WOMEN INVENTORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 May 1924, Page 8

WOMEN INVENTORS

IMPORTANT, ACHIEVEMENTS./

From timej.to time, “we hear it said that women dd not shine as inventors (says a writer' in an English paper). Now a well-known professor reiterates the complaints’' and suggests that women might find a big field for activity in applying science to the comforts of life. ' Why; they have been doing nothing else since 1790, and their patents have practically run the entire gamut of human domestic needs!'

The first patent for a washing machine was taken out in 1867 by an American woman, and a quarter of a century later no fewer than seven applications were made in as many months.

Although originally invented by a man, the sewing machine has been improved by women in various ways; women also helped to improve the first cumbersome typewriter. In 1921 out of a total of 35,000 electrical patents, 297 were those of women, and these included new ideas in .cooking, culinary utensils, stoves and their attachments, furniture and furnishings, toys, games, personal adornments, toilet preparations, and even perfumed fans. Ten years ago, a princess, whose identity remained’ a secret, applied for patents for berths, bunks and seats on board ship, and Princess Stephanie of Belgium invented a very practical gas stove for workmen’s houses.

Not so long ago a woman in the Midlands brought out a series of dia-mond-shaped saucepans for cooking several dishes at the same time and so saving gas. Other women have directed their talents, to improving mangles, wringers, grids for sinks, cinder sifters, and so on. A woman was responsible for a table which concealed a- folded mattress and another which when the hinges were let down displayed the padded back and seat of a comfortable settee, i

An inventive Englishwoman at one time was Credited with having 10 or 12 patents on the market at one time, and these ranged from combination toothbrush racks to ideas for disinfecting money in tills and dust in door-mats. Parts of an airplane have been patented by one woman. Motor accessories, as well as improvements on railway, carriages, ventilation, and heating, and building and plumbing appliances, have been invented by women. All their “gadgets,” however, have not been, solely concerned with the domesticities. Sir John Thorny- , croft’s daughter, among a number of other engineering triumphs, has been responsible for an internal-combustion engine, and Mrs Ayrton not only effected improvements on arc lamps, but invented the Ayrton fan for driving back gas and smoke in time of battle.

It is to be remembered that Mme. Curie shared equally with her husband the honour of discovering radium, that Sir William Herschel’s astronomical discoveries were'largely due to the genius of his sister Caroline,' that the Acton prize was jointly won in 1900 by Sir .William and Lady Huggins, and previously by Miss Agnes Clerke for the System of the Stars, iifitl that as far back as 1831 Mrs Mary Somerville’s summary of Laplace’s “Mecanique (Celeste” brought her name and fame as an astronomer and scientist. .