Hertha Ayrton

Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 26 August 1923^[1]) was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor, and suffragette.

Many women from history were often working within a domestic setting that had been adapted. The Portsmouth born suffragette Hertha Ayrton used her dining room as her study - demonstrating her inventions on the table and her bookcase behind. I crocheted her based on this photo I then recreated the background to scale as a "set" for the animations. I enjoyed the process of finding and making miniature versions of any paper ephemera associated with her plans, publications, patents, letters and books. The paintings on the walls were also significant.

Hertha Ayrton in her Laboratory - Edward Arnold & Co, London, from the 1926 book “Hertha Ayrton A memoir by Evelyn Sharp

Mrs. Ayrton in her laboratory

was on show in the office of Stephen Morgan MP as part of "Hope in Portsmouth"

This diorama is based on the photograph “Mrs. Ayrton in her laboratory,” by Edward Arnold & Co, London, from the 1926 book “Hertha Ayrton A memoir" by Evelyn Sharp. It was most likely taken to document her winning the Royal Society Hughes Medal for her work on the electric arc and sand ripples.

It is interesting to note that although a scientist, her laboratory is within the domestic setting on the top floor of her home in Norfolk Square, London. The image shows her standing behind her “experimental ripple tank” displayed on a dining room table.

Behind her on the wall, is a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby - “A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery”. To the right it is hard to identify accurately, but you could assume that “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” would be an appropriate match.

To the left just out of shot, we can see some evidence of type, so we could imagine a poster advertising one of the many suffragette marches she attended.

Behind her there are more familiar plants and bowls more fitting to a dining room and a photo of her friend Marie Curie. In the corner leans a large fan she invented for WW1 trenches gas attacks.

The bookcase contains copies of her 1902 book, The Electric Arc, Women’s Suffrage by Millicent Fawcett, The Suffragette by Sylvia Pankhurst and various newspapers reporting on the Suffragette movement.

Outside of the photograph’s frame, there is some conjecture with the imagined space. In a basket there is a postcard from 1912 when Marie Curie was hiding from the press with Hertha in Highcliffe, Devon.

There is also a copy of the 1911 census she returned with the following protest -

“How can I answer all these questions if I have not the intelligence to choose between two candidates for parliament? I will not supply these particulars until I have my rights as a citizen. Votes for Women.”

The sideboard, with usual tea sets and crockery, has published papers such as, The Origin and Growth of Ripple Mark, that she presented to the Royal Society in 1904, other patents and posters, Hertha’s (declined) nomination to the Royal Society, that are crammed in between the domestic normality. On top there is a folder containing of some of her 26 patents, detailing the Ayrton Fan, Mathematical dividers, Arc lamps and electrodes, Sand ripples and a sphygmomanometer (blood pressure monitor). Above hangs a portrait of Hertha Ayrton, pre 1905 at Girton College, University of Cambridge by Héléna Arsène Darmesteter

There is a cat, as a nod to her 1909 letter in the Westminster Gazette - “An error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat.” in reference to Pierre Curie being attributed as discovering radium instead of Marie.

Phoebe Sarah Marks was born at 6 Queens Road, Portsea, on April 28, 1854

She died Hertha Marks Ayrton aged 69 in North Lancing, Sussex, 1923