Meet the Quaker pacifist who shattered British science’s highest glass ceilings

Until the early 20th century, women were largely excluded from scientific institutions in the United Kingdom. This included the Royal Society, the world’s longest continuously operating scientific society and, since its founding in 1660, a centre of the scientific universe. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1945 that the institution named its first two female fellows – the biochemist Marjory Stephenson and the crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale. Produced by the Royal Society to commemorate the 80th anniversary of this milestone, this video explores Lonsdale’s remarkable life and work, which included becoming University College London’s first female professor in 1949. The short documentary is co-presented by two highly accomplished UK female physicists, Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Digging through the archives, they reveal Lonsdale not only as a remarkable intellect with a career full of firsts, but also a principled thinker, deeply concerned with ethics and dedicated to living her values.