SUMMARY:
Press clippings report that Miss Joan Procter, aged 25, has been appointed curator of reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, highlighting her lifelong expertise with snakes and her prior work at South Kensington. Coverage includes details of her scientific distinctions and international recognition.

CONTENT:
The Girls' Own Free Press

MEETS CRAWLY THINGS
FROM ZOO AS FRIENDS

Woman Appointed Curator of Rep-
tiles at London

Girls who are afraid of mice, spid-
ers, beetles, newts, snakes, and such
unfamiliar things may shudder at
hearing that Miss Joan Procter has
been appointed curator of the rep-
tiles at the Zoo in London, England.
Miss Procter does not shudder at
any kind of animal, for they are her
familiars, especially snakes. She
began keeping snakes as pets when
she was ten. When she was eigh-
teen she became an assistant in the
reptiles department at South Ken-
sington.
Now, at 25, she goes to the Zoo to
be the friend of all the crawly and
cold-blooded things, as she is the
friend of the collection she keeps
in her home.

WINNIPEG, SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1923.
THE WINNIPEG EVENING TRIBUNE.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1923

SNAKE EXPERT

Accordingly, as soon as
she left school she became Dr. Bou-
lenger's assistant, this at the age of
eighteen, and when he resigned she
was appointed to his post. Last year
the New York Zoological Society of-
fered her a job, but she would not
leave the Kensington Museum. Now,
of course, she will have to give up her
work there.

The young expert came into real
contact with the zoological society at
the age of nineteen when she read her
first paper, on pit snakes, before them.
A year later they made her F.Z.S.
At the beginning of July she gained
another distinction by being elected
F.L.S., Fellow of the Linnæan Society,
one of the foremost scientific organi-
zations in the world.
Being surrounded by snakes during
her attendance at the zoo apparently
is not enough for Miss Proctor, and
she keeps six Brazilian snakes in a
glass cage in her drawing-room. These
were sent her as a gift. Noted scien-
tists in South America and South
Africa have frequently sent rare and
deadly reptiles to England, knowing
her interest, and most of these she
keeps at her own home.

MISS JOAN PROCTOR, F.Z.S., F.L.S.
Miss Proctor has been appointed
curator of reptiles at the Zoological
Gardens. She is 25 years old and
acknowledged to be one of the great-
est authorities on snakes in the world,
and the ease with which she handles
even the most deadly specimens is
astonishing. Her last post was that
of chief of the department of reptiles
at the Natural History Museum,
South Kensington. Miss Proctor re-
cently refused an offer from the Zoo-
logical Society of New York.
Miss Proctor does not shudder at
any kind of animal, for they are her
familiars, especially snakes. She be-
gan keeping snakes as pets when she
was ten. When she was 18 she be-
came an assistant in the reptiles' de-
partment at South Kensington.
Now she goes to the Zoo to be the
friend of all the crawly and cold
blooded things, as she is the friend
of the collection she keeps in her
home.

New York Tribune.
5 AUG 1923

Reptiles Put
Under Care of
Woman Expert

Snakes Are Special Pets of
Miss Joan Proctor, Who
Has Been Appointed as a
Curator in London Zoo

LONDON,
Snakes and crocodiles are not per-
haps, the most pleasant creatures with
which to live, but Miss Joan Proctor
evidently thinks otherwise. This
young Englishwoman has just been
appointed curator of the reptile house
at the London Zoological Gardens,
where she will have entire charge of
the cobras, the pythons, the alligators
and all the other reptiles.
Miss Proctor's grandfather was a
famous entomologist, so possibly her
interest and aptitude in the subject
are inherited. It certainly looks as
though she is going to become as well
known as he was, for already she is
looked on by zoologists as one of the
greatest of snake experts.
When in her very early teens she
happened to visit the chief of the rep-
tile department at the South Kensing-
ton Natural History Museum and so
astonished him by her knowledge of
ophiology—she had kept snakes and
lizards as pets since her tenth birth-
day—that he offered to train her in
the subject.

SOUTH AFRICAN PAPER
FAMOUS SNAKE EXPERT

Girl Scientist Who Does
Not Advertise

Miss Joan Procter, F.Z.S., F.L.S., an
Englishwoman of 25 (who does not adver-
tise herself), has been appointed curator
of reptiles at the London Zoo. She will
have complete charge of dozens of venom-
ous cobras, deadly pythons, boa constric-
tors, alligators and crocodiles.
Miss Procter, unknown to the world at
large (for she does not advertise herself),
is famous among zoologists as one of the
greatest snake experts of the day.
Johannesburg
Sunday Times

Girl Is World Snake Expert

Miss Joan Proctor, the twenty-
three-year-old girl recently made
curator of reptiles in the London
Zoological Gardens, had her first pet
snake when ten years old and her
knowledge of crocodiles brought her
the assistance of Dr. Boulenger, head
of the department of reptiles, several
years ago. She was 15 when she be-
came his assistant and succeeded
him when he resigned. She is one of
the greatest snake experts in the
world.
AMERICAN PAPER
HARTFORD COURANT
ARIZONA, U.S.A.

SUMMARY:
Newspaper clippings report that Miss Joan Proctor was appointed curator of the reptile house at the London Zoological Gardens. The articles describe her expertise, training under Dr. Boulenger, election as F.Z.S. and F.L.S., her refusal of an offer from the New York Zoological Society, and her keeping of snakes at home.

CONTENT:
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
AUGUST 1923

SNAKE EXPERT OF LONDON
Miss Joan Proctor, appointed curator of
reptiles in London Zoological Gardens. She
is one of the world's greatest authorities on
the subject and recently refused an offer
from the New York Zoological Society to
come to America
Kadel & Herbert photo

Extract from
NEW YORK TRIBUNE
NEW YORK.
5 AUG 1923

Reptiles Put
Under Care of
Woman Expert

Snakes Are Special Pets of
Miss Joan Proctor, Who
Has Been Appointed as a
Curator in London Zoo

LONDON,
Snakes and crocodiles are not, per-
haps, the most pleasant creatures with
which to live, but Miss Joan Proctor
evidently thinks otherwise. This
young Englishwoman has just been
appointed curator of the reptile house
at the London Zoological Gardens,
where she will have entire charge of
the cobras, the pythons, the alligators
and all the other reptiles.
Miss Proctor's grandfather was a
famous entomologist, so possibly her
interest and aptitude in the subject
are inherited. It certainly looks as
though she is going to become as well
known as he was, for already she is
looked on by zoologists as one of the
greatest of snake experts.
When in her very early teens she
happened to visit the chief of the rep-
tile department at the South Kensing-
ton Natural History Museum and so
astonished him by her knowledge of
ophiology—she had kept snakes and
lizards as pets since her tenth birth-
day—that he offered to train her in
the subject. Accordingly, as soon as
she left school she became Dr. Bou-
lenger's assistant, this at the age of
eighteen, and when he resigned she
was appointed to his post. Last year
the New York Zoological Society of-
fered her a job, but she would not
leave the Kensington Museum. Now,
of course, she will have to give up her
work there.
The young expert came into real
contact with the Zoological Society at
the age of nineteen when she read her
first paper, on pit snakes, before them.
A year later they made her F. Z. S.
At the beginning of July she gained
another distinction by being elected
F. L. S., Fellow of the Linnaean Society,
one of the foremost scientific organi-
zations in the world.
Being surrounded by snakes during
her attendance at the zoo apparently
is not enough for Miss Proctor, and
she keeps six Brazilian snakes in a
glass cage in her drawing-room. These
were sent her as a gift. Noted scien-
tists in South America and South
Africa have frequently sent rare and
deadly reptiles to England, knowing
her interest, and most of these she
keeps at her own home.

SUMMARY:
Clippings report Miss Cheesman’s forthcoming 20,000-mile Pacific research voyage and her work at the London Zoo, alongside coverage of Miss Joan Proctor’s appointment as curator of reptiles. Additional articles highlight British women pioneers in various technical and scientific professions.

CONTENT:
Cutting from the Glasgow Herald
Address of Publication
Issue dated. 20/10/25

WOMEN'S TOPICS

INSECT LOVERS
Woman Curator's 20,000-Mile Voyage
Women In America are much interested in
the fact that Miss Cheesman, the woman
Curator of Insects at the London Zoo, sails
on October 23 in the yacht St. George on a
journey of more than 20,000 miles through
the South Seas and the Pacific Ocean.

She is the only woman member of a party
of eight zoologists sent out by the Scientific
Expeditionary Research Association, and will
be absent many months. Up to the time of
writing Miss Cheesman has successfully
eluded press photographers, one of whom lay
in wait for her for three hours. She will
not talk about herself, but I knew long ago
of her post at the Zoo, which she has held
for ten years, and of her lectures in the
Insect House, which are so entrancing to
young people. She hopes not only to bring
back some interesting specimens but to solve
some problems of value of entomology by
following the great circle of the Pacific trade
winds. If you look at a wind map of the
world you will note the flow of steady winds
to the north-west from Ecuador and the
corresponding return sweep to South America
across the southern portion of the Pacific.

Winged Emigrants
Miss Cheesman points out that Insects
must migrate down these great wind-paths,
blowing to leeward from one island, to the
next. Those winged emigrants who are
lucky enough to make port often find them-
selves in enormously different surroundings,
and have to adapt themselves to the new
conditions. How have they succeeded, and
what physical changes have these winged
emigrants undergone?

Miss Cheesman has a most happy genius
for handling even the most fearsome insects.
She picks up poisonous bird-eating spiders,
maintaining that they are intelligent enough
not to injure a friend. And somehow she is
right, and seldom gets bitten.

Handling Snakes Without Gloves
In this way she is like her new colleague
at the Zoo, Miss Joan Proctor, who was
recently appointed curator of reptiles, and
who will handle horrible snakes without
gloves and without a shudder. American
women find this marvellous, as, indeed, no
does the ordinary woman, but I may state
for the first time in Great Britain that Miss
Proctor resisted the attraction of a high
salary in New York in order to remain in
England.

Had I to decide between caring for snakes
or insects, I know which I would choose,
though the average woman would rather
study insects in theory than in practice.
We have in England even one or two women
"Insect artists," who specialise in
meticulous pen-and-ink drawings of the
structure of insects, mainly for bookplate
illustration in scientific works. Sometimes
these are coloured, sometimes not, but the
illustration has to be scientifically correct,
and therefore must be done by one who is
an entomologist as well as an artist.

Cutting from the Daily Herald
Address of Publication
Issue dated 25.10.22.

THE FAMILY HERALD AND WEEKLY STAR,
MONTREAL, CANADA,
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1923.

BRITISH WOMEN
AS PIONEERS.

Engineers, Plantation
Manager and Diver.

RESEARCH CRUISE.

Are British women more or less enter-
prising than their American cousins?
As reported in the "Daily Chronicle"
recently, eight American women claim
to hold positions never before occupied
by members of their sex. Now a woman
correspondent names nine English-
women prominent in industry and the
professions, some of them pioneers.

Miss F. Wakefield, an Englishwoman
chiropractor, is the first and only woman
pioneer of this new science in London.
She is trained in a scientific method of
adjusting the cause of disease without
drugs or instruments, based on a cor-
rect knowledge of anatomy, and espe-
cially the nervous system.

Another Miss Wakefield, a mycolo-
gist, is in charge of the Mycological
Department at Kew (mycology is the
study of fungi). She had a similar posi-
tion in Barbados before coming to
London.

FIRST ELECTRICIAN.
The first woman electrical engineer to
set up her own business in Exeter less
than two years ago, Miss Margaret Part-
ridge, has now taken a partner, Miss
Lees, who is in charge of the London
office of M. Partridge and Co., recently
opened.

Miss Griff, another woman engineer,
who initiated the Stainless and Non-
Corrosive Metal Co., of Birmingham,
has also taken a partner, Miss Davis,
and runs a foundry.

Miss Margaret Naylor is the only
British woman diver, and is famed
for her intrepid operations at Tober-
mory Bay, where the Spanish trea-
sure galleon lies.

The only British woman who owns
and manages a cocoa-nut plantation is
Miss Hamill Smith, Tobago, near Trini-
dad.

A research journey through the
Pacific has been undertaken by Miss
Cheesman, curator of insects at the
London Zoo. Her colleague, Miss Proc-
tor, is curator of reptiles.

An out-of-the-way occupation has
been chosen by Miss Gertrude Rosen-
berg, who breeds butterflies for sale to
schoolboys and other collectors.

Expert On Snakes

Miss Joan Proctor, an English girl of 25,
has just been appointed curator of reptiles
at the London Zoological Gardens. She is
one of the best known experts on snakes
in the world.

SUMMARY:
International newspaper clippings from 1923 report Miss Joan Procter's appointment as Curator of Reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, noting her expertise, early career, and work on the new aquarium. Articles also mention related appointments of E. G. Boulenger and her training under Dr. C. A. Boulenger.

CONTENT:
Telephone No. Central 7989.
International Press-Cutting Bureau
14, New Bridge Street, London, E.C. 4.

Extract from
NEW YORK WORLD
NEW YORK.
19 August. 1923.
Her Specialty Is Snakes.
MISS JOAN PROCTOR, a London
girl, has a job which few women,
and few men for that matter,
would care to hold except in the most dis-
tinct of purely honorary capacities. She
has just been elected curator of reptiles
at the famous London Zoo, after refusing
a cabled offer of a similar position at our
own Bronx Zoo at a much higher salary.
Miss Proctor is only 25 years old, but
is recognized as one of the greatest liv-
ing authorities on serpents. Her reputa-
tion indeed is already worldwide among
naturalists.

Joan Proctor.
She will not only have charge of all the
reptiles in the great collection in London,
but she will also have complete charge of
the new aquarium and its denizens. In
fact she has been responsible for the de-
signing and construction of this zoolog-
ical watering place.

Miss Proctor's grandfather was a fa-
mous entomologist, and she herself has
kept lizards and snakes as pets since her
tenth birthday. When in her very early
'teens she astonished the chief of the
reptile department of the South Kensing-
ton Museum by her knowledge of ophi-
ology and when she was only 18 she
succeeded to his post on his resignation.
At 19 she read her first paper before the
Zoological Society and later was elected
a fellow of the Linnæan Society, one of
the foremost scientific organizations in
the world.

Apparently failing to see enough of
snakes at the Zoo she keeps six Brazilian
reptiles in a glass cage in her drawing
room. They were sent to her as a gift,
for noted scientists in South America
and South Africa, knowing her interest,
frequently send deadly serpents to Eng-
land for her, and she keeps most of them
in her own home.

International Press-Cutting Bureau.
Extract from
NEW YORK HERALD.
New York, U.S.A.
Date 29 JUL 1923
LONDON NAMES WOMAN
CURATOR OF REPTILES
Miss Joan Procter One of
World's Leading Experts.

Special Cable to The New York Herald.
Copyright, 1923, by The New York Herald.
New York Herald Bureau.
London, July 28.
Miss Joan Procter, regarded by zoolo-
gists as one of the greatest snake ex-
perts in the world, has been appointed
curator of reptiles for the London Zoo.
It is the first time that a woman has
been appointed to a place of such re-
sponsibility at the Zoo. Miss Procter,
although only 25 years old, has for
some time shown conspicuous ability in
her chosen profession. Her grandfather
was a great entomologist.

Her mother, speaking of Miss Proc-
ter's work, said: "At 10 my daughter
had her first snake as a pet. She also
kept many lizards and some of them
were remarkably tame. One day she
received a large crocodile as a present,
and we took it to Dr. C. A. Boulenger,
famous chief of the department of rep-
tiles at the Natural History Museum
in South Kensington. He was aston-
ished at my daughter's knowledge of
ophiology and offered to train her in
the subject when she left St. Paul's
School. She became his assistant when
she was 15 years old, and when he re-
signed she was appointed to his post."
Miss Procter read her first paper on
snakes before the Zoological Society at
the age of 19. She was a fellow of the
society at 20 and was elected a fellow
of the Linnaean Society, one of the fore-
most scientific organizations in the
world only a fortnight ago. Last year,
it is said, she was offered a post by
the New York Zoological Society.

Extract from
THE FRIEND
BLOEMFONTIEN.
Date Sep 1st

Miss Joan Procter, an English
girl, aged 25, has been appointed
curator of reptiles at the London
Zoological Gardens. Her grand-
father was a famous entomo-
logist. Miss Procter had her
first pet snake when she was
aged 10. One day she received a
crocodile as a present, and took
it to Dr. Boulenger, head of the
department for reptiles in the
National History Museum, South
Kensington. He was astonished
at her knowledge, and offered to
train her. She became Dr.
Boulenger's assistant when 15,
and is now one of the greatest
snake experts in the world, and
is a Fellow of the Zoological and
Linnean Societies.

Extract from
CHARLOTTETOWN GUARDIAN
Charlottetown, Canada.
Date
WOMAN CURATOR
OF ZOO REPTILES

LONDON, Aug. 15.—Mr. E. G.
Boulenger, at present Curator of
Reptiles at the Zoological Gardens,
has been appointed Director of the
new Aquarium. He will continue to
exercise a general supervision over
the reptiles, but for some time he
has been very fully occupied with
superintending the construction of
the aquarium, and when the tanks
are ready for occupation it is an-
ticipated that his time will be al-
most completely engaged by his
new duties. Mr. Boulenger has been
Curator at the Zoo, F.R.S., for long
chief of the Department of Reptiles,
Batrachians and Fishes at the Brit-
ish Museum of Natural History.
Since Mr. Boulenger has been Cur-
ator at the Zoo the reptile-house
has been greatly improved, and
the collection made one of the finest
in the world. During the war he
served in France with the balloons.

Miss Joan B. Proctor, F.Z.S., F.L.S.,
has been appointed Curator of
Reptiles, and will assume her duties
in late autumn. She was educated
at St. Paul's School for Girls, and
since 1916 has worked in the Rep-
tile Department at the British Mu-
seum, first as voluntary assistant
to Dr. Boulenger and, since his re-
tirement, in charge. She is the au-
thor of a large number of papers on
the anatomy, classification, and
habits of reptiles and batrachians,
and for many years has kept a pri-
vate collection of living snakes and
batrachians. At present Miss Proc-
tor is still carrying on the work of
the Reptile Department at the Mu-
seum, but is also engaged in de-
signing the rockwork for the aqu-
arium tanks at the Zoo.

MADRAS MAIL.
MADRAS.
14 AUG 1923
THE WAY OF THE
WORLD

Miss Joan B. Proctor, F.Z.S., F.L.S., has
been appointed Curator
Woman Zoo of Reptiles at the London
Curator Zoological Gardens, and
will assume her duties in
the Autumn. She was educated at St.
Paul's School for Girls, and since 1916 has
worked in the Reptile Department at the
British Museum, first as voluntary assistant
to Dr. Boulenger, and, since his retire-
ment, in charge. She is the author of a
large number of papers on the anatomy,
classification, and habits of reptiles and
batrachians, and for many years has kept a
private collection of living snakes and batra-
chians. At present Miss Proctor is still
carrying on the work of the Reptile
Department at the Museum, but is also
engaged in designing the rockwork for the
aquarium tanks at the Zoo.

SUMMARY:
Newspaper article announcing Miss Joan B. Procter’s appointment as Curator of Reptiles at the London Zoological Gardens, noting her education, museum work, and scientific honors. It highlights other women in similar posts abroad, her research and design of aquarium rockwork, and mentions her reptile pets.

CONTENT:
THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1923.

Women in the News

A CURATOR AT
THE ZOO

(FROM A WOMAN CORRESPONDENT.)

FLEET STREET, FRIDAY.
Manchester readers will be especially in-
terested in the fact that Miss Joan B. Procter,
F.Z.S., F.L.S., has been appointed curator of
reptiles at the Zoological Gardens in London,
for Miss Procter is a granddaughter of Mr.
William Brockbank, of Didsbury, whose
wonderful gardens were famous more than
twenty-five years ago. Mr. Brockbank was a
well-known geologist, and was made a Fellow
of the Linnean Society at the time of the
"Daffodil" Conference. A similar honour
has just been conferred on his granddaughter,
who has inherited his scientific tastes and his
interest in geology. It was because of her
writings and research work in zoology that
the Linnean Society made her a Fellow.

She was educated at St. Paul's School for
Girls at Hammersmith, and it was not long
after she left school that Miss Procter went to
work in the reptile department of the Natural
History Museum at South Kensington, first as a
voluntary assistant to Dr. Boulenger. Since
his retirement she has been in charge of the
department, and she is still carrying on her
work there. A "Manchester Guardian" repre-
sentative who went to see Miss Procter at her
home to-day found her very unwilling to talk
about herself. Ever since she was a child, she
said, she had been interested in reptiles and
batrachia. It is a branch of zoology to which
much less attention has been paid in England
than in America and on the Continent. In
America it is very well worked, and each large
museum has several people devoting themselves
to the study of reptiles and nothing else. The
head of the department at the New York Museum
was a woman, a Miss Dickerson, who has now
retired, and in Leyden another woman, Dr. De
Rooy, holds a similar position. In England
there are only two specialists, Mr. E. G.
Boulenger, who is at present curator of rep-
tiles at the Zoo, and Miss Procter herself.

HER WORK AT THE ZOO.

As a curator at the Zoo Miss Procter will
have charge of the reptile-house and the
tortoises. She will keep on with the research
work she has been doing at the Museum, will
describe new species, and probably work out
their anatomy. "One is always coming across
new species," she said. "With some of these
invertebrate things you get a new species every
day. It is work of absorbing interest, and one
never knows what the anatomical research will
lend to."

Miss Procter endorsed what a speaker at the
Surgeon's Conference said the other day of the
importance to human surgery of research work
in other forms of animal life. At present Miss
Procter is engaged on designing the decorative
rockwork for the new aquarium tanks at the
Zoo. She makes models of the tanks on a
scale of two inches to a foot, and the work-
men carry out her designs. Some of these
tanks will be as big as a room—the biggest
will be 30ft. in length. Instead of making
them all of Portland cement, which would
have a monotonous effect, the idea is to vary

them as much as possible—provide a setting
of natural rock, sometimes of red rock, but
mostly in shades of grey or yellow. The granite
boulders for the turtle tank have been brought
from Cornwall, and the coloured pebbles to
go with the red marble rocks in another tank
come from the Channel Islands.
From his island of Herm Mr. Compton
McKenzie has sent sacks full of the tiny white
and coloured shells that lie to a depth of
three feet on the beaches, and these are to
show off the navy-blue beauty of the lobsters
in their tank. In addition to the rockwork Miss
Procter has to find the appropriate shingles
and water weeds.

Miss Procter has her own reptilian pets, given
to her by collectors from abroad. The boa
constrictor lives at the Zoo, and when she
takes up her new post there Miss Procter will
transfer to the warmer temperature the small
snakes which at present live at her home. She
showed some of these to-day to the interviewer.
The two water snakes from Brazil and the small
snake, also harmless, from Tanganyika, were
in a semi-torpid condition, but they writhed
about in a bunch on her hand, laying their
flat heads along her arm and shooting out
their restless tongues. Realising that they
were harmless, one could understand some-
thing of their fascination.

MISS JOAN B. PROCTER,
F.Z.S., who has been ap-
pointed Curator of Reptiles
to the London Zoological
Gardens.

The Daily Mail

JULY 21, 1923.