Description
This fume cupboard, dating from the early 20th century was specifically constructed for use in the chemistry laboratory at Newnham College, which was founded for the education of women in 1871

In the early 1900s the presence of female students in science lectures and in practical classes was at the discretion of male professors; women could be excluded at any moment. The laboratory at Newnham College, and the fume cupboards housed within it, provided female students with the opportunity to carry out research and practicals in chemistry.

At the outbreak of World War I, women had begun to be accepted in the scientific establishment of the University. Lecture halls and laboratories had recently been constructed that were large enough to accommodate the female students as well. As a result, many of the female-only laboratories fell into disuse. The chemistry laboratory at Newnham was used for storage until its recent redevelopment in 1998 as a performing arts centre.

This fume cupboard is one of a pair that remained in situ, undisturbed for approximately 80 years. Their ‘hibernation’ is undoubtedly the reason why they remain intact today. Normally, with space at such a premium, it is likely that such an ‘outmoded’ piece of laboratory equipment would have been disposed of quite quickly.

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The Newnham chemistry laboratory

In the late 1800s, practical chemistry training for both men and women at Cambridge took place in individual College laboratories. While University facilities for chemistry expanded at the end of the nineteenth century and provided provisions for an increasing number of chemistry students, between 1878 and 1912 practical chemistry education for first-year women students at Newnham took place entirely in Newnham’s College lab. The chemistry lab at Newnham thus provides an early example of a scientific learning space dedicated entirely to women’s science education.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Girton-educated chemist Ida Freund ran the Newnham lab, developing her own laboratory teaching program for women students. After her retirement, Freund began compiling her course into a guide for other instructors and her compilation provides clues about the nature of women’s chemistry education at Cambridge. As Freund’s course guide suggests, despite her laboratory-based approach to teaching chemistry, Freund’s Newnham course did not aim to teach young women practical chemistry techniques; for students at Newnham, doing chemistry experiments was an opportunity to practice rigourous logical thinking and to learn to question their own assumptions.

-- Hannah Resnick, HPS MPhil student, University of Cambridge, 2017-18.