Women scientists and the Freshwater Biological Association, 1929–1950

In the early to mid-twentieth century, women had limited opportunities to develop and practice as scientists and, when they did, were often marked out: regarded as odd or remarkable because they were women with scientific commitment, in contrast to their male counterparts. Opportunities for women in freshwater science arose in Britain in interconnected institutions centred on the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) founded in 1929. Several women scientists, pioneers in their fields, were nurtured by the FBA, such as the early freshwater researchers Penelope Jenkin, Marie Rosenberg and Winifred Frost, the two latter being the FBA's first professional women naturalists. Several universities, such as Queen Mary College, University of London, gave opportunities to women freshwater scientists and had direct links to the FBA. Opportunities also arose for women scientists in British colonies. Other researchers who achieved distinction in their field were also products of the FBA and its imperial and university networks: Rosemary Lowe, Winifred Pennington, Winifred Frost, Carmel Humphries and Maud Godward, for example. We argue that the FBA encouraged scientists in relatively new scientific fields for the most part irrespective of gender. This is notable in a period when women scientists were treated with prejudice in scientific culture generally.

John Frederick Clarke. 1 May 1927 — 11 June 2013

Flying, and an enthusiasm for aviation, motivated John Clarke’s early career choices: he flew Fairey Fireflys in the Fleet Air Arm, worked in the Gas Turbine Division of Armstrong Siddeley Motors, and studied aeronautical engineering at Queen Mary College, where he graduated with first-class honours. He stayed on there to do a PhD, and then worked at English Electric, before moving to Cranfield in 1958. John Clarke’s many important publications, mainly in the general area of chemically reacting flows, cover a wide range of topics including flames, ignition processes, shock waves and detonations, the dynamics and physics of burning gases and internal ballistics, to name but a few. In all of his contributions to his subject it is perhaps too easy to overlook the individual. He had a delightful sense of humour, wore his distinctions lightly and was a most generous and friendly man.

Francisco Bautista (ed.), El relato historiográfico: textos y tradiciones en la España medieval. Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary College-University of London, London, 2006; 181 pp. (Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 48).

Se hace una reseña del libro El relato historiográfico: textos y tradiciones en la España medieval.

Disrupting the Quotidian: Hoaxes, Fires, and Non-theatrical Performance in Nineteenth-century London

In this essay Jim Davis considers two examples of everyday non-theatrical performance in nineteenth-century London: hoaxes and fires. Whereas an element of hoaxing can be perceived in some contemporary performance events and in the practice of ‘invisible theatre’, usually with some ethical intention, hoaxes in early nineteenth-century London were perpetrated for the sake of creating disruption and making dupes of unsuspecting witnesses. A more visible form of disruption and spectacle was created by fires and firefighting itself, which, at least after Captain Eyre Massie Shaw took control of the London fire brigade, became a form of public performance. Although hoaxes were common in pantomime and farce, and conflagrations often strengthened the impact of sensation melodramas, the disruptive effects of extra-theatrical hoaxes and fires on everyday life created a less reassuring and more dystopian sense of the metropolis. An earlier version of this paper was originally delivered at ‘The Audience through Time’ conference at Queen Mary College, University of London, in December 2011. Jim Davis is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. His his most recent books are Victorian Pantomime: a Collection of Critical Essays (2010) and Lives of the Great Shakespearian Actors: Edmund Kean (2009). He is also joint author of Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing 1840–1880 (2001).

Staging the Nation: Changing Concepts of a National Theatre in Europe

In this article, Zoltán Imre investigates the major changes in the concept of a national theatre, from the early debates in Hamburg in 1767 to the 2006 opening of the National Theatre of Scotland. While in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the notion of a national theatre was regarded in most of Western Europe as a means of promoting national – or even imperial – integration, in Eastern Europe, the debates about and later the realization of national theatres often took place within the context of and against oppressive imperiums. But in both parts of Europe the realization of a national theatre was utilized to represent a unified nation in a virtual way, its role being to maintain a single and fixed national identity and a homogeneous and dominant national culture. In present-day Scotland, however, the notion of a national theatre has changed again, to service a diverse and multicultural nation. Zoltán Imre received his PhD from Queen Mary College, University of London, and is now a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and Culture at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, co-editor of the Hungarian theatre magazine Theatron, and dramaturg at Mozgó Ház Társulás (Moving House Theatre Company) and Természetes Vészek Kollektíva (Collective of Natural Disasters). His publications include Transfer and Translation: Intercultural Dialogues (co-editor, 2002), Theatre and Theatricality (2003), Transillumination: Hungarian Theatre in a European Context (editor, 2004), and On the Border of Theatre and Sociology (co-editor, 2005).