RAS Public Lecture: 100th Anniversary of the election of Women to t he RAS Fellowship

Start Date
End Date
100th Anniversary of the election of Women to the RAS FellowshipDr Mandy Bailey(Venue: Geological Society Lecture Theatre - no booking required)From its beginnings in 1820, the RAS, following the social habits of the time, only accepted men as Fellows of the Society. Despite this a number of notable women, including Caroline Herschel and Annie Cannon, were given honorary memberships. Then in 1886 Miss Pogson, of the Madras Observatory was nominated for Fellowship but it was to be another 20 years before the first women were elected as Fellows of the RAS in their own right. The 14th of January 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of that election and this talk will look at those 20 years, the changing social habits of that time and consider such questions as: what happened about Miss Pogson; were women accepted in other societies; why did the King have to get involved? There are some notable names amongst the first elected women, including: Annie Maunder; Mary Proctor and the intriguing Fiammetta Wilson. This talk will give a brief look at their work and what it was that made them stand out. Mandy Bailey obtained her PhD in the study of the Diffuse Interstellar Bands from Keele University in 2014 investigating the nature of the diffuse interstellar medium in the Local Bubble and the Magellanic Clouds. Since then she has been working at the National Schools' Observatory (NSO) developing a project for students on Variable Stars and she is also a tutor for the Open University. Mandy has a great interest in outreach and education and was the Publicity Officer Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA) from 2005 to 2015. In 2011 she was elected to the RAS Council and in 2013 became the RAS Astronomy Secretary. Two projects that she is particularly proud to have been involved with from their inception are the SPA's IYA2009 initiative, 'Telescopes for Schools' and the current RAS200 project both intended to inspire new audiences to pursue an interest in astronomy.