Kathleen Lonsdale
Encyclopedia
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, DBE FRS (née Yardley) (28 January 1903 - 1 April 1971) was a crystallographer
Crystallography
Crystallography is the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms in solids. The word "crystallography" derives from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and grapho = write.Before the development of...

, who established the structure of benzene
Benzene
Benzene is an organic chemical compound. It is composed of 6 carbon atoms in a ring, with 1 hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom, with the molecular formula C6H6....

 by X-ray diffraction methods in 1929, and hexachlorobenzene
Hexachlorobenzene
Hexachlorobenzene, or perchlorobenzene, is a chlorocarbon with the molecular formula C6Cl6. It is a fungicide formerly used as a seed treatment, especially on wheat to control the fungal disease bunt...

 by Fourier spectral methods in 1931. During her career she attained a number of firsts for a female scientist including first woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, first woman tenured professor at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

, first woman president of the International Union of Crystallography
International Union of Crystallography
The International Union of Crystallography is a member of the International Council for Science and exists to serve the world community of crystallographers....

, and first woman president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...

.

Biography

Lonsdale was born at Newbridge, County Kildare
Newbridge, County Kildare
The earliest known mention of Newbridge was by traveller and bookseller John Dunton in 1698, though he does not refer to any settlement other than at Ballymany....

, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, the tenth child of Harry Yardley, the town postmaster, and Jessie Cameron. Her family moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 when she was five. She studied at Woodford County High School
Woodford County High School (London)
Woodford County High School is a secondary all-girls grammar school in Woodford Green in the London Borough of Redbridge, England. The school opened in 1919.Woodford's brother school is Ilford County High School....

 for Girls, then moved to Ilford County High School
Ilford County High School
Ilford County High School is a selective boys' secondary grammar school and a specialist science college in the Barkingside area of the London Borough of Redbridge.ICHS is a four-form entry school, each form comprising up to 30 pupils...

 for Boys to study mathematics and science because the girls' school did not offer these subjects.

She earned her B.Sc. from Bedford College for Women in 1922, graduating in physics with an M.Sc. from University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

 in 1924. She then joined the crystallography research team headed by William Henry Bragg
William Henry Bragg
Sir William Henry Bragg OM, KBE, PRS was a British physicist, chemist, mathematician and active sportsman who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son William Lawrence Bragg - the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics...

 at the Royal Institution
Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London.-Overview:...

. In 1927 she married Thomas Jackson Lonsdale. They had three children – Jane, Nancy, and Stephen - the latter of whom became a medical doctor and worked for several years in Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

.

Though she had been brought up in the Baptist religion as a child, Kathleen Lonsdale became a Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

 in 1935, simultaneously with her husband. Both of them were committed pacifists
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...

 and were attracted to Quakerism in no small part for this reason. She served a month in Holloway prison
Holloway (HM Prison)
HM Prison Holloway is a closed category prison for adult women and Young Offenders, located in the Holloway area of the London Borough of Islington, in north and Inner London, England...

 during the Second World War because she refused to register for civil defence duties or pay a fine for refusing to register. At the annual meeting of the British Quakers in 1953 she delivered the keynote Swarthmore Lecture
Swarthmore Lecture
Swarthmore Lecture is one of a series of lectures, started in 1908, addressed to Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends .The preface to the very first lecture explains the purpose of the series....

, under the title Removing the Causes of War.

Lonsdale worked at the University of Leeds in the late 1920s, was mostly a full-time mother of small children during the early 1930s, and returned to work with Bragg at the Royal Institution as a researcher in 1934. She was awarded a D.Sc. from University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

 in 1936 while at the Royal Institution. In addition to discovering the structure of benzene and hexachlorobenzene, Lonsdale worked on the synthesis of diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s. She was a pioneer in the use of X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

s to study crystals. Lonsdale became one of the first two female Fellows of the Royal Society in 1945 (the other was the biochemist Marjory Stephenson
Marjory Stephenson
Marjory Stephenson, MBE, FRS was a British biochemist. She was one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945....

).

In 1949, Lonsdale became a professor of chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 and the head of the Department of Crystallography at University College, London. She was the first woman professor at that college, a position she held until 1968 when she was named Professor Emeritus.

Honours

She was given the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956. Lonsdale became the first woman president of the International Union of Crystallography
International Union of Crystallography
The International Union of Crystallography is a member of the International Council for Science and exists to serve the world community of crystallographers....

 in 1966. Lonsdale was active in encouraging young people to study science and was the first woman president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...

 in 1967.

A Kathleen Lonsdale Building is named in her honor today at both University College London, UK and University of Limerick
University of Limerick
The University of Limerick is a university in Ireland near the city of Limerick on the island's west coast. It was established in 1972 as the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick and became a university by statute in 1989 in accordance with the University of Limerick Act 1989...

, Ireland.

Lonsdaleite
Lonsdaleite
Lonsdaleite , also called hexagonal diamond in reference to the crystal structure, is an allotrope of carbon with a hexagonal lattice. In nature, it forms when meteorites containing graphite strike the Earth. The great heat and stress of the impact transforms the graphite into diamond, but retains...

an allotrope of carbon
Allotropes of carbon
This is a list of the allotropes of carbon.-Diamond:Diamond is one of the most well known allotropes of carbon. The hardness and high dispersion of light of diamond make it useful for both industrial applications and jewellery. Diamond is the hardest known natural mineral. This makes it an...

 was named in her honour; it is a rare form of diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

 found in meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...

s.

Selected Writings

  • "The Structure of the Benzene Ring in Hexamethylbenzene," Proceedings of the Royal Society 123A: 494 (1929).
  • "An X-Ray Analysis of the Structure of Hexachlorobenzene, Using the Fourier Method," Proceedings of the Royal Society 133A: 536 (1931).
  • Simplified Structure Factor and Electron Density Formulae for the 230 Space Groups of Mathematical Crystallography, G. Bell & Sons, London, 1936.
  • "Diamonds, Natural and Artificial," Nature 153: 669 (1944).
  • "Divergent Beam X-ray Photography of Crystals," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 240A: 219 (1947).
  • Crystals and X-Rays, G. Bell & Sons, London, 1948.
  • Removing the Causes of War, 1953.
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