The Female Lead Society and Equality Club Research Surrey Role Models

The Club currently attracts pupils from Year 7, 9 and 12 and this example of vertical integration makes for very interesting discussions at our meetings.

Yesterday some of the students presented their findings which we wanted to share as these are examples of careers that women have chosen to pursue.

Issy (Year 7)

Ada Lovelace an English mathematician was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, although she had no interaction with him as her father. Her mother was interested in Maths and Science and encouraged Ada to study those subjects – putting her in isolation if she was not working hard enough!

Lizzie (Year 9)

Ada Lovelace moved into Sandown House in Esher in 1835 following her marriage. Ada created an algorithm to generate Bernoulli numbers which is considered by many to be the first computer program.

Emily (Year 9)

Daphne Jackson was a distinguished nuclear physicist and Britain’s first female professor of Physics at the University of Surrey. She was also President of the Women’s Engineering Society. She published 55 articles on the use of nuclear physics in medicine and worked with the Institute for Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital. Daphne actively promoted women in STEM careers and designed a return-to-fellowship scheme enabling women to return to their research careers after a break. She was awarded an OBE for her contribution and devotion to furthering women’s development in STEM careers.

Isobel (Year 7)

Agatha Christie worked as a nurse during the First World War and qualified as a dispenser learning all about poisons and mixing medicines. In 1919 she became ill and her sister challenged her to write a murder mystery story rather than just lying in bed! This was the first of her 74 Murder Mystery books. In 1926 she was the centre of a real life mystery when she disappeared for 11 days and her car was found near the Silent Pool at Newlands Corner near Guildford. It was thought she may have drowned or committed suicide, however she was later found in a hotel in Harrogate.

We look forward to hearing the rest of the presentations next week before we embark on our next project researching former pupils who could be inspirational role models.

– Ms Rumbold and Mrs Goldhawk