Lilian Sheldon
BornMay 1862
Handsworth, West Midlands, England
Died6 May 1942
Exmouth, Devon, England
Alma materHandsworth Ladys College
Newnham College
Occupationzoologist
Known formorphology of Cynthia Rustica

Lilian Sheldon (May 1862 – 6 May 1942) was an English zoologist.[1]

Life

Sheldon was born in Handsworth in 1862 where her father was the vicar[2] (one source says 1860).[3] She had two brothers who survived and four sisters. Her parents Ann (born Sharp) and the Reverend John Sheldon arranged for their daughters to attend Handsworth Ladies' College and remarkably three of the girls went on to higher education in Cambridge.[2] Lillian Sheldon went to Newnham College in 1880[1] and two others to Girton College. Her elder sister Helen Sheldon became a notable headteacher at Sydenham.[3]

Lilian took two Natural Sciences Tripos examinations in Cambridge in 1883 and 1884.[1]

Sheldon conducted research on the development of the newt embryo with Alice Johnson and, as well, on the anatomy and morphology of Cynthia rustica (now called Styela rustica)[4] and Peripatus. Her results were published in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science.[5][6] Sheldon also contributed a section on Nemertines to volume 2 of the Cambridge Natural History series.[7] She worked at the College as a demonstrator on morphology from 1892 to 1893, and lectured on comparative anatomy from 1893 to 1898. She was a College associate from 1894 to 1906. She retired from academia around 1898.[1]

She later published a number of articles on traditional Devonshire buildings in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association. During World War I, she worked for YMCA in Birmingham, where she was one of the earliest women drivers in the country.

In 1931 her brother Gilbert Sheldon died. He had suffered from paralysis nearly all his life but he had published a number of books and travelled widely with his six sisters.[8] It was Lilian and Walter de la Mare who wrote the introduction to his last work published in 1932.[9][10]

She also served on the local hospital committee at Exmouth. Sheldon died there at the age of 80.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Creese, Mary R S (2000). Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of Their Contributions to Research. p. 110. ISBN 0585276846.
  2. 1 2 "Sheldon, Helen Maud (1859–1945), headmistress and educationist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58462. Retrieved 22 September 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. 1 2 Cambridge), Girton College (University of (1948). Girton College Register: 1869-1946. Privately printed for Girton College.
  4. ↑ "Cynthia rustica". World Register of Marine Species.
  5. ↑ Sheldon, Lilian (1887). "Memoirs: Note on the Ciliated Pit of Ascidians and its Relation to the Nerve-ganglion and so-called Hypophysial Gland; and an Account of the Anatomy of Cynthia Rustica (?)". Journal of Cell Science. 2 (109): 131–148.
  6. ↑ Sheldon, Lilian (1889). "Memoirs: The Maturation of the Ovum in the Cape and New Zealand Species of Peripatus". Journal of Cell Science. 2 (117): 1–29.
  7. ↑ "Chapter V. Nemertinea by Lilian Sheldon". Volume II. The Cambridge Natural History. London: Macmillan & Co. 1901.
  8. ↑ "At the Circulating Library Author Information: Gilbert Sheldon". www.victorianresearch.org. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  9. ↑ Sheldon, Gilbert (1932). The Transition From Roman Britain To Christian England. A.D.368-664. ASIN B0017Y0EOA.
  10. ↑ Collingwood, R. G. (1933). "THE TRANSITION FROM ROMAN BRITAIN TO CHRISTIAN ENGLAND (A.D. 368-664). By Sheldon Gilbert Macmillan, 1932. Pp. XXIII, 219, with map. 10s". Antiquity. 7 (25): 111–113. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00007766. S2CID 163620267.
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