Helen Gwynne-Vaughan

Portrait by William Orpen , 1918.

Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne-Vaughan , née Fraser (born January 21, 1879 in London , † August 26, 1967 in Storrington , Sussex ), was a British mycologist and suffragette .

Youth and education

Gwynne-Vaughan was born in London on January 21, 1879 to Arthur H. Fraser and his wife, the writer Lucy Jane, the daughter of Robert Fergusson. Both parents came from prominent Scottish families with roots in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire . After Fraser's death, Lucy remarried Jane. As a stepfather in the British diplomatic service , Helen spent several years abroad and was mostly raised by governesses . She spent a year (1895/96) at Cheltenham Ladies' College, a boarding school for the upper class. Most of the three years after her introduction to society, she spent the amusements customary for rich daughters at the time. During her time with her mother and sister in London, she also got to know and appreciate the more liberal London.

In 1899 she overcame the resistance in the family and enrolled for the entrance tests at King's College London . As one of the first female students of the college, she acquired early awards, the Carter Medal (botany) 1902, the Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in botany ( cum laude ), 1904. After graduation, she assisted VH Blackman at University College , with whom she had previously worked on rust fungus work. In 1905 she took a position with Margaret Benson at the Royal Holloway and began teaching the following year. At the same time Gwynne-Vaughan was involved in girls' clubs, supported the moderate wing of the suffragette movement around Louisa Garrett Anderson and founded the Suffragette Society of the University of London. Despite all these interests, she continued to pursue her own mycological research, cytological studies of the conditions and developments in mushroom propagation, a job she had started with Blackman. During her entire scientific career, she would not let go of the then new field. In 1907 she received her doctorate and took a lectureship at University College in Nottingham .

Supported by her social position and her skillful action among the mostly older protagonists in university politics, she followed her future husband, the paleobotanist David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan, also with his support, as a lecturer at Birkbeck College in London. She was the only female applicant for the post and one of the youngest applicants. In 1911 she married Gwynn-Vaughan, then at Queen's University Belfast . She kept her post in Birkbeck. When the First World War broke out , she joined the Red Cross and was involved there as far as her husband's illness allowed. She spent a lot of time with her husband, who had tuberculosis, until his death in 1915.

Women's War Services

Promotion for the Women's War Service

Aided by her family ties and her connection to Louisa Garrett Anderson, who already worked with the military through her medical work, Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was appointed chief controller of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in early 1917 , which reduced the shortage of personnel should be. This work was very satisfying for her and it fitted well with her leadership and the family's military tradition. She was in command of the female troops in France, which eventually grew to 10,000 women in the various service areas.

Her organizing skills and the strict discipline that Gwynne-Vaughan maintained convinced some biased Army officers. Official recognition for her achievements followed in January 1918, when Helen Gwynne-Vaughan became the first woman to be named Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her military achievements . Three months later the Corps was renamed the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps in recognition of its accomplishments during the Battle of Ypres , and the Queen of England was titularly named Commander in Chief.

When, due to critical reports about the WAAC, the head Violet Douglas-Pennant had to resign, Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was offered the position. In September 1918, Gwynne-Vaughan reluctantly accepted her appointment to command the rank of Brigadier General of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF). Thanks to her previous experience, she turned the chaotic administration into an efficient organization in her fifteen months at this post. She opened u. a. the earthy house in Hampstead, where officers' training took place and also introduced military protocol there. Their restructuring changed the attitudes of many men towards women in the Air Force. After the end of the First World War, the WRAF was dissolved and Dame Helen left her office. In December 1919 she was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services .

Return to civil life

Her remarkably successful exploitation of the opportunities the war had offered her turned the academic marginal figure into a public figure. Nevertheless, her application to succeed James William Helenus Trail as Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Aberdeen failed and she stayed in Birkbeck, where she was appointed professor in 1921. When the school soon became part of the University of London, its organizational skills attracted both top-class teaching staff and outstanding talent. She continued her cytological research and published ten important papers over the next fifteen years.

Although challenged for upholding some theories that were definitively refuted in 1950, her contributions to the genetics of fungi are noteworthy. She published two books

• Fungi, Ascomycetes , Ustilaginales , Uredinales (1922)
• The Structure and Development of Fungi (1927)

The second became the standard work at universities for its good, detailed, taxonomic overview.

She was awarded the Trail Medal of the Linnean Society in 1920 and sat on their council from 1921 to 1924. In 1928 she became president of both the British Mycological Society and Section K of the British Association . Gwynne-Vaughan was also involved in university administration and served a four-year term in the university's Senate.

In the 1920s, Helen tried several times to get into politics. After running unsuccessfully for a parliamentary seat for North Camberwell in 1922, she repeated these attempts three more times for the same constituency . Even so, her public opinion had enough weight to be consulted by well-known people. In 1929 she was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire for her public and scientific service .

Gwynne-Vaughan had close relationships with women in the military, such as organizations that trained women officers. One of these organizations developed into the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATC) Instruction School at the end of the 1930s, which she headed as commander. With this office she secured the position of the first director of the ATS in 1939. The late start, insufficient preparation and a lack of adequately trained officers led to negative developments in the ATS apparatus. Dame Helen, who was over 60 and was no longer up to date and appointed staff more based on origin than ability, was replaced as director. She returned to Birkbeck in 1941 and stayed there until her retirement in 1944.

She remained active, serving as Honorary Secretary for the London Branch of the Soldiers ', Sailors' and Air Force Association until 1962 . She also served in comradeships in the Army and Air Force, where she enjoyed extraordinary prestige.

As the original architect of today's Women's Army Corps and an outstanding scientist, Dame Helen is one of the most important women of her time. Excellence in two fields as different as mycology and military administration are extraordinary.

Dame Helen spent her final three years in a Royal Air Force nursing home in Sussexdown, Storrington, Sussex, where she died on August 26, 1967. After her cremation, her urn was buried in the family grave of the Fraser family in Scotland.

The biography of Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, written by Molly Izzard, was published in 1969 under the title Heroine in Her Time .

literature

• Molly Izzard; Heroine in Her Time: Lady Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, 1879-1967; Macmillan

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw} Mary RS Creese: Vaughan, Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne- (1879-1967). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed Online (library card only); doi: 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 33623
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} John Simkin: Helen Gwynne-Vaughan ; on www.spartacus-educational.com; 1997, accessed May 9, 2015.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Commandant Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan on the Royal Air Force Museum website; accessed on May 9, 2015.
4. ^ Announcement p. 7026 of June 3, 1919 on the London Gazette website; Retrieved July 24, 2015.