The Founding of the Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial lecture

This Memorial lecture now forms part of the Oxford International Festival for Women held annually in March. In 1998 the Chair of the Festival, Anne Mobbs, felt that the UK's only woman Nobel Laureate in Chemistry deserved greater recognition, particularly in Oxford, where she did the work for which she gained a Nobel prize in 1964. Anne discussed it with Dorothy's old College, Somerville, the University Museum, where Dorothy had worked, and the Oxford AWiSE, (Association for Women in Science and Engineering, whose regular 'Oxford Science Lectures' began in December 1996; they thought one of the lectures in their Series could be designated as a 'Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture'.

A note about the launch of an appeal to fund a possible memorial for Dorothy in Oxford was published in the March 1998 issue of 'Crystallography News' (page 17). The appeal was launched at a meeting held in the University Museum on 19 March 1998 with the title 'An evening dedicated to the memory and achievements of The Amazing Dorothy Hodgkin'. I did not attend myself, but I was told that Georgina Ferry, Dorothy's biographer, interviewed Judith Howard, one of Dorothy's students, and encouraged her reminiscences about Dorothy's life. The June 1998 issue of 'Crystallography News' carried an Appeal flyer printed by the Oxford International Women's Week Collective, which gave a brief history of Dorothy's life of Science in Oxford and appealed for donations for 2 possible projects, to commission a statue of Dorothy to be placed in the University Museum of Natural History and to finance childcare bursaries for Oxford women students.

Members of the BCA were asked to make donations and suggest a suitable memorial. All the comments I received thought that Dorothy would have hated a statue of herself, and the Childcare bursaries were a much better idea. Does anyone know whether the Chidcare Bursaries were ever funded?

This lecture is now sponsored jointly by the Oxford International Festival for Women, AWiSE (Association of Women in Science and Engineering), Somerville College who select the speaker and finance a reception afterwards and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History who donate the lecture room and reception facilities in the Museum.

Lectures in this series so far:

1. 4 Mar 1999 Professor Louise Johnson,
   "Dorothy Hodgkin and penicillin; 50 years from structure to present day understanding of Biosynthesis and bacterial resistance."
2. 13 Mar 2000 Professor Judith Howard,
   "The Interface of Chemistry and Biology Increasingly in Focus"
3. 15 May 2001 Professor Jenny Glusker,
   "Vitamin B12 and Dorothy: Their impact on structural science"
4. 5 Mar 2002 Professor Pauline Harrison,
   "From Crystallography to Metals, Metabolism and Medicine"
5. 4 Mar 2003 Dr. Claire Naylor
   "Pathogenic Proteins : how bacterial agents cause disease"
6. 9 Mar 2004 Dr Margaret Adams
   " A Piece in the Jigsaw, G6PD, The protein behind an hereditary disease"
7. 10 Mar 2005 Dr Margaret Rayman
   "Selenium in Cancer prevention"
8. 9 Mar 2006 Dr Elena Conti
   "Making sense of nonsense: structural studies of RNA degradation and disease"
9. 6 Mar 2007 Prof. Jenny Martin
   "The name's Bond... Disulphide Bond. Disulphide bond catalysts and their role in bacterial virulence and sex manipulation"