She was also an inventor of several nautical instruments with some being held in the national maritime Museum in Greenwich. She was the author of many books, including some that ran to 27 editions and several are still in print today. She also received international recognition for her contributions: gold medals from the King of Holland and King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and, by 1844, a medal from the Pope. She was similarly honoured by the two other members of the ‘big three’ of the 19th Century maritime world in Britain: the Elder Brethren of Trinity House and the East India Company. In 1835, in consideration of ‘services she has extended to seamen’, through her Lunar Tables, the Admiralty awarded her £100 ‘from scientific funds’, a ‘handsome pecuniary award’. Between 16 there 79 patents awarded for nautical instruments – Janet was the only women among them for her Mariner’s Calculator. Where they were hesitant at first in their engagement with Mrs Taylor, she clearly won their support and respect. Through her scientific work, Janet established a respectful correspondence with those in the highest positions in the maritime community: men like the head of the Admiralty’s Hydrographic Office, Captain, later Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, and Professor Sir George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal. She conducted her own Nautical Academy in Minories in the east end of the City, not far from the Tower of London she was a sub-agent for Admiralty charts ran a manufacturing business for nautical instruments, many of which she designed herself and embarked on the business of compass-adjusting at the height of the controversies generated by magnetic deviation and distortions on iron ships. She became a prodigious author of nautical treatises and textbooks, born of a fascination in particular in measuring longitude by the lunar distance method. Her father, the curate of the church of St Mary and St Stephen and schoolmaster of the Free Grammar School at Wolsingham, inspired her in the wonders of navigation. Her life thereafter took her into the heart of maritime London. Janet Taylor was born ‘Jane Ann Ionn’ on, the sixth child of the Reverend Peter Ionn and Jane Deighton, the daughter of a country gentleman.Īfter the death of her mother when she was just seven years old, Janet gained a scholarship at the precociously young age of nine, to attend Queen Charlotte’s school in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, where the other girls were all aged over 14. John S Croucher Janet Taylor Designed instruments for nautical navigation He also remarked that he would never have won a Nobel Prize or published a famous paper if it wasn’t for Rosalind. In his 1968 book, The Double Helix, Watson outlined how the two had become friends while working together. Watson suggested that Rosalind, along with Wilkins, should be awarded a Nobel Prize for Chemistry, but the Nobel Committee does not make posthumous nominations. In 1962, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for solving the structure of DNA. In March 1958 Rosalind passed away at the age of 37 from several illnesses, including ovarian cancer. In 1953, her colleague Maurice Wilkins showed James Watson and Francis Crick the X-ray data that Rosalind had obtained, confirming the 3D structure that the pair had speculated about for DNA. A model of the rover bearing Rosalind Franklin's name © ESA She also found that when DNA is exposed to high levels of moisture, its structure changed. Here she deduced the basic dimensions of DNA strands and the likely helical structure. In 1950 during her research she discovered that there were two forms of DNA and was offered a three-year scholarship to undertake further investigation at King’s College in London. This research was the basis of her PhD thesis at Cambridge. This was crucial to the war effort, which relied on coal and carbon for strategic equipment like gas masks. Rosalind Franklin Contributed to the discovery of the structure of DNA Rosalind Elsie Franklin © Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Imagesīritish chemist Rosalind Franklin, born in 1920 in Notting Hill, and in 1942 she brought her physics and chemistry expertise to London Coal, where she investigated the properties of carbon. So, for this year's International Women's Day, we've put together this list of 22 women in science history who deserve to be remembered for their work. But others, like fossil hunter Mary Anning and NASA pioneer Katherine Johnson, aren't such household names. Some of them are rightfully well-known, like Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace and Rosalind Franklin. History is full of women who made enormous contributions to science. 22 pioneering women in science history you really should know about
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