Avery and Ida Woodward
Last international Women's Day, I shared with you as much of the story of Gertrude Hutton that I knew. Today, on this International Women’s Day, 2023, what better way to celebrate achievement than to follow the lives and careers of sisters who were born in Loughborough?
Although there were three sisters, and all were academically gifted, we will tell the story of just two of them, the oldest sister, Avery, and the youngest sister, Ida.
Information about middle sister Ella, born in Loughborough in October 1889, has been hard to come by, and the only certain fact is that in 1911 she was a student of natural sciences at University of Cambridge, and was boarding at 19 Leigham Street, Plymouth with several other students – Alice Frieda Cozens-Hardy Evershed, and Dorothy Gooch Butler. Annie Carter is the housekeeper, but the record is signed by a Mrs Hocking along with Annie Carter. The only other mentions found of an Ella Woodward who might be this sister, are in the 1939 Register, where she is listed as an incapacitated resident at the Wilts County Mental Hospital, and a possible death in quarter three of 1848, registered in Devizes.
Avery’s story
Avery Woodward was born to parents Robert Wallace Woodward (born 4 February 1860 in Port Louis, Mauritius, died 28 March 1942 in Winterbourne Stoke, Salisbury), and Ella Mary Glanville (born May 1862 in Southampton, died 22 February 1939 in Winterbourne Stoke, Salisbury). Avery was born on 27 June 1888, in Loughborough where her father was a teacher at the Loughborough Grammar School, and the family are possibly living at 106 Park Road. By 1898, the family which now included two further daughters – Ella, born October 1889, and Ida, born April 1893 - had moved to Nottingham, where father Robert was a teacher at Nottingham High School. On the 1901 census, the family are living on either Main Street Basford, or Main Street Gedling.
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| 106 Park Road |
Avery was home-schooled, and this stood her in good stead as she did well academically, and had a string of accolades to her name. In October 1903, Avery was the top junior girl in the Oxford local examinations. She was bracketed 6th in the First Class, and obtained the £10 scholarship offered by the Oxford delegates. In March 1904 she gained a prize in the Cambridge local exams – best Junior Girl, Nottingham, for which the prize was £8. This was followed a year later when in March 1905 Avery won a £12 prize for being best senior girl in the Cambridge Local Examinations and Lecture Syndicate, and four months after that, in July 1905 when she passed the matriculation at London University from the University College of Nottingham with a First Division result. In October 1905, Avery was successful in the exams at University of London and won a scholarship of £40 for two years, awarded by the University of London, and gained a university exhibition for two years, for University College Nottingham.
In August 1906, London University published the results of its honours list for intermediate exams in the arts and sciences. Avery Woodward was awarded second class in the intermediate arts: Greek. This was followed by more success, when in December 1908 Avery passed her BA Examination in Classics, with a Second Class Honours, from Newnham College and University College, Nottingham.
As a student with Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1910, Avery gained a first-class pass in part 2 of the Classical Tripos [NOTE 1]. An article which appeared in the ‘Nottingham Evening Post’ says:
‘She was educated at home, and attended classes at the University College, Nottingham. She gained a Pfieffer Scholarship at Girton College, which she relinquished on gaining a Gilchrist Scholarship of £50 a year at the London University, and the Nottingham Girls’ Higher Education Exhibition. At Newnham she obtained a first-class in all the college examinations, and on gaining a first-class in the Classical Tripos (part 1) in 1909, won the Arthur Hugh Clough Scholarship of £40 a year, awarded to the best Newnham student of the year.”
However, a later article, in 1913, relating to Avery’s sister Ida, says the following: “Her [i.e. Ida’s] elder sister [i.e. Avery] was scholar of Newnham College, [and] took a First Class in the Chemical Tripos three years ago.”
On the 1911 census return, Avery is lodging at 20 Quentin Road, Lewisham, where she is listed as an assistant teacher with a Girls’ Public Day School Trust. She is probably renting rooms in the house, as other occupants of the property are listed as Mildred Ethel Martin, a 32-year-old Assistant Mistress in the Blackheath High School, who is occupying two rooms; Muriel Howard Spalding, a 30-year-old lodger occupying two rooms, who was a lecturer in Physical Education & [?] at Avery Hill Training College [NOTE 2] in Eltham; and Annie Bertha Schobert, a 31-year-old teacher with the Girls’ Public Day School Trust was also lodging at No.20 – presumably, the same trust as Avery was with. The keeper of the lodging house was the 61-year-old widow, Martha Steer.
In December 1912, Avery Woodward, of Nottingham, attended a conference of the Classical Association, which was being held at Sheffield University, and which was the Association’s first outing to a Yorkshire University.
There is now a huge gap in the information for Avery, and the 1921 census is still hard for me to access.
However, following such success in her education, in 1925, Avery has an article published in ‘Aberystwyth Studies’, No.7, pp.19-35. The title of this article was ‘The descriptive use of dactyls’. [NOTE 3] The title page of this journal carries the statement “By Members of the University College of Wales” so it’s probably safe to assume that at the time she wrote the article, Avery was employed at this college. This college was the first university college in Wales, and at its time of opening in 1872, it was the first university institution in Wales to offer courses in amongst other things, Comparative Philology. To offer such a course requires teachers, so perhaps Avery was a teacher in this area, as it is certainly one that she is expert in. [NOTE 4] Edith Gadsby, who became the wife of Bernard Nixon Wale, had attended the college in Aberystwyth only about 20 years after it had been established.
Again, another information gap, but in 1934 Avery has an article published in the journal ‘Greece & Rome’, Vol.3, No.8 (Feb. 1934), pp.105-112. The title is ‘Evidence for Greek pronunciation’, and it begins:
“In 1844, G.J. Pennington, in ‘An Essay on the pronunciation of the Greek Language’, wrote: “And this is the great difficulty which I have always found in discussing the point with my own countrymen, that they are prejudiced, not by theory, for that may be stated and refuted, but by a matter of taste, though mistaken taste, from which it is not easy to obtain a fair hearing.” There is still much truth in this; but the position is changed …”
Although there is no evidence in this article of Avery’s work place, by 1935, she is associated with Royal Holloway College, Englefield Green, Surrey [NOTE 5], and is listed in its proceedings as a member of the American Philological Association.
On 22 February 1939, Ella Mary Woodward, wife of Robert Wallace Woodward, both of Staddles, Church Street, Winterbourne Stoke, Salisbury, and mother of Avery, Ella, and Ida, died, at 74 Campbell Road Salisbury. Probate was granted on 10 June 1939 to daughter Avery. She left £543 15s 4d.. At the time of the 1939 Register (September), Avery is living at Staddles with her father Robert, and is listed as a university lecturer, although the subject is unclear.
The death of Avery and Ida’s mother was followed in March 1942 by the death of their father. Location details are the same as for Ella, so he lived at Staddles, Church Street, Winterbourne Stoke, Salisbury, and died at 74 Campbell Road Salisbury. However, probate was granted on 8 May 1942, to both Avery and her sister Ida. Effects were £3977 6s. 3d.. A report in the ‘Nottingham Evening Post’ suggests that the gross was £3,977 and the net was £3,929.
Again, a further huge gap in information, for the next reference we have is for 1949, when Avery is found to be on the Senate of London University (of which Royal Holloway College was a part); she was a Convocation Member of the Arts department; she was on the committee for the Council of External Students; she was part of the Goldsmith’s College Delegacy; she was a teacher in classics (the Greek and Latin languages and literature) at the Royal Holloway College; Avery was Chairman of the Board of Study of Philology; and she was a Reader in Classics. She had also, at some point, gained an MA.
In May 1950, Avery, of the Royal Holloway College, gave her presidential address at a meeting of the Central Council of the Association of University Teachers at Swansea College, and during 1952, having been a member of the American Philological Association since 1935, represented the Society at the Seventh International Congress of Linguistics in London . In 1953, Avery subscribed to a book – ‘Studies in romance philology and French literature’ - which was presented to John Orr [NOTE 6], by pupils, colleagues, and friends. Avery is listed as being from Royal Holloway College, Englefield Green, Surrey.
Ida’s story
Ida Woodward was born to parents Robert Wallace Woodward and his wife Ella Mary Glanville, on 27 April 1893. In 1891 the family were living at 7 Middleton Place, but by 1895 they were living at 16 Herrick Road: wherever they were in Loughborough at the time of Ida’s birth, this was definitely in Loughborough as father, Robert, was a teacher at the Loughborough Grammar School. By 1898, the family had moved to Nottingham, where father, Robert was a teacher at Nottingham High School.
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| 7 Middleton Place |
Like her older sister, Avery, Ida was academically successful, and in 1906, being privately educated (perhaps like Avery, home-schooled?) Ida won the Junior Mathematics Prize, donated by Sir Charles Seely, in the Oxford local exams. No monetary value was reported. In 1911, Ida, listed as a student, is living with her parents, Robert - who was an Assistant Master at Nottingham High School - and Ella, at Fairholme, Mecklenburg Road, Nottingham.
In June 1913, Ida was a student with Girton College, Cambridge, and gained a First in the Mathematical Tripos, Part 1. As with the story of Avery Woodward, there are huge gaps in the information found regarding Ida. I have been unable to establish if or when Ida completed her studies with Girton College, or if, perhaps these were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. I have also wondered, but been unable to establish for definite, if perhaps she completed her studies at Leeds University.
My reason for even considering this is the appearance of the name ‘Ida Woodward’ in the sixteenth report of the Leeds University, for 1919-20. In ‘Appendix C: Appointments gained by students, 1918-19’, an entry reads:
‘Ida Woodward, B.Sc., Assistant Mistress, Secondary School, Castleford [Leeds]’
This follows from the sighting of a record in ‘The Suffragette’ of December 1913, for a donation of 1s. made by a Miss Woodward, under the heading of ‘Leeds’. Of course, I could be barking up completely the wrong tree here, and access to the 1921 census returns might clear the matter up. Added to this is the knowledge that William Henry Bragg (later ‘Sir’) moved after the First World War, from Leeds University, firstly to University College London, and then to the Royal Institution in London, and it is known that Ida was most certainly at the Royal Institution, working as part of William Henry Bragg’s group of 18 students, 11 of whom were women. [NOTE 7]
In 1923 Ida was the sole author of a paper, ‘XC. An investigation of the structure of the halogen salts based on their compressibility’ which was published in ‘The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 6’
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| Extract from Ida's 1923 paper |
Whilst at the Royal Institution, probably between 1930 and 1939, Ida supported and worked collaboratively with John. Monteath Robertson, with whom she wrote a number of papers. Although he left the institution in 1939, to join Sheffield University, their joint authorship of scientific papers continued. I have listed some of Ida’s papers below, but would like to highlight this one from 1941, for its author’s concerns:
Ida was joint author with A. R. Ubbelohde of a paper on the ‘Structure and thermal properties associated with some hydrogen bonds in crystals IV. Isotope effects in some acid phosphates’, which was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London’. Interestingly, as a peer-reviewed paper, the authors ask the referee (Ralph Howard Fowler) [NOTE 8] if there is any information contained in the paper which is likely to be of value to the enemy – a stark reminder that this research was taking place during the time of world war.
It is very likely that in 1946 Ida moves to Queen’s University, Belfast, as her friend, Nellie Dale, from the Royal Institution, writes to Henry Barcroft [NOTE 9] at Queen’s University, asking him to make the acquaintance of Ida.
Throughout her time at Queen’s Ida continued to write papers, with a variety of joint authors – A. R. Ubbelohde, K. Gallagher, J. McC, Pollock, and Robert J. Magee, to name but a few – much of which was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London’, but also in other journals like ‘Acta Crystallographica’ and ‘Talanta’. She also lectured in chemistry, and it has been said that during lectures she would share anecdotes about working with William Bragg and Ernest Rutherford, the latter having been President of the Royal Society from 1925-1930 [NOTE 10].
Avery and Ida’s later story
By 1953, the story of Avery and Ida Woodward becomes more intertwined, as in that year, Avery retired from her position as Reader in Classics at the Royal Holloway College, and moved to Belfast to live with Ida, who was still working at Queen’s University. Once settled in Ireland, Avery joined the Classical Society of Northern Ireland, and gave her first lecture to the Society in November 1955, the subject of which was the pronunciation of Greek in Western Europe, a topic upon which she was an expert.
Of course, whilst Avery was retired, sister Ida, being a few years younger than her sibling, continued to work at Queen’s University in Belfast, and continued to author papers. In 1955, Ida was a joint author on a paper on the effects of temperature on some hydrogen-bond networks in crystals and in 1956 she was a joint author on a paper about hydrogen bonds in crystals in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society, London'. In 1962 Ida and her work were mentioned a number of times in a book called ‘Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction’. These mentions were particularly in relation to her being one of the ‘original Royal Institution research workers’ and that she was a mathematician.
The next event in the lives of the two spinster sisters that has come to light, is that they appear to have gone on a two-week cruise which included visiting Madeira and Tenerife. On 23 March 1960, they departed from Southampton, and travelled first class, on a ship called Venus, which was part of the “Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab” shipping line. They returned to Southampton on 4 April 1960, again on the Venus, but which this time was on the “Messrs Thomas Meadowes and Company Ltd.”. Records of both journeys give their address as 13 Broughton Park, Belfast 6, and Avery’s occupation was listed as ‘nil’ – so she was retired – whilst Ida was listed as being a university lecturer.
The final events tracked down are the death of the two sisters. Avery died on 17 September 1977, and at the time of her death she was still living at 13 Broughton Park, Ravenhill Road, Belfast. Probate was granted on 12 May 1978, but to whom is not known. Effects were £28,831. Sister, Ida, died on 22 October 1983, at Deramore House Private Nursing Home, which was at 148 Malone Road, in Belfast, and her funeral service was held at the Belfast City Crematorium at 2pm on Monday 31 October. Probate was granted on 16 February 1984, but to whom is not known. Effects were £91,416.
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NOTES
NOTE 1 – for an explanation of the Tripos examinations that emerged from Cambridge University, I refer you to Wikipedia
NOTE 2 – “Avery Hill College was established in 1906 by the London County Council as a residential female teacher training college. The mansion at Avery Hill, Eltham had been purchased by London County Council in 1902. It had previously been the home of Colonel John Thomas North and his family, who had spent [a lot of money on renovating and adding to the property to create a large Italianate mansion. On his death in 1896 his widow sold the property, which was eventually bought by London County Council for [a sum of money]. The College opened in 1906 with 45 resident and 115 day students. Most of the students were between 18 and 21 and came from London, and had already worked as pupil-teachers. The syllabus included nature study, drawing, music and the theory of education as well as the more usual academic subjects. Science was not taught until the 1930s as so few of the girls had been taught the subject at school. Games included tennis, hockey, cricket and netball, and student societies were established to organise social events and activities. By 1908 the College had purchased nearby Southwood House and a school building in Deansfield Road which were converted to hostels. Numbers of applicants to the College continued to rise, and four new halls of residence were built in the grounds of Southwood House, the last opening in 1916. During the First World War Roper Hall became a convalescent home for soldiers, but the College remained open.” From: Avery Hill College Identity Statement
NOTE 3 – Dactyl – According to Wikipedia, a dactyl is a foot in poetic meter. In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight. The best-known use of dactylic verse is in the epics attributed to the Greek poet Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. In accentual verse, often used in English, a dactyl is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables—the opposite is the anapaest (two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable).
NOTE 4 – Philology - This subject, according to the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’, is the study of the history of language, and includes the historical study of literary texts.
NOTE 5 – Royal Holloway College was formed from two colleges which were founded by social pioneers, Elizabeth Jesser Reid and Thomas Holloway, which were some of the first places in Britain where women could access higher education.
NOTE 6 – John Orr is described by Wikipedia as a ‘scholar of French who had worked at East London College in the University of London. His archives are held at Edinburgh University where he worked from 1933-1954.
NOTE 7 - In 2008, Ida Woodward is mentioned in a book by Marlene and Geoff Rayner-Canham, called ‘Chemistry was their life: pioneer British women chemists, 1880-1949’. It is recorded in a chapter on women crystallographers that Ida was one of William Henry Bragg’s group of 18 students, 11 of whom were women. After the First World War, Bragg moved from his post of professor at Leeds University, firstly to University College London, and then to the Royal Institution in London. Apparently, crystallography was an attractive science for women to be involved in, and one reason put forward was that Bragg, and his son, William Lawrence, provided a women-friendly environment. It has, however, also been suggested that X-ray crystallography was popular with women scientists as it required dedication and attention to detail.
NOTE 8 – Ralph Howard Fowler was a physicist and astronomer who also worked on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. During the Frist World War, after being injured in Gallipoli, he became part of a group of scientists engaged in developing better techniques for targeting Zeppelins. In 1941 I think he was at Cambridge. but saw active service during the Second World War, and he was knighted in 1942.
NOTE 9 – Henry Barcroft was a highly distinguished physiologist, who in 1935 was appointed Dunville Professor of Physiology at Queen’s University, Belfast, a post he held until he moved to St Thomas’s Hospital in London in 1948. He would therefore have been at Queen’s when Ida arrived in 1946.
NOTE 10 - Short biography of Ernest Rutherford.
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References to Ida’s work …
In 1957, Professor A. R. Ubbelohde, who worked on crystallography, particularly the study of crystal transformations, isotope effects, and thermal vibrations, at Queen’s with Ida, moved to London. In his 1962 book, ’50 years of X-ray diffraction’, Ewald notes that Ida, a mathematician, had been one of the original Royal Institution researchers, who had studied the whole range of transformations of single crystals of potassium nitrate, where she had worked with A. R. Ubbelohde. They worked in the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory that had been established and equipped by Dr Ludwig Mon, and was opened by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) in December 1896. Of her work with J. M. Robertson, Ewald notes, “[Robertson] spent altogether some twelve years in the D.F. Laboratory, [and] carried out a series of brilliant investigations of the crystal structures of aromatic compounds, beginning with naphthalene, anthracene, resorcinol, durene and benzophenone; and going on, partly with the later collaboration of Ida Woodward, to oxalic acid dihydrate, the phthalocyanines and the dibenzyl series, including stilbene, tolane, trans- and cis-azobenzene.” Ubbelohde and Robertson also collaborated. Ewald goes on to say that around 1942: “Shortly before Sir William’s [William Bragg had by now been knighted] death in 1942 there began in the laboratories and elsewhere the studies of diffuse scattering by the thermal waves in crystals and of the anomalous scattering in type I diamonds which interested him so much that he arranged a Royal Society Discussion on the subject. These researches were continued during .the subsequent years when first Sir Henry Dale and then Professor E. Rideal was Director of the D.F. Laboratory. At the same time Miss Woodward and A. R. Ubbelohde were studying the subcrystalline changes in structure of Rochelle salt and potassium dihydrogen phosphate in their ferroelectric regions, and studies of texture and extinction were being made by means of Laue and divergent-beam photographs.”
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A selection of Ida’s publications
1923 – Ida was the sole author of a paper, ‘XC. An investigation of the structure of the halogen salts based on their compressibility’ which was published in ‘The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 6’
1935 – Ida was joint author with John Monteath Robertson and Mata Prasad of a paper on ‘X-ray analysis of the dibenzyl series III – The structure of stilbene, tolane, and azobenzene’ published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London’
1936 - Ida was joint author with J. Monteath Robertson of a paper ‘The structure of the carboxyl group. A quantitative investigation of oxalic acid dihydrate by Fourier synthesis from the X-ray crystal data’ which was published in the ‘Journal of the Chemical Society’
1937 – Ida was joint author with J. Monteath Robertson of a paper ‘An X-ray study of the phthalocyanines. Part III. Quantitative structure determination of nickel phthalocyanine’ which was published in the ‘Journal of the Chemical Society’
1939 – Ida was joint author with J. J. de Lange and John Monteath Robertson of a paper on ‘X-ray crystal analysis of trans-azobenzene’, which was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London’
1940 - Ida was joint author with J. Monteath Robertson of a paper ‘An X-ray study of the phthalocyanines. Part IV. Direct quantitative analysis of the platinum compound’ which was published in the ‘Journal of the Chemical Society’
1940 – Ida was the sole author of a paper ‘X-ray studies of the porphins’ which was published in the ‘Journal of the Chemical Society’
1940 – Ida was joint author with Kathleen Yardley Lonsdale and John Monteath Robertson of a paper on ‘Structure and molecular anisotropy of sorbic acid, CH3.CH:CH.CH:CH.COOH’, published in ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society A’
In 1941 Ida Woodward was a joint author (with Kathleen Lonsdale and J. Monteath Robertson) on ‘Structure and magnetic anisotropy of sorbic acid’, published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Series A’, 178, pg. 43
1942 - Ida was joint author with A. R. Ubbelohde of a paper on the ‘Structure and thermal properties associated V. Thermal expansion of phthalocyanines and porphins’, which was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London’.
1944 - Ida was joint author with A. R. Ubbelohde of a paper on the ‘Structure and thermal properties of crystals VI. The role of hydrogen bonds in Rochelle salt’, which was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London’.
1947 - Ida was joint author with A. R. Ubbelohde of a paper on the ‘Structure and thermal properties associated with some hydrogen bonds in crystals VII. Behaviour of KH2PO4 and KH2A SO4 on cooling’, which published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society: A’.
1955 – Ida, of Queen’s University, Belfast, was joint author with K. Gallagher and A. R. Ubbelohde of a paper on ‘Effects of temperature on some hydrogen-bond networks in crystals’ published in ‘Acta Crystallographica’
1956 – Ida, of Queen’s University, Belfast, was joint author with J. McC. Pollock, and A. R. Ubbelohde of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, London, of a paper on ‘Hydrogen bonds in crystals X. The isotope effect and thermal expansion of non-co-operative hydrogen bonds in furoic acid’ which was published in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences’
1966 – Ida was
joint author with Robert J. Magee of a paper on ‘Structures of the uranyl
8-hydroxyquinolates’ which was published in ‘Talanta’
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posted by lynneaboutloughborough
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