Anna McClean Bidder (4 May 1903 – 1 October 2001) was an English zoologist and academic. She was co-founder and first President of

Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge Lucy Cavendish College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college is named in honour of Lucy Cavendish (1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women's education. History The college was founded in 1965 by fe ...

Early life and education

Anna Bidder was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

. Her father,

George Parker Bidder III George Parker Bidder (21 May 1863 – 31 December 1954) was a British marine biologist who primarily studied sponges. He was the President of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) from 1939 to 1945. Life and career George Parker Bidder was ...

, a zoologist, was president of the

Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) is a learned society with a scientific laboratory that undertakes research in marine biology. The organisation was founded in 1884 and has been based in Plymouth since the Citadel Hil ...

, and grandson of the noted engineer and calculating prodigy also named

George Parker Bidder George Parker Bidder (13 June 1806 – 20 September 1878) was an English engineer and calculating prodigy.W. W. Rouse Ball (1960) ''Calculating Prodigies'', in Mathematical Recreations and Essays, Macmillan, New York, chapter 13. Early life Bo ...

. Her mother,

Marion Bidder Marion Bidder (née Greenwood) (26 August 1862 – 25 September 1932) was an English physiologist and one of the first women to do independent research in Cambridge. For nearly a decade, she was in charge of the Balfour Laboratory in Cambridge ...

, had been a pioneering woman student before teaching physiology and botany at Girton and Newnham colleges. Bidder was educated at the

Perse School for Girls The Stephen Perse Foundation is a family of independent schools in Cambridge and Saffron Walden for students aged 1 to 18. The Foundation is made up of 3 nurseries (2 in Cambridge and 1 in Saffron Walden, Essex) for ages 1–5, 2 Junior Schoo ...

, and then went on to study Zoology for a year at

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. She returned to Cambridge in 1922 to read Natural Sciences at

Newnham College Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millice ...

. Her elder sister had chosen to study at Girton, the only other women's college in Cambridge at the time, and their mother wished to send one daughter to each. Bidder changed her subject to Zoology partway through her studies, and graduated in 1926. Bidder obtained her Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1933.

Career

She published several academic papers in her career as a zoologist, and worked for a time in

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...

. In 1950 or 1951, she and two friends, Kathleen Wood-Legh and Margaret Braithwaite, formed the "Dining Group" for female academics in Cambridge who were not Fellows at colleges. As well as social gatherings, they had the eventual aim of attracting a core of academics to establish a new female graduate college. This group continued for fourteen years, meeting first in the Copper Kettle restaurant and other restaurants around Cambridge, then later in

Gonville and Caius College Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

's Harvey Court. This led eventually to the founding of the Lucy Cavendish Collegiate Society for mature female students in 1965. Bidder was President of the college from its foundation until her retirement in 1970. Her Quaker beliefs led to her involvement in the publication of the somewhat controversial 1963 pamphlet, '' Towards a Quaker View of Sex'', which aimed to take a new view of the changing sexual mores of the time.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bidder, Anna Mcclean 1903 births 2001 deaths 20th-century British educators 20th-century British zoologists 20th-century English non-fiction writers 20th-century British women scientists 20th-century English women writers English science writers English zoologists Presidents of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge English women non-fiction writers Women science writers Women zoologists English Quakers People educated at the Perse School for Girls Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge