Record

Authorised form of name	Stephenson; Marjory (1885 - 1948); biochemist
Dates	1885 - 1948
Nationality	British
Place of birth	High Town, Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England
Date of birth	24 January 1885
Place of death	Evelyn Nursing Home, Cambridge, England
Date of death	12/12/1948
Occupation	Biochemist
Research field	Microbiology
Research field	Biochemistry
Activity	Education: At home (until the age of 12); Berkhampstead High School for Girls; Newnham College, Cambridge (matriculated 1903). Career: Studied, then taught, domestic science (for 5 years); assisted with teaching in R H A Plimmer's laboratory, University College, London (1911); researched animal lactase and the esters of palmitic acid, then later worked on experimental diabetes; worked with the Red Cross in France and Salonika (1914-1918) for which she received the MBE; biochemical department, Cambridge under Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (FRS 1905); studied biochemical activities of bacteria; wrote 'Bacterial Metabolism' (first published 1930); collaborated with Juda Quastel (FRS 1940) on anaerobic growth in bacteria; one of the first two women to be elected to the Royal Society; Reader in Chemical Microbiology, Cambridge University (1947); helped to found the Society for General Microbiology (1945); died of cancer (1948). Honours: MBE 1918 Memberships: Society for General Microbiology (second President 1947) Association of Scientific Workers (VP)
Membership category	Fellow
Date of election	22/03/1945
Age at election	60
Proposer	Juda Hirsch Quastel
	W W C Topley
	Joseph Arthur Arkwright
	James Walter McLeod
	John Charles Grant Ledingham
	William Ewart Gye
	Edward Mellanby
	John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
	Howard Walter Florey
	Frederick Gowland Hopkins
	Malcolm Dixon
	Albert Charles Chibnall
	David Keilin
	Paul Fildes
	Charles Robert Harrington
	Samuel Phillips Bedson
	Peter Bruce White
	Christopher Howard Andrewes
Relationships	Parents: Robert Stephenson, farmer, and his wife Sarah Rogers of Newmarket.
PublishedWorks	RCN R64875
OtherInfo	One of the first two women to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Distinguished as a biochemist particularly in the field of bacterial metabolism with her publication Bacterial Metabolism (1930) becoming a standard textbook for microbiologists. Basing her work mainly on the study of "resting" bacteria she was able, with Quastel, to throw new light on the metabolism of anaerobic organisms. Later she discovered the enzyme hydrogenase, which activates molecular hydrogen, and studied its reactions. She showed that Bact coli can develop an enzyme (hydrogenlyase) which decomposes formic acid to carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and was led by this discovery to contribute further to the general problem of adaptive enzymes. Advanced knowledge of bacterial deamination.
Royal Society Obituary or Memoir	Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices)
Related images	Discover a selection of related images in our picture library
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Source	Sources: Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DSB vol 18 pp 857-860 Obituaries: Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1948-1949 vol 6 pp 563-577, plate, by Muriel Robertson References: Joan Mason, 'The Admission of the First Women to the Royal Society of London' in NR 1992 vol 46 pp 279-300, plate Joan Mason, 'The Women Fellows' Jubilee' in NR 1995 vol 49 pp 125-140
Code	NA8092

Archives associated with this Fellow

RefNo	Title	Date
HD/6/6/1/55	Letter, F G Hopkins, Sir William Dunn Institute, University of Cambridge, to H H Dale	22 November 1943
EC/1945/19	Stephenson, Marjory: certificate of election to the Royal Society
NLB/68/568	Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to the Assistant Secretary of the School Biochemistry; Tennis Court Road, Cambridge	10 August 1925
MS/944/1	Letters to Ruth Eleanor van Heyningen and William Edward van Heyningen	1937-1963
NLB/62/231	Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Miss Marjory Stephenson, FRS	5 January 1922
RR/26/138	Referee's report by William Dobinson Halliburton, on a paper 'Studies in the fat metabolism of the timothy grass bacillus' by Marjory Stephenson and Margaret Dampier Whetham	20 December 1921
RR/29/55	Referee's report by Arthur Harden, on a paper 'Studies in the fat metabolism of the Timothy Grass Bacillus. II.—The carbon balance-sheet and respiratory quotient' by Marjory Stephenson and Margaret Dampier Whetham	June 1923
NLB/64/797	Copy letter from [James Hopwood Jeans], Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir John Rose Bradford, K.C.M.G FRS	20 June 1923
IM/004386	Stephenson, Marjory	nd
IM/GA/WS/21835	Stephenson, Marjory	nd
IM/004387	Stephenson, Marjory	nd
MS/916	Lecture notes by Gordon Elliott Fogg	1938-1946
MC/27/331	Letter from Marjory Stephenson, 31 Ravenscourt Park [Mansions], Hammersmith, W, to The Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society	9 December 1912
RR/71/192	Referee's report by Marjory Stephenson, on a paper 'Metabolic changes which form the basis of a microbiological assay of nicotinic acid' by H McIlwain	[1948]
HD/13/93	Copy letter, H H Dale to Miss Marjory Stephenson, Biochemical Laboratory, Cambridge	9 March 1945
HF/1/14/2/6/2	Letter from Howard Walter Florey to W E van Heyningen, Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories, Beckenham	26 April 1946
HD/13/99	Letter, Marjory Stephenson, University of Cambridge School of Biochemistry, to H H Dale	12 March 1945
CAP/1948/8/4	Enclosure D - Statement of claims for medals	1948
NLB/62/192	Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir Frederick [William] Andrewes, Chairman of the Physiology Committee and FRS	22 December 1921
NLB/62/170	Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir Frederick [William] Andrewes, Chairman of the Physiology Committee and FRS	15 December 1921
RR/72/155	Letter from Paul Gordon Fildes, on a paper 'The stability of D-arabinose adaption of Bact. lactis aerogenes' by Cyril Norman Hinshelwood and S Jackson to D C Martin, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society	6 May 1949

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