Edith Humphrey

Edith Ellen Humphrey (11 September 1875 – 25 February 1978 ) was a British inorganic chemist who carried out pioneering work in co-ordination chemistry at the University of Zurich under Alfred Werner. She is thought to be the first British woman to obtain a doctorate in chemistry and the first chemist to synthesize a chiral inorganic complex.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), 8 April 1991, a sample of the original crystals synthesised by Humphrey for her PhD were sent to them by the Swiss Committee of Chemistry, together with a modern CD spectrum of a solution of one crystal. This box of crystals remains on display in the exhibition room of the RSC.

Early life and education

Edith Humphrey was born on 11 September 1875 at 41 Lismore Road, Kentish Town, London. She was the youngest of the seven surviving children of Louisa (née Frost, 1831–1911) and John Charles Humphrey (1833–1903). Her mother had been a dressmaker before marriage, and her father was a clerk at the London Metropolitan Board of Works and later London County Council.

Humphrey was "the first of his students to succeed in preparing Werner's first new series of geometrically isomeric cobalt complexes, a class of compounds that were crucial in his development and proof of his coordination theory." One of these compounds, the cis-bis(ethylenediamine)dinitrocobalt(III) bromide, was the first synthesis of a chiral octahedral cobalt complex. In 1991, the Swiss Committee on Chemistry donated Humphrey's chiral crystals to the Royal Society of Chemistry, and they are now at Burlington House, in London.

"What a pity for Miss Humphrey that it was not recognized at the time, because she would then have been responsible for an unequivocal proof of the soundness of Werner's coordination theory and the subsequent award of the Nobel prize to him." While one later study has cast doubt on the quality of the sample, Humphrey's status as a pioneer woman scientist remains significant.

On completion of her thesis, Humphrey was recommended to move to Leipzig University to continue research under Wilhelm Ostwald. However, the attitude to women there was quite different from Zurich, and she would not tolerate a regime where she was not allowed to work in the laboratories in case her presence distracted the men from their work.

Later life After her return to England, Humphrey joined the staff of Arthur Sanderson & Sons, a British manufacturer of fabrics and wallpaper, where she worked until she retired. She was employed as a research chemist at their factory in Chiswick, but little is known of her work there. In the 1911 census, she was living in Hampstead with her two elder sisters, and gave her profession simply as "chemist".

In 1904, Humphrey was one of nineteen women chemists to petition the Chemical Society for admission of women to fellowship. This was eventually granted in 1920 after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 was passed. Humphrey was subsequently elected to fellowship on 4 May 1933, twenty-nine years after she signed the first petition to the society.

An interview with Humphrey about her experiences in Zurich was published in the New Scientist on her 100th birthday, 11 September 1975.

Edith Humphrey died on 25 February 1978 in Highgate, London.

In July 2023, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published an entry on Humphrey.