Sharpening the reputation of scientist and suffragist, Hertha Ayrton
Graeme Gooday (University of Leeds) and Patricia Fara (University of Cambridge) Today is the 172nd anniversary of an extraordinary woman: Hertha Ayrton (1854–1923), who was born as Sarah Phoebe Marks on 28 April 1854. She was the first woman to become a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), the first woman to deliver her own paper at the Royal Society (although she was rejected for Fellowship on the grounds that she was married) and the first woman to be awarded the Royal Society’s prestigious Hughes Medal – and what’s more, the only woman to receive that medal in the entire 20th century. 2026 also marks the centenary of the illuminating biography by her friend and fellow suffragist Evelyn Sharp : Hertha Ayrton: A Memoir (London: Edward Arnold, 1926). Now out of copyright…