Dame Kathleen Lonsdale ( Yardley; 28 January 1903 – 1 April 1971) was an Irish crystallographer, pacifist, and prison reform activist. She proved, in 1929, that the benzene ring is flat by using X-ray diffraction methods to elucidate the structure of hexamethylbenzene.

Early life and education

She was born Kathleen Yardley in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. She was born to English-born Harry Frederick Yardley, the town postmaster, and Jessie Cameron, a Baptist of Scottish descent.

She was the youngest of ten children, four of whom died in infancy. During her time living in Newbridge she attended St. Patrick's National School, and her earliest memories were of the local Church of Ireland service and the Methodist Sunday school.

Lonsdale's father had issues with alcohol, which meant her family was often short on money. As the political unrest in Ireland became more severe, Kathleen's mother separated from her father and took the rest of the family to Seven Kings, Essex, England in 1908, when Lonsdale was five years old. Lonsdale's father subsequently moved to South Africa, returning occasionally for visits, and died when she was 20. She studied at Ilford County High School for Girls, then transferred to Ilford County High School for Boys to study mathematics and science, because the girls' school did not offer these subjects. In 1919 Lonsdale began studying at Bedford College for Women, graduating in 1922 with the highest score in physics that any student at London University had ever achieved. As a result of her success, William Henry Bragg (one of her examiners) offered her a research position.

While at Leeds between 1927 to 1932, she started a family but also set up X-ray equipment using a grant from the Royal Society. She balanced her work on the determination of space groups with the task of looking after her children. While at Leeds the Professor of Chemistry, Christopher Ingold suggested that she investigate the crystal structures of hexamethylbenzene and hexachlorobenzene. In both cases she showed the molecules to have a planar, hexagonal structure settling the long-standing dispute about the structure of benzene. Her husband Thomas Lonsdale was a textile chemist who supported his wife's research. He encouraged his wife to work from home and to go back to work when offered. In 1949, she was appointed Professor of Chemistry and head of the Department of Crystallography at UCL.

As a keen table tennis player, Lonsdale made use of ping pong balls to demonstrate molecular structures to her students. One such model—of the silicate group —is in the Science Museum collection

During her later career, she became interested in stones and minerals produced in the human body e.g. kidney stones or gall stones. Some of her crystallographic models are in the collection of the Science Museum in London.

Selected publications

  • Lonsdale, Kathleen. (1936). Simplified Structure Factor and Electron Density Formulae for the 230 Space Groups of Mathematical Crystallography. London: Pub. for the Royal institution by G. Bell & sons, ltd.
  • Lonsdale, Kathleen. (1947) "Divergent-beam X-ray photography of crystals". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 240 (817): 219–250. 27 March 1947. doi:10.1098/rsta.1947.0002. ISSN 0080-4614
  • Lonsdale, Kathleen. 1948. Crystals and X-Rays. London: G. Bell.
  • Lonsdale, Kathleen (15 March 1968). "Human Stones". Science. 159 (3820): 1199–1207. doi:10.1126/science.159.3820.1199.
  • Lonsdale, Kathleen (1952) Quakers visit Russia, Edited by Kathleen Lonsdale : an account of a visit to the Soviet Union in July 1951 by seven British Quakers, 145 pages. Published by the East-West Relations Group of the Friends Peace Committee. (Other contributors: Margaret Ann Backhouse, B Leslie Metcalfe, Gerald Bailey, Paul S Cadbury, Mildred Creak, Frank Edmead).
  • Lonsdale, Kathleen. (1953). Removing the Causes of War. (Swarthmore Lecture, 1953.).
  • Lonsdale, Kathleen (1957). Is Peace Possible? [Harmondsworth, Eng.]: Penguin Books.
  • Lonsdale, Dame Kathleen (1959). Forth in Thy Name: The Life and Work of Godfrey Mowatt. Wykeham Press.

alt=Photograph of a building in grey stone with columns.|thumb|The Kathleen Lonsdale building at [[University College London]]

Personal life

thumb|Lonsdale plaque, Newbridge

alt=Pamphlet written by Kathleen Lonsdale on Prison Reform in 1943|thumb|Pamphlet written by Kathleen Lonsdale on Prison Reform in 1943After beginning her research career, in 1927 Yardley married Thomas Jackson Lonsdale. They had three children – Jane, Nancy, and Stephen. Stephen became a medical doctor and worked for several years in Nyasaland (now Malawi).

Lonsdale was a vegetarian and teetotaller. She was a Sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union.

She served a month in Holloway prison during the Second World War because she refused to register for civil defence duties or to pay a fine for refusing to register. <blockquote>What I was not prepared for was the general insanity of an administrative system in which lip service is paid to the idea of segregation and the ideal of reform, when in practice the opportunities for contamination and infection are innumerable, and those responsible for re-education practically nil. </blockquote>In 1953, at the Yearly Meeting of the British Quakers, she delivered the keynote Swarthmore Lecture, under the title Removing the Causes of War. A self-identified Christian pacifist, she wrote about peaceful dialogue and was appointed the first secretary of Churches' Council of Healing by the Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple.

Death

Lonsdale died on 1 April 1971, aged 68, from an anaplastic cancer, possibly related to her exposure to x-rays.

Legacy and honours

  • In 1946 Kathleen Lonsdale was elected an Honorary Member of the Women's Engineering Society in recognition of her "brilliant and important work".
  • 1956, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
  • 1966, she was elected as the first woman president of the International Union of Crystallography.
  • Lonsdaleite, an allotrope of carbon, was named in her honour; it is a rare harder form of diamond found in meteorites.
  • Several universities have buildings named in her honour including the Chemistry Department building at University College London, at the University of Limerick, at Dublin City University, and at Maynooth University.
  • She was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Irish Academy Chemistry Prize for the best chemistry PhD thesis in Ireland has been named in her honour since 2000.
  • A plaque was erected on Lonsdale's family home in Newbridge by the National Committee for Commemorative Plaques in Science and Technology in 2003, 100 years after her birth. The home, Charlotte House, was the post office at the time of her birth and is now the Newbridge Business Centre.
  • On 1 April 2021, English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque at her childhood home in 19 Colenso Road, Seven Kings, London, where she lived from 1911 to 1927, aged 8–24.
  • The Kathleen Lonsdale room at Friends House, London, UK is named after her.

See also

  • List of peace activists

References

  • Lonsdale Papers at University College London
  • Science in the Making Kathleen Lonsdale's papers in the Royal Society's archives
  • Lonsdale's crystallographic models in the Science Museum, London - urea, magnesium ammonium phosphate and hydroxyapatite