User:Kvardek du/Laboratoire biologique Balfour

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The Balfour Biological Laboratory or Balfour Women's Biological Laboratory is a laboratory and teaching center dedicated to women created at the University of Cambridge in 1879. He played a vital role in Cambridge, enabling women to receive the same natural sciences training as men. The laboratory closed in 1914, when a laboratory with both men and women opened.

History[change | change source]

The physiologist Michael Foster and the zoologist and embryologist Francis Maitland Balfour renewed the teaching of the natural sciences by offering theoretical education and laboratory training. Women's college students could attend natural science lectures at Cambridge's men colleges. They were excluded from practical work because the number of places in the laboratory was limited and men were prioritary. Women's colleges in Newnham and Girton then proposed the creation of a separate women's laboratory [1] . A first laboratory was built on the Newnham ground in 1879. Promptly, the laboratory began to be too small. The vice-principal of Newnham Eleanor Sidgwick, sister of Francis Balfour, raised money for the construction of a second larger laboratory. This second laboratory opened its doors for the second semester of 1884. It was named after Francis Balfour, who had died in 1882 in a mountain accident [2] . The Balfour laboratory is run by women [3] . He offers academic positions to qualified researchers who would not have found a job at Cambridge University. [4] It is located between Pembroke and Emmanuel colleges. This lab has also facilitated collaboration between women scientists such as Muriel Wheldale Onslow and laboratory directors like William Bateson . The laboratory closed in 1914 with the opening of the biochemistry department of Frederick Gowland Hopkins, which was open to women. Several women including Muriel Wheldale joined this laboratory [5] .

Personalities[change | change source]

  • Anna Bateson
  • Florence Margaret Durham
  • Alice Johnson
  • Marion Greenwood
  • Edith Rebecca Saunders
  • Muriel Wheldale Onslow

References[change | change source]

  1. "Balfour Biological Laboratory | scientific institution, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  2. "The Balfour Biological Laboratory for Women, 1884 -1915" (PDF). http://www.genetics.org.uk. 2012. {{cite journal}}: External link in |journal= (help)
  3. ""A Lab of One's Own": The Balfour Biological Laboratory for Women at Cambridge University, 1884-1914". Isis. 88 (3): 422–455. 1997-09-01. doi:10.1086/383769. ISSN 0021-1753. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  4. "Women in Science | History, Achievements, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  5. "The Balfour Biological Laboratory, Cambridge University: A 'Subculture' for Women? (1884-1914)" (PDF). https://warwick.ac.uk/. 1991. {{cite journal}}: External link in |journal= (help)

[[Category:Colleges of the University of Cambridge]]