Grace Frankland

Grace Coleridge Frankland known as Mrs Percy Frankland née Grace Toynbee (4 December 1858 – 5 October 1946) was an English microbiologist. She was one of the nineteen female scientists who wrote the 1904 petition to the Chemical Society to request that they should create some female fellows of the society.

Life

She was the youngest of nine children; her parents were Harriet and Joseph Toynbee, a noted otologist. Two of her brothers were the economic historian Arnold Toynbee and the Dante scholar Paget Toynbee. She was home schooled and spent one year at Bedford College.

Toynbee married Percy Frankland in 1882, and with him developed an interest in the emerging science of bacteriology. She worked with both Percy and his father Edward Frankland and was described at the time as having "worthily aided and seconded [Percy]". and water. Colleagues of her husband noted that although their situation as husband and wife working equally together was not unique, he was 'the first man who had the chivalry to admit it.'

Frankland was especially interested in the relationship between bacteria and public health. In 1903 she wrote a popular science book entitled Bacteria in Daily Life. It was written in an open style to engage a wide audience and included important bacterial information pertaining to food, drink, smoking, pollution, sewage, air and disease. The book was reviewed in Nature in 1903.

Publications and contributions In 1887, she published a joint study with her husband on the microorganisms in the air. In 1888, she published more studies on microorganisms in the water and soil; these were also joint studies with her husband.

In 1889 and 1890, she published more joint papers on several biological and chemical topics: nitrification, fermentation processes, purifying substances with fermentation. Together with her husband Percy Frankland she isolated the first pure culture of nitrifying bacterial strain (ammonia-oxidizer) in 1890. She was also the co-author of two volumes: MicroOrganisms in Water: their Significance, Identification, and Removal (1894) and the biography Pasteur (1898). Furthermore, the petition eventually led to the admission of women as Fellows of the Society, that was one of the Societies that later came together as the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Academic Memberships She was a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, admitted into the Linnean Society of London (one of the first twelve female scientists admitted), and an honorary member of Bedford College.

Her husband held positions as professor of chemistry at University College, Dundee (1888-1894), and the University of Birmingham (1894-1919). After leaving Birmingham, the couple retired to Argyllshire, where they lived at the House of Letterawe, Loch Awe. As a result of their time in Dundee she is commemorated as part of Dundee Women's Trail.

Frankland's papers are part of the Frankland family papers, held in the collection of the University of Manchester Library.

The Grace Frankland Memorial Lecture series was introduced at University of Birmingham in 2019, with Prof Ada Yonath (2019), Prof Lalita Ramakrishnan (2021) and Prof Sharon Peacock (2022) presenting.