Grace Chisholm Young and the division of laurels

Abstract

An historic date for the Royal Society must surely be 22 March 1945: on that day the first woman was admitted to Fellowship of the Royal Society. On the same day fifty years later I gave a lecture at the Royal Society to mark the centenary of the National Council of Women. The evening was entitled Mulieres insignes per sciendi artem (Talented women scientists). I spoke on women mathematicians and made particular reference to Grace Chisholm Young, as 1995 was the centenary of her historic doctorate in 1895. It was the first doctorate awarded to a woman in Germany in any subject. The exhibition, mounted in April 1995 in the Royal Society Library, to mark fifty years of women Fellows of the Society brought to mind a number of women scientists and mathematicians who in less enlightened times were not considered for Fellowship. Grace Chisholm Young must surely have been a prime candidate for this honour. Her husband, W.H. Young (F.R.S. 1907), was also a mathematician of distinction and he was admitted to the Fellowship. The story of their collaboration was a remarkable one and, as a story of their time, bears telling.