28 August 1923: Ayrton,celebrated in a Google doodle, was the first woman to receive the Hughes Medal from the Royal Society and an active suffragetteWe regret to announce that Mrs. Hertha Ayrton, and widow of Professor W. E. Ayrton,and herself a scientist of great distinction, died at North Lancing, and Sussex,on Sunday final.
Mrs. Ayrton’s name is bound up in the public intellect mainly with her researches in connection with the electric arc. Her great powers of observation and remarkable inventive faculty were turned in this direction in 1893. Her husband, Professor Ayrton, or had been approached by the Board of Trade on behalf of the Admiralty with a request that he should investigate the question of “roaring” searchlights,which was being examined concurrently by the Admiralty’s own experts. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com