Alice Johnson (7 July 1860 – 13 January 1940) was an English zoologist. She also edited the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research from 1899 to 1916.

Life

The daughter of William Henry Farthing Johnson, a private school master, and Harriet Brimsley, she was born in Cambridge. Her brother was the logician William Ernest Johnson. She was educated in Cambridge and

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

, entering Newnham College in 1878. In 1881, she was placed in the equivalent of the First Class of the Natural Sciences Tripos (at that time, as a woman, she was not permitted to earn a degree). She was the first director of the Balfour Biological Laboratory for Women. From 1884 to 1890 Johnson was also a demonstrator in animal morphology at the laboratory. She continued her studies with Francis Balfour and, after Balfour's death in 1882, with

Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on W ...

. Her research included studies of the early development of the newt. In 1884, she published the first paper by a woman to appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. She also published a study on the development of cranial nerves in the newt embryo with

Lilian Sheldon Lilian Sheldon (May 1862 – 6 May 1942) was an English zoologist. Life Sheldon was born in Handsworth, West Midlands, Handsworth in 1862 where her father was the vicar (one source says 1860). She had two brothers who survived and four siste ...

, then a student at Newnham College. In 1890, she became private secretary to Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, a leading figure in the Society for Psychical Research. Johnson was secretary for the Society from 1903 to 1907 and was its research officer from 1907 to 1916. She assisted in the so-called "Brighton experiments" in thought transference. Johnson also worked for the Society on the Census of Hallucinations. She prepared the work ''Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death'' by Frederic W. H. Myers for publication; it had been left uncompleted after Myers' death. Johnson resigned from the SPR in 1917.Anonymous. (1923)
''Annual Report of the Council''
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 21: 30-31. "It will be remembered that since the resignation of Miss Alice Johnson in 1917 the Society had had no salaried Research Officer. It was decided, therefore, to fill this post, and Mr. E. J. Dingwall was appointed, and entered upon his duties in February immediately upon his return from America, where he had been working with Dr. Walter Prince." Eleanor Sidgwick became principal for Newnham College in 1892 and Johnson served as her secretary until 1903. From 1893 to 1902, Johnson was also an associate of the college. She died in Cambridge at the age of 79.

Publications

* * *Johnson, Alice. (1908)
''Report on Some Recent Sittings for Physical Phenomena in America''
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 21: 94-135. *Johnson, Alice. (1908)
''On the Automatic Writing of Mrs. Holland''
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 21: 166-391. *Johnson, Alice. (1909)
''The Education of the Sitter''
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 21: 483-511.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Alice 1860 births 1940 deaths Women zoologists Parapsychologists Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge 19th-century British zoologists 20th-century British zoologists 19th-century British women scientists 20th-century British women scientists

Life

Publications

See also

References