- Ethel Shakespear
Dame Ethel Mary Reader Shakespear DBE (
17 July 1871 –17 January 1946 ), née Ethel Mary Reader Wood, was an Englishgeologist , public servant andphilanthropist .She was born in
Biddenham ,Bedfordshire , the daughter of a clergyman. She was educated at Bedford High School andNewnham College, Cambridge (1891–1895), graduating innatural sciences .In 1896 she became assistant to
Charles Lapworth atMason College ,Birmingham and began the preparation of her best-known work, "BritishGraptolite s", with her college friendGertrude Elles . She was particularly responsible for the illustrations. Thismonograph was to become a standard palaeontological reference work for many years. She published a number of other works and was elected a Fellow of theGeological Society in 1919. In 1920 she received theMurchison Medal for her work on the monograph.In 1906 she received her DSc from the
University of Birmingham , and shortly afterwards married Gilbert Arden Shakespear, aphysics lecturer at the university. They had only one child, a daughter, but she died in infancy.During the
First World War Dr Shakespear devoted herself to helping disabled servicemen. She was honorary secretary of the Birmingham War Pensions Committee and from 1917 to 1926 sat on the Special Grants Committee of theMinistry of Pensions . She was appointed ajustice of the peace for Birmingham in 1922, specialising in cases involving children and working-class girls. She was a family visitor forfoster parents and invited many poor women and girls to stay in her home atCaldwell Hall ,Upton Warren ,Worcestershire .Ethel Shakespear was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1918 for her war work and promoted to Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1920 civilian war honours. She died of
cancer in 1946.References
*Biography, "
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography "
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