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.
