Science historian Ann Moyal’s leading work included Clear across Australia: a history of telecommunications (1984); A bright & savage land: scientists in colonial Australia (1986; second edition 1993); and above all Platypus (2001; published in the US under the title Platypus: the extraordinary story of how a curious creature baffled the world), which was a great success and remains in print.
Hāriata Whakatau Pītini-Morēra was the most important leader of Ngāti Kurī, a founding hapū of Ngāi Tahu in the South Island.
From an early age she developed an interest in natural history. At 15 she discovered a new species of a noctuid moth on Mt Egmont, which was described in 1921 by the entomologist G. V. Hudson as Melanchra averilla in her honour. In 1923 Lysaght commenced studies at Victoria University College, Wellington. She graduated BSc in 1928 and MSc in 1929 with second-class honours in zoology; her thesis in entomology was on the biology of Eucolaspis.
Barbara Angus was one of New Zealand’s earliest woman diplomats, and its first female ambassador to head a bilateral post. Initially working as an historian, Angus joined the Department of External Affairs as a researcher at a time when few women held positions of influence or authority in the organisation. She gradually worked her way up the ladder, and was appointed ambassador to the Philippines in 1978.
Early leader in historic preservation often credited with saving President George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon. To preserve Mount Vernon, Cunningham helped organize the Mount Vernon’s Ladies Association. Still in existence today, it was one of the first historic preservation organizations.
Mercy Otis Warren was a published poet, political playwright and satirist during the age of the American Revolution—a time when women were encouraged and expected to keep silent on political matters. Warren not only engaged with the leading figures of the day—such as John, Abigail, and Samuel Adams—but she became an outspoken commentator and historian, as well as the leading female intellectual of the Revolution and early republic.
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager who co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote several short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced several books retelling stories from Irish mythology.
Amy Marjorie Dale, FBA was a British classicist and academi who published as A. M. Dale. Her research focused on Greek tragedy, especially Euripides and the metre of Greek tragedy’s choral songs and lyric parts, a subject area in which her work remains influential.
Her first academic post was at Westfield College in the University of London (1927-1929), followed by a job at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. During World War II, Dale worked in the Foreign Office, and spent her spare time translating Eduard Fraenkel’s edition of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon into English. She was later offered and accepted a lectureship at Birkbeck College, London. In 1952 she was appointed Reader in Classics, and in 1957 became a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1959, she was honoured with a Personal Chair in Greek and in 1962 was made an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. She became Professor Emeritus in Greek at the University of London when she retired in 1963.
Zillah Castle was an acclaimed New Zealand violinist and collector of musical items.
In 1930, Zillah earned 190 out of a possible 200 in her LRSM (Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music) diploma examinations; at the time it was reportedly the highest pass mark awarded to any candidate. Her reward was a violin scholarship to London’s Royal College of Music, where she studied from 1931 to 1934, when she returned to Wellington. Zillah soon earned a reputation as a talented violinist, performing as a soloist, with orchestras and for radio broadcasts. A supporter of modern violin works, she was the first person in New Zealand to perform Vaughan Williams’s The lark ascending. She gave music lessons, teaching hundreds of Wellington children over the years, and mentored pupils who graduated to orchestra ranks. Zillah and her brother Ronald, a bassoonist, also performed in concerts for schools. In the 1930s, with their sister Mona playing viola da gamba, Zillah playing viola d’amore and Ronald on the recorder, they formed what is believed to be New Zealand’s first baroque music ensemble to use instruments of the period.
Neither Ronald nor Zillah ever married married, preferring to continue the musical traditions centred on the family home in Colombo Street, Newtown, which housed their extraordinary collection of early and unusual musical instruments. It has been described as the largest private collection of its type in Oceania, with more than 500 items including every imaginable non-electronic mechanism capable of producing a musical note. Many were gifted to the siblings from people who wanted a good home for an unwanted instrument. The collection, which grew evolved into a private museum, contained functioning examples of every member of the violin family, as well as didgeridoos, a zuffolo, harpsichords and a crwth, harps, tablas, a sáhnāī, horns, trumpets, clarinets, a hurdy-gurdy and hundreds of other pieces. The majority of the collection was purchased by the Auckland Museum in 1998.
The Castles also collected textbooks and volumes of rare music, which are now part of the Alexander Turnbull Library collection, as well as many works of art, and a collection of dolls, toys and children’s books and magazines.
Ayşe Afet İnan was a Turkish historian and sociologist. She also measured more than 60,000 skulls in Anatolia to try to support the pseudohistorical Turkish History Thesis. In 1939, she completed her PhD in sociology and in 1950, she became a professor at the University of Ankara. She was the co-founder and a leading member of the Turkish Historical Society.