International Women's Day 2024: Girtonian women, past and ...

Born Phoebe Sarah Marks, was among the most influential British women scientists. A Girton student from 1876 to 1881, she was the first woman elected to the Institution of Electrical Engineers (1899); the first to read her own paper to the Royal Society (1904); the first nominated for election to that society (though barred by virtue of marriage) and the first to be awarded its prestigious Hughes Medal in 1906. Practical as well as scholarly, she made many important discoveries, including the connection between current length and pressure in the electric arc. 

She registered 26 different patents and invented the Ayrton Fan – over 140,000 of these were distributed to disperse gas from World War One trenches. Hertha Ayrton’s success was underwritten by the early generosity of Barbara Bodichon, which enabled her to study Mathematics at Girton despite family hardship after the death of her father. This philanthropic history is continued in Girton today, thanks to a 1925 gift from her friend Ottilie Hancock to endow the Hertha Ayrton Science Fellowship.

Image: Hertha Ayrton in her laboratory, taken by J Russell & Sons, 1910 (archive reference: GCPH 7/3/3/2.

Dr Una S. Ryan (1963, PhD)