author

Igerna Brünhilda Johnson Sollas

1877–1965

A pioneering Cambridge scientist with unusually wide interests, she worked across zoology, geology, palaeontology, and early genetics at a time when few women were able to enter those fields. Her career connects natural history with the beginnings of modern biological research.

1 Audiobook

The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 01 (of 10)

The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 01 (of 10)

by Marcus Hartog, Sydney J. (Sydney John) Hickson, E. W. (Ernest William) MacBride, Igerna Brünhilda Johnson Sollas

About the author

Born in Dawlish, Devon, on March 16, 1877, Igerna Brünhilda Johnson Sollas — also known as Hilda Sollas — became a British zoologist, palaeontologist, and geologist. She studied at Alexandra College and later at Newnham College, Cambridge, and went on to lecture at Newnham.

Her scientific work ranged widely. Sources describe her as one of the first women to be taught geology at the University of Cambridge, and note research interests spanning marine organisms, fossils, and genetics. She also worked in Cambridge’s early genetics circle around William Bateson, showing how comfortably she moved between different branches of science.

Sollas died in November 1965. Although she is not as widely remembered as some of her contemporaries, her career stands out as an example of early twentieth-century scholarship shaped by curiosity, range, and persistence.