| 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 |
| 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. |
| Published works | RCN R64875 |
| General context | 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 |
| Image | 
|
| Sources | 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 |
| Royal Society code | NA8092 |
| Reference number | Title | Date |
| 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/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 | |
| 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/62/231 | 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 |
| 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/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/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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| MS/944/1 | Letters to Ruth Eleanor van Heyningen and William Edward van Heyningen | 1937-1963 |
| 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] |
| MC/27/331 | Letter from Marjory Stephenson, 31 Ravenscourt Park [Mansions], Hammersmith, W, to The Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society | 9 December 1912 |