In March 1941, she solved a problem that had jeopardised the life of pilots. She purchased her first motorcycle at age fourteen, later obtaining a Bachelor and Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, specialising in the elimination of piston temperatures of high-speed diesel engines. – JC Beatrice Shilling Daredevil motorcyclist and engineer who saved fighter pilots’ livesīeatrice Shilling on her motorcycle, pushed by two women © Getty Imagesīorn in 1909 in Hampshire, aeronautical engineer and daredevil motorcycle racer Beatrice ‘Tilly’ Shilling, is credited by her peers as helping the Allies to win WWII. Her death certificate records her occupation simply as ‘Teacher of Navigation’, but she was far more than this.Ī mathematician, astronomer, author, instrument maker and inventor, her life story is told in Mistress of Science: the story of the remarkable Janet Taylor. Sadly, she died in obscurity and bankrupt, estranged from all her children, several of whom lived in Australia. She was also an inventor of several nautical instruments with some being held in the national maritime Museum in Greenwich. She was the author of many books, including some that ran to 27 editions and several are still in print today. She also received international recognition for her contributions: gold medals from the King of Holland and King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and, by 1844, a medal from the Pope. She was similarly honoured by the two other members of the ‘big three’ of the 19th Century maritime world in Britain: the Elder Brethren of Trinity House and the East India Company. In 1835, in consideration of ‘services she has extended to seamen’, through her Lunar Tables, the Admiralty awarded her £100 ‘from scientific funds’, a ‘handsome pecuniary award’. Between 16 there 79 patents awarded for nautical instruments – Janet was the only women among them for her Mariner’s Calculator. Where they were hesitant at first in their engagement with Mrs Taylor, she clearly won their support and respect. Through her scientific work, Janet established a respectful correspondence with those in the highest positions in the maritime community: men like the head of the Admiralty’s Hydrographic Office, Captain, later Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, and Professor Sir George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal. She conducted her own Nautical Academy in Minories in the east end of the City, not far from the Tower of London she was a sub-agent for Admiralty charts ran a manufacturing business for nautical instruments, many of which she designed herself and embarked on the business of compass-adjusting at the height of the controversies generated by magnetic deviation and distortions on iron ships.
She became a prodigious author of nautical treatises and textbooks, born of a fascination in particular in measuring longitude by the lunar distance method.
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Her father, the curate of the church of St Mary and St Stephen and schoolmaster of the Free Grammar School at Wolsingham, inspired her in the wonders of navigation. Her life thereafter took her into the heart of maritime London. Janet Taylor was born ‘Jane Ann Ionn’ on, the sixth child of the Reverend Peter Ionn and Jane Deighton, the daughter of a country gentleman.Īfter the death of her mother when she was just seven years old, Janet gained a scholarship at the precociously young age of nine, to attend Queen Charlotte’s school in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, where the other girls were all aged over 14. – John S Croucher Janet Taylor Designed instruments for nautical navigation He also remarked that he would never have won a Nobel Prize or published a famous paper if it wasn’t for Rosalind. In his 1968 book, The Double Helix, Watson outlined how the two had become friends while working together. Watson suggested that Rosalind, along with Wilkins, should be awarded a Nobel Prize for Chemistry, but the Nobel Committee does not make posthumous nominations. In 1962, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for solving the structure of DNA.
In March 1958 Rosalind passed away at the age of 37 from several illnesses, including ovarian cancer. In 1953, her colleague Maurice Wilkins showed James Watson and Francis Crick the X-ray data that Rosalind had obtained, confirming the 3D structure that the pair had speculated about for DNA. A model of the rover bearing Rosalind Franklin’s name © ESA