In this fourth article on the Frankland family archive, we look at Grace Frankland’s work as a scientist, particularly her neglected contribution as a science communicator.
Grace’s later reputation as a bacteriologist was not foreshadowed by an early interest in science. Her father Joseph Toynbee (1815-1866) was a noted physician, but his early death meant he exercised little influence over his children’s intellectual development. Grace was more influenced by her brother Arnold (1852-1883), and literature, art and ethics were her earliest interests.
After her marriage to Percy Frankland in 1882, Grace’s interests changed. Percy was a rising scientist, keen to build a reputation for original research. He owed his academic post at the Royal School of Mines to his father, but also wished to escape from Edward Frankland’s shadow. By the mid-1880s, Percy saw great potential in the emerging subject of bacteriology and Grace soon became his partner in their research endeavours.
Bacteriology promised exciting opportunities in public health and applied chemistry. The German scientist Robert Koch stood pre-eminent in the subject and his Berlin laboratory attracted researchers from all over Europe. Percy was one of these, having witnessed Koch’s methods for growing bacterial cultures on gelatine plates at an exhibition in London. He visited Berlin in late 1885 to learn these techniques.
Grace soon took on responsibility for growing bacterial cultures. These were used in experiments and to better categorise different types of bacteria. The expertise of the Franklands’ work was soon recognised, and in 1887 they published an article entitled Studies on some new micro-organisms obtained from air in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions; this was the first article to be authored by a woman in this prestigious journal.
Many other jointly written publications followed, including Micro Organisms in Water: their Significance, Identification and Removal (1894) and Pasteur (1898), as well as Grace’s own substantial monograph Bacteria in Daily Life (1903). The subject of microbes attracted interest beyond the scientific and medical communities, and Grace was able to develop an interesting sideline in scientific journalism, writing for both the academic and popular press.
Grace’s “Science Echoes” column appeared in the Daily Graphic newspaper for several years. In it, she recounted the latest scientific research in short, informative articles, mainly if not exclusively on the subject of microbiology. Her message was that microbes were both useful and harmful, and that people needed to understand them, rather than fear or ignore them.
Grace’s cuttings books (FRA/4/2/3-4) contain many of her newspaper articles. These demonstrate a wonderful range of mind and an inventive approach to communicating scientific ideas to a non-expert audience. Grace stressed that microbes were ubiquitous, a feature of everyday domestic life. She wrote about Cheese microbes, Bacteria and books, Microbes in siphons, Oysters and typhoid, and Milk microbes (she was a great advocate of sterilised milk). Grace was keen to present the relevance of microbes to everyday health and she was a firm advocate of the vaccination of children.
Grace tended to avoid the public platform, but in 1899 she delivered a speech to the International Congress of Women in London about her specialism. She believed bacteriology was an attractive subject for women to study, because it offered employment opportunities in sanitary inspection and laboratory work. This work, she held, particularly benefitted from women’s qualities of “scrupulous conscientiousness”.
Grace was very modest about her achievements, ultimately preferring to support her husband’s work. She was clearly highly regarded by her peers: she was elected a fellow of both the Microscopical Society and the Linnean Society (natural history). She was also one of twelve women scientists who petitioned unsuccessfully for membership of the Chemical Society in 1904.
You can find out more about Grace’s scientific work in the Frankland family archive catalogue.
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