Gertrude Elles

Gertrude Lilian Elles (; 8 October 1872 – 18 November 1960) was a British geologist, known for her work on graptolites.

Personal life Gertrude Elles was born on 8 October 1872. She was the youngest of six children and growing up was given the nickname "G" by her family. She was spoken of quite highly by the people around her and was described as having a wide range of love for music and always growing her knowledge of the world.

Every year, the Elles family would travel to the Morenish Estate near Killen to hunt grouse. During these family vacations, the young Gertrude fell in love with Scotland, especially the Highlands. Elles' love for geology evolved through exploration of the outdoors, museum visits, and field trips. Her interests allowed her to bond with family members such as her nephew whom she showed evidence of mechanical weathering by plants too along Moine Thrust. Elles' first introduction into geology as a formal practice was within her courses she took at Wimbledon High School which she attended from 1887 to 1891.

According to the Wimbledon High Digital archive in 1897 Volume No.2 Issue 9, Elles visited Sweden in 1896 by "steamer boat" and ported in Gothenburg, from there she traveled to Lund, Scania. While there she stayed with a non-English speaker and began to expand her Swedish vocabulary. Life in Lund differed from her experiences in England, such as meals being at 9am, 3pm and 8pm, greetings before dining, and the absence of outdoor extra-curriculars due to the cold weather. Elles' adult life is marked by her dedication to contributing knowledge to the field of geology. She was a trailblazer for women in the field and an influential model for young female researchers. Her work accrued international acclaim in her lifetime and beyond. Elles remained unmarried but maintained a connection to her family and visited frequently in Scotland. In the last 35 years of her life she became increasingly deaf. She moved back to Scotland, where she died in 1960. At the time, Oxford and Cambridge refused to grant degrees to women so she did not receive a formal degree until 1905. Institutes such as the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford as well as Trinity College disallowed women to receive their degrees. This led to an accumulation of women, now known as the "steamboat ladies", who, between the years of 1904 and 1907, travelled to Dublin to be granted their degrees ad eundem. She was also awarded the Harkness Scholarship, open to resident members of Newnham and Girton Colleges, which was given out every three years and determined via an exam in Geology and Paleontology. She was one of the first three female members of the geological club and remained a member of the club until the day she died.

Career Elles was a field geologist, stratigrapher and paleontologist. Her work concerned the interpretation of graptolite zones of Lower Paleozoic strata. In the late 1890s, she worked with Ethel Wood on the preparation of British Graptolites, a monograph that was produced in parts over the next twenty years under the general editorship of Professor Charles Lapworth. In 1933 she published, ‘The stratigraphy and faunal succession in the Ordovician rocks of the Builth–Llandrindod inlier, Radnorshire’.

Elles, who pioneered female education, was a life member of the British Federation of University Women. Given that she worked in a field of research where men predominated, she welcomed the opportunities it afforded her to interact with other women. She routinely attended the Cambridge branch of the Federation, where she met several of her geology acquaintances, and she represented the organization at national gatherings. With this, she became the first female lecturer in the Department of Geology at the University of Cambridge in 1926. She was able to increase her network and influence among intellectually comparable women because of this involvement. Dorothy Hill was the first female professor at an Australian university and the first female president; Betty Ripper, worked on Australian graptolites and stromatoporoids; and Oliver Bulman, became the Woodwardian Professor of Geology in Cambridge". In 1919 she became one of the first female Fellows of the Geological Society, and in the same year won its Murchison Medal. She was awarded an MBE in 1920 for her work with the Red Cross during the First World War. She was president of the British Association in 1923. First woman to be awarded a readership position at Cambridge in 1924.

Publications The publications resulting from her research on graptolites were brought together in a book: Elles, G. L. & Wood, E. M. R. 1901–1918. Monograph of British Graptolites. Parts 1–11. Paleontological Society, London, Monographs, 1–539

Other papers that she authored or co-authored include: Elles, G. L. 1909. The relation of the Ordovician and Silurian rocks of Conway (North Wales). Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 65, 169–194. Elles, G. L. 1922. The graptolite faunas of the British Isles. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, 33, 168–200 Elles, G. L. 1922. The Bala country: its structure and rock succession. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 78, 132–175. Elles, G. L. & Slater, I. L. 1906. The highest Silurian rocks of the Ludlow district. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 62, 195– 221. Elles, G. L. & Wood, E. M. R. 1895. Supplementary notes on Drygill Shales. Geological Magazine, 2, 216–249. Elles G. L. (1904). Some graptolite zones in the arenig rocks of wales. Geological magazine. Elles G. L. (1931). The study of geological maps. (second edition.). Strachan I. Elles G. L. & Wood E. M. R. (1971). A synoptic supplement to "a monograph of british graptolites by miss g.l. elles and miss e.m.r. wood". Palaeontographical Society. Elles G. L. (1898). Collected papers. Retrieved December 11 2022 from hathitrust.org.