Born: 11 May 1828, United Kingdom
Died: 19 July 1901
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Eleanor A. Ormerod, an English naturalist and entomologist. From her earliest childhood insects were her delight, and the opportunity afforded for entomological study by the large estate upon which she grew up and the interest she took in agriculture generally soon made her a local authority on this subject.
When the Royal Horticultural Society, in 1868, began forming a collection of insect pests of the farm, Miss Ormerod largely contributed to it, and was awarded the Flora medal. In 1882 she was appointed consulting entomologist to the Society, a post she held for ten years. She received gold and silver medals form European universities and scientific institutions, and her pamphlets and books are valuable.
When in 1900 she receive the first LL. D. ever given a woman by Edinburgh University, the dean of the legal faculty in making the presentation said:
“The preeminent position which Miss Ormerod holds in the world of science is the reward of the patient study and unwearying observation. Her investigations have been chiefly directed towards the discovery of methods for the prevention of the ravages of those insects which are injurious to orchard, field and forest. Her labors have been crowned with such success that she is entitled to be hailed the protrectress of agriculture and the fruits of the earth – a beneficent Dementer of the nineteenth century.”
IW note: Ormerod became the first female Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in 1878. In 1880, she collated and published a private weather journal by Miss Caroline Molesworth of Cobham, Surrey as The Cobham Journals. It consisted of more than 75,000 observations made from 1825 to 1850 including notes on weather and plant life. In 1924, Virginia Woolf wrote a story called Miss Ormerod, based on her life. Ormerod’s portrait hangs at the University of Edinburgh, proclaiming her as its first woman honorary graduate.