author
Lilian Sheldon
1862–1942
An early British zoologist who helped open academic science to women, she studied everything from newt embryos to sea creatures and wrote with a clear, practical eye. Her work sits at the meeting point of careful research and the growing place of women in Cambridge science.
1 Audiobook
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 02 (of 10)
by Frank E. (Frank Evers) Beddard, W. B. (William Blaxland) Benham, F. W. (Frederick William) Gamble, Marcus Hartog, Lilian Sheldon
About the author
Born in Handsworth in May 1862, she was the daughter of the Reverend John Sheldon and was educated at Handsworth Ladies' College before going to Newnham College, Cambridge, on scholarship. She became part of the first generation of women pushing into advanced scientific study there, taking the Natural Sciences Tripos in the early 1880s.
Her research focused on zoology and animal development. She worked on the development of the cranial nerves of the newt with Alice Johnson, and also studied the anatomy and morphology of organisms including Styela rustica and Peripatus. Her papers appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, and she also contributed the section on nemertines to The Cambridge Natural History.
She is remembered not only for her published work but also as one of the women scholars who helped build a place for serious biological research at Cambridge. She died on May 6, 1942, in Exmouth.