Helen Megaw
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Helen Dick Megaw (1 June 1907 – 26 February 2002) was an Irish crystallographer who was a pioneer in
X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...
. She made measurements of the cell dimensions of ice and established the
Perovskite Perovskite (pronunciation: ) is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate (chemical formula ). Its name is also applied to the class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as (XIIA2+VIB4+X2−3), known as ...
crystal structure.


Education and career

Megaw was born in Dublin as the daughter of the Irish judge and politician Robert Megaw. She was educated at the
Roedean Roedean is a village in the city of Brighton and Hove, England, UK, east of the seaside resort of Brighton. Notable buildings and areas Roedean Gap is a slight dip in the cliffs between Black Rock and Ovingdean Gap, and has been known by the ...
in Dublin. While still at school, Megaw read Bragg's ''X-rays and Crystal Structure.'' She spent a year
Queen's University, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...
before moving to
Girton College Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...
, Cambridge to study Natural Sciences in 1926. She graduated in 1930 and was a research student in crystallography under
J. D. Bernal John Desmond Bernal (; 10 May 1901 – 15 September 1971) was an Irish scientist who pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography in molecular biology. He published extensively on the history of science. In addition, Bernal wrote popular boo ...
. Megaw's first speciality was the structure of ice, and she was awarded her PhD in 1934,
Personal papers of Helen Megaw
'
and Girton awarded her a
Hertha Ayrton Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 26 August 1923) was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor, and suffragette. Known in adult life as Hertha Ayrton, born Phoebe Sarah Marks, she was awarded the Hughes Medal by the ...
research scholarship which she used to study in Vienna in 1934-1935 under Hermann Francis Mark. In 1935 Megaw co-published with Bernal an influential method for fixing the position of hydrogen atoms known as the Bernal-Megaw model. She spent the year 1935–1936 in Oxford with
Francis Simon Sir Francis Simon (2 July 1893 – 31 October 1956), was a German and later British physical chemist and physicist who devised the gaseous diffusion method, and confirmed its feasibility, of separating the isotope Uranium-235 and thus made a m ...
and then spent several years as a schoolteacher before becoming an industrial crystallographer with Philips Lamps in London in 1943. It was through work at Philips on
barium titanate Barium titanate (BTO) is an inorganic compound with chemical formula BaTiO3. Barium titanate appears white as a powder and is transparent when prepared as large crystals. It is a Ferroelectricity, ferroelectric, Pyroelectricity, pyroelectric, and ...
that Megaw first worked on the
perovskite Perovskite (pronunciation: ) is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate (chemical formula ). Its name is also applied to the class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as (XIIA2+VIB4+X2−3), known as ...
crystal structure, on which she established herself as an acknowledged expert. In 1945 Megaw returned to working with Bernal, now at Birkbeck College in London, for a year before taking a post at the
Cavendish Cavendish may refer to: People * The House of Cavendish, a British aristocratic family * Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), British poet, philosopher, and scientist * Cavendish (author) (1831–1899), pen name of Henry Jones, English auth ...
Laboratory in Cambridge. She became a Fellow and Director of Studies at Girton. Megaw retired in 1972 and divided her time between Cambridge and Ballycastle,
County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...
, where she died in 2002. Her first book, ''Ferroelectricity in Crystals'', was published in 1957. It was followed by a second book, ''Crystal Structures: a Working Approach'', in 1973. Following a conversation with Mark Hartland Thomas in 1949 (chief industrial officer of the
Council of Industrial Design The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instrumental in the prom ...
), Megaw was appointed scientific consultant for the Festival Pattern Group of the
Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...
, 1951. She became the prime scientific mover in the group which put crystallographic images in the hands of industrial designers for them to use in products which were displayed at the Festival and in some cases beyond. In 2019, some of Megaw's fabric samples were displayed at the
Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...
as part of an exhibition "The Art of Innovation" which explored the relationship between art and science.


Legacy and honors

In recognition of her work in determining the structures of ice crystals, Megaw Island in the Southern Ocean is named for her. Megawite (CaSnO3), a perovskite-group mineral, is also named after her. In 1976, Megaw gave a collection of fabric samples from the Festival of Britain along with a souvenir guide-book to the
Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...
in London. In 1989, Megaw became the first woman to receive the
Roebling Medal The Roebling Medal is the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America for scientific eminence as represented primarily by scientific publication of outstanding original research in mineralogy. The award is named for Colonel Washington ...
of the
Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...
. She had honorary doctorates from the Universities of Cambridge and Queen's University Belfast.


Bibliography

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References


External links


Megaw's collection of samples of fabrics inspired by crystallography from Festival of Britain; now at the Science Museum, London

"The Souvenir Book of Crystal Designs" from the Festival of Britain
{{DEFAULTSORT:Megaw, Helen 1907 births 2002 deaths 20th-century Irish women scientists 21st-century Irish women scientists Irish women chemists Crystallographers Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge Scientists from Dublin (city) British crystallographers Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Alumni of the University of Cambridge Academics of the University of Cambridge