positions'.

Towards the end of her distinguished career, she moved to the Tring branch of the NHM, where she became Officer in Charge in 1948. This move also ended Dorothea’s time living at 65 West Cromwell Road, a WPH property that she had resided in for twenty-four years. 

Helen Muir-Wood (1895-1968), Geologist

Helen studied geology at Bedford College, where her tutor was Catherine Raisin (later a fellow WPH tenant). She graduated with a B.Sc. in 1919 and was then awarded an M.Sc. in 1920. In 1919, Helen became a part-time Gallery Assistant in the Department of Geology at the Natural History Museum. As with Dorothea and Isabella, this was a part-time, low paid job that wouldn’t have suited their male colleagues. 

Helen’s talent soon saw her moving up the ranks at the NHM. She became the Curator of Brachiopods (a type of shellfish) and, in 1955, the first female Deputy Keeper at the NHM, in the Department of Palaeontology. Over the course of her career, Helen made key contributions to the understanding of the evolution and variation in brachiopods and published several books on the topic. Helen officially retired in 1961, when she was awarded the OBE for service to the NHM. However, she carried on working there, researching and publishing until 1965. She was also awarded the Lyell Medal, a prestigious award for outstanding achievement in science given by the Geological Society.

During her career at NMH, Helen lived at two different WPH properties: 15 Bramham Gardens from 1931 to 1944 (where Isabella Gordon also lived in 1938-44) and, in 1950s, 4 Gliddon Road.