Mary Winearls Porter

Mary "Polly" Winearls Porter (26 July 1886 – 25 November 1980) was an English crystallographer and geologist, known for her contributions to the English crystallography field and publications about ancient Roman architecture. She was one of the first people who studied the application of stones in cultural heritage as a legacy of physical artifacts, and intangible attributes inherited from past generations. Porter's extensive knowledge and contribution to her research can be said to have transformed this area of study into an established field of cross-disciplinary research.

Personal life Mary "Polly" Winearls Porter was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, London in 1886. Born to Robert Percival Porter, an international journalist for The Times, and Alice Hobbins Porter, also a journalist. Mary enjoyed the typical childhood of a young girl at that time. Her father did not believe in formal education for women but she was taught reading and writing.

During her teen years, her family had moved to Rome for her father's work and required a long stay in the city due to her mother becoming ill. While in Rome Porter began to collect Roman artifacts and developed her interest into ancient Roman architecture and society. Porter became increasingly interested in the works of Giacomo Boni, a Roman architect along with archaeologists in Rome. However, upon finding out that only few archaeologists could give her accurate information to help identify different kinds of marbles, she decided to tackle this issue herself. The guides used by archaeologists at that time differed in knowledge and Porter saw the need to create a book that would become an ultimate guide to the stones of Rome. Fueled by her ambition and enthusiasm of youth Porter began to seriously study marble. Teaching herself, Porter developed a rudimentary understanding of the basic of geology and continued to research the various Roman architecture and stones until her family moved back to England. Her brothers were impressed with her potential and suggested to their parents that she should be given a formal education; they refused. Porter died in 1980 at 94 years old.

Education Mary's father, Robert Porter, found that education was unnecessary for woman. Therefore, she received a basic education, but she never obtained a formal education during her childhood. Despite not attending school, a young Mary Porter became self-taught in the field of geology to gain a better understanding of the decorative stones that had once caught her eye. Porter now had the geological knowledge to organize the classes of decorative stones that at one point had only the mere color or texture attributed to them as their names. The self-taught geologist continued to study decorative stones and their importance and function in Roman architecture, leading up to her many publications on the subject, under the guidance of Henry Miers. Her success was only made when her mentor, Henry Miers, tutored her personally and urged Porter to go to university. Porter had also spent short periods of time researching at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Heidelberg University for two years to that she was also awarded a Doctor of Science from Oxford for her contributions to crystallography. Specifically, critics accentuate that there isn't an authority for Bruzza's assertion on which Porter bases her statement, that the columns of the original basilica were of marble at all.

At the same time, Porter's book found supporters like Henry Frowd who praised Porter for providing detailed descriptions of stones and their history, as well as tracing their places of origin. Henry Frowd notes that Carrara marble industry is one of the most interesting sections written by Porter and that the book itself describes not only the stones of Rome, but the ancient quarries from which they came. Overall, What Rome was Built With: A Description of the Stones Employed in Ancient Times for its Building and Decoration is considered to be a good material that is in need of revisions.

Some of her other most notable publications were "Ancient Marbles used in Modern Times". She is also known as being a co-editor of the Barker Index of Crystals among many other publications.

Legacy Although her work on publications such as The Barker Index did not provide to be very useful as better methods of crystal analysis were created soon after, Porter's contributions to science and geology in a male dominated field helped pave the way for future female x-ray crystallographers.