Sometimes the inspiration for a novel is very close to home, very personal. It was the true story of her mother and aunt, both biologists and PhDs, both denied the careers they might have had, that led Rachel Hore to the idea for The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge. Here she writes about the barriers that women in science have faced.
My new novel, The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge, concerns Stef Lansdown, a modern day journalist, who is researching the experiences of women in science for a book she’s writing.
When she interviews Nancy Foster, a retired schoolteacher who lives in a remote cottage on a Norfolk wildlife reserve, she starts to uncover secrets from Nancy’s past as a young research scientist. Other people, however, don’t want the story told…
This novel has origins that are very personal to me. My mother Phyllis and her identical twin sister Anne, now both 95, were children of wartime. I was brought up on their stories of life in the south London suburbs where their parents turned the back garden into a small farm and the family spent their nights in a deep shelter dug by my grandfather to dodge the bombs.
What I knew little about until recently, when the twins began to reminisce about their student days, was what happened next. In 1947 they both went up to Imperial College to read Zoology, finding themselves part of a group of 14, half of whom were girls. They were largely treated as intellectual equals to the boys, full of hopes of becoming scientists.
Anne secured a first-class degree, Phyllis an excellent second. Both went on to study for PhDs in Entomology, which they completed in 1953. Afterwards, Anne took a job in industrial research, investigating the effects of insecticides on locusts. Her findings about their toxicity to humans caused her to clash with authority.
Phyllis joined a laboratory at King’s College Hospital, her days spent testing samples for medical purposes. She hated the masculine atmosphere and, lacking proper training in the use of new equipment, lost confidence. At this point, each of the twins began to feel stuck. Doors closed to them whichever way they turned. Nervous breakdowns threatened. What had gone wrong? I wanted to know more.
As I interviewed Phyllis and Anne in turn, thinking their experiences would be interesting to record for the wider family, some very distinct patterns began to emerge. I saw how strong forces, sometimes overt, but sometimes subtle and silent, had opposed their progress – simply because they were female.
When it became obvious that I had some fascinating material for a novel, I began to read more widely around women in science in the period. And much of what I read underpinned Phyllis and Anne’s accounts of their personal struggles.
In the post-war period it was still especially difficult for women to secure undergraduate places at top universities in the ‘hard sciences’ such as Chemistry and Physics, partly because of prejudice, partly because girls’ schools did not offer sufficient preparation in these subjects*.
Phyllis, not usually a cynic, suspected that Imperial College admitted quite so many women to its Zoology course because the presiding professor needed their fees to create his legacy – a substantial science park. When he subsequently became her PhD supervisor he took little interest in her work.
Once qualified, many women found it impossible to secure positions in research and made do with more lowly jobs as laboratory technicians. Those of marriageable age frequently found themselves turned away at a period when society expected women to have children very young. Anne was explicitly rejected for an academic post because she was engaged to be married and too honest about wanting children at some point.
Aspiring women researchers did better if partnered by a man, whose name could then join hers on papers submitted to scientific journals – publication being a crucial requirement for career development – thus increasing the chance of acceptance by the invariably male editors.
Although it would be invidious to attribute the developmental biologist and Nobel laureate Anne McLaren’s success to the fact, it is interesting to note that she worked with her husband from a critical early point in her illustrious career.
Networking and the exchange of information in a social setting were limited by the persistence of sexually-exclusive spaces. Arriving at King’s College, London in 1951 to take up a research post, Rosalind Franklin was frustrated to discover that women were not allowed in the Senior Common Room, and of the two staff dining rooms, one was for men only*.
Many of her male colleagues were ex-military, tough and fierce in their attitude to work and play, prone to playing unpleasant practical jokes. Incidents of sexual assault in laboratories everywhere was extensive, as might be imagined. Phyllis and Anne both spoke feelingly of this. Women who complained about rapacious male colleagues were often disbelieved, belittled, ostracised or even sacked.
Pay differentials were commonplace. It was considered beneath one’s dignity to discuss pay with colleagues, but Anne became curious why male colleagues on the same grade as herself were able to afford mortgages, and made subtle enquiries. She was able to confront her manager about her findings and secure a small raise.
We’ve recently learned a great deal about the famous women scientists of the postwar period such as Rosalind Franklin and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, but what about the many in the shadows who set out with great ambitions and couldn’t fulfil them?
Like most of the other female zoologists in their undergraduate cohort, Phyllis and Anne gave up their dreams and became schoolteachers, a profession where they felt welcomed and supported. They married, had children and lived happy and fulfilled lives. But suppose conditions had been different? What might they, too, have achieved?
Though much progress has obviously been made, obstacles for women in science remain today, whether these concern research funding, networking structures, the size of allocated research space or the arrangements of the working day.
It’s not a problem that has gone away. In The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge I might be writing about the past, but I have one eye on the present.
*Rosalind Franklin by Brenda Maddox
The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge by Rachel Hore is published on 31 July, 2025.
Find out more about Rachel’s book.
Rachel is a Sunday Times multi-million copy bestselling author. She lives in Norwich and, until recently, taught Publishing and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
You may enjoy reading Rachel’s feature Imagining Olga Gray, a beautiful spy. She also spoke to Historia in a Q&A interview.
Other related features:
On women and education:
Red brick women: 1930s university pioneers by Lizzie Bentham
Imagining Somerville: a research mystery by Fiona Veitch Smith
On pioneering women:
Six godmothers of archaeology by Alexandra Walsh
Businesswomen through the ages by Gill Paul
Feisty Victorian women by Jem Poster
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, mental health pioneer by Jo Willett
How Mary Wortley Montagu and other great 18th-century women were forgotten by Sean Lusk
Lady Dorothy Mills, explorer and writer by Jane Dismore
The hidden stories of the First World War by Lucy Steeds
Women on the warpath in WWI by Louise Morrish
On science:
Invasion, inoculation and publication: when your book becomes unexpectedly topical by Lucy Ward
Dr Kahn and the Victorians’ fascination with anatomy by Essie Fox
The magic and science of 18th-century Wales by Susan Stokes-Chapman
The Darker Quacks – Between folklore and science by Oscar de Muriel
Elizabethan medicine: spectacularly wrong – and likely to kill you by SW Perry
And a TV review: Lessons in Chemistry by James Burge
Images:
- Rosalind Franklin: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Phyllis (behind) and Anne as young women: from Phyllis Hore’s private collection
- Royal College of Science, Imperial College London, 1950s: Imperial College London via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Rosalind Franklin in Paris: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin from a commemorative stamp: Wikimedia (CC0 1.0)
