Margaret Seward (chemist)

Not to be confused with Margaret Seward (dentist).
Margaret Seward
Margaret Seward at Somerville College in 1885
Born(1864-01-22)January 22, 1864
Wigan, Lancashire, England
DiedMay 29, 1929(1929-05-29) (aged 65)
Chiswick, London, England
EducationBlackburne House
Somerville Hall, University of Oxford
OccupationsChemist, nutritionist
SpouseJohn McKillop (m. 1891)
Scientific career
InstitutionsRoyal Holloway College
Roedean School
King's College London

Margaret Seward MBE (22 January 1864 – 29 May 1929) became the earliest Chemist on staff at the Women's College (of which she was a founding Lecturer), from 1896 to 1915. She became the pioneer woman to obtain a first class in the honour school of Natural Science and later received an MBE for her work on nutrition during World War I.

Early life and education

Margaret Seward was born on 22 January 1864 in Wigan, Lancashire.[1][2] Her father was James Seward, a schoolmaster at the Liverpool Institute, and her mother was Sarah Jane Seward (née Woodgates).[1] She was educated at Blackburne House, Liverpool.[2][3]

Seward entered Somerville College, Oxford, in 1881,[3][4][5] and was the recipient of the Reinagle scholarship.[1] She was one of the first two female chemistry students, the other one being Mary Watson. In 1884, she was the first Oxford female student to be entered for the honour school of Mathematics. Seward then changed her focus to Chemistry, and in 1885 became the pioneer woman to obtain the first class honour school of Natural Science.[3][6]

Career

Upon graduation, Seward was immediately appointed Natural Science tutor and chaperone at Somerville,[6] in addition to undertaking research with the Oxford chemist, William H. Pendlebury.[4][7] Two publications on chemical reactions resulted from her work, one of which was read to the Royal Society in 1889.[8][9] These were a study on the reaction kinetics between hydrogen chloride and potassium chlorate[10] and a study of this reaction in the presence of iodide ions.[7]

Seward was appointed as lecturer in Chemistry at Royal Holloway College (RHC) in 1887, where she taught Martha Annie Whiteley.[11] She resigned in 1891 to travel to Singapore to marry John McKillop, a civil engineer.[1][3] They had one son together, Alasdair.[1]

When she returned to Britain in 1893, McKillop taught at several institutions including the Girl's Grammar School, Bradford and Rodean School. In 1895 she was appointed to King's College London, Women's Department, in 1896 to teach chemistry in the new chemical laboratory.[3] She was the earliest chemist on the staff.[9]

In 1904, McKillop was a signatory of the 1904 petition to the Chemical Society, petitioning for women's equality in chemistry.[citation needed] She wrote Economics: Descriptive and Theoretical (1911), an undergraduate textbook, with fellow King's College lecturer Mabel Atkinson.[1]

McKillop was described there as "one of the foremost women science-lecturers", but in 1912, King's College decided to appoint a male lecturer, and she was reassigned to library work.[3] McKillop's position was terminated in 1914.[9]

During World War I, McKillop worked in the Ministry of Food and wrote the book Food Values, What They Are and How to Calculate Them.[12][13] She was awarded an MBE in 1919 for her wartime studies on nutrition.[3] In April 1924 she gave a series of talks on "The family budget on a weekly wage."[14]

Political activity

Margaret Seward McKillop joined the Fabian Society in 1894 and was a leading figure in its Women's Group, serving as chair for several years.[15]

Death

McKillop died on 29 May 1929 at St Mary's Nursing Home, Chiswick.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Pottle, Mark (23 September 2004). "McKillop [née Seward], Margaret (1864–1929)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/51779. Retrieved 16 October 2025.
  2. ^ a b Rayner-Canham, Marelene; Rayner-Canham, Geoff (13 September 2024). Allies of Pioneering Women Chemists: Some Supportive British Male Chemists and Their Women Students (1880–1930). Royal Society of Chemistry. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-1-83767-494-7.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Rayner-Canham, Marelene Rayner-Canham; Rayner-Canham, Geoff (2008). Chemistry was their life : pioneer British women chemists, 1880-1949. London: Imperial College Press. pp. 105–107. ISBN 978-1860949869.
  4. ^ a b Creese, Mary R. S. (1 January 2000). Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of their Contributions to Research. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-585-27684-7.
  5. ^ Adams, Pauline (1996). Somerville for Women: An Oxford College, 1879-1993. Oxford University Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-19-920182-2.
  6. ^ a b Williams, Robert Joseph Paton; Chapman, Allan; Rowlinson, John Shipley (2009). Chemistry at Oxford: A History from 1600 to 2005. Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-85404-139-8.
  7. ^ a b Pendlebury, W. H.; Seward, M. (1888). "An Investigation of a Case of Gradual Change: The Interaction of Hydrogen Chloride and chlorate n the presence of Potassium Iodide". Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 45: 396–423. Bibcode:1888RSPS...45..396P.
  8. ^ Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Royal Society (Great Britain). 1889. p. 396.
  9. ^ a b c Rayner-canham, Marelene; Rayner-canham, Geoff (30 December 2019). Pioneering British Women Chemists: Their Lives And Contributions. World Scientific. pp. 118–119. ISBN 978-1-78634-770-1.
  10. ^ Pendlebury, W. H.; Seward, M. (1888). "An Investigation of a Case of Gradual Chemical Change". Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 45: 124–126. Bibcode:1888RSPS...45..124P.
  11. ^ Raynham-Carter, Marelene; Raynham-Carter, Geoff (2017). A Chemical Passion: The forgotten story of chemistry at British independent girls' schools, 1820s–1930s. UCL IOE Press. pp. 44 (Appendix). ISBN 978-1782771883.
  12. ^ "July 1915: Forage, Farming & Food: Women in Agriculture". Somerville and the Great War. Archived from the original on 20 November 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  13. ^ McKillop, Margaret (1922). Food values, what they are, and how to calculate them . London, G. Routledge & Sons, limited; New York, E.P. Dutton & Co.
  14. ^ Bailey, Michael (12 November 2012). Narrating Media History. Routledge. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-134-11210-4.
  15. ^ "Obituary". Fabian News. July 1929.
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Seward