Frances MacCurtain (12 October 1936 - 26 March 1998) was a Northern Irish

speech therapist Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

and

voice coach A voice teacher or singing teacher is a musical instructor who assists adults and children in the development of their abilities in singing. Typical work A voice teacher works with a student singer to improve the various skills involved in sing ...

, and the first person to receive a PhD in speech science in Britain.

Life

Frances MacCurtain was born Frances Foad in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

on 12 October 1936. Her parents were Roland, a chartered accountant and Betty Foad. She had one brother. Her father was employed as a financial director over a number of government bodies relating to the steel industry. In the 1960s, he was involved in the fixing of steel prices. The Foad family left Belfast when MacCurtain was young, moving to

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, where she grew up. In 1959, she qualified as a

, with her first appointment being in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. She would go on to focus on clinical research relating to phonetics and voice quality. In 1961, she married the poet

Tony Connor John Anthony Connor (born 1930) is an English poet and playwright. Biography Tony Connor was born in Manchester, England. After leaving school at 14, he served in the British Army as a tank gunner, and worked as a textile designer between 1944 and ...

, with whom she had three children: 2 sons, Samuel and Simon, and a daughter, Rebecca. MacCurtain continued her clinical work, and did some lecturing in

Manchester Polytechnic Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Education ...

. She divorced Connor in 1979, and remarried to Austin MacCurtain. She later divorced MacCurtain. In 1979, MacCurtain was awarded an M.Sc. in phonetics from

University College, London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, and in the same year was appointed had of a research team at

Middlesex Hospital Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally clos ...

investigating laryngectomy measurement. The work of this team resulted in numerous publications on the anatomical and pharyngeal effects of singing and laughter. She completed a PhD concurrently with this work, and in 1982 she became the first person to receive a PhD in speech science in Britain with the thesis entitled ''Pharyngeal factors influencing voice quality''. She went on to make appearances on the BBC television show, ''

Tomorrow's World ''Tomorrow's World'' is a British television series about contemporary developments in science and technology. First broadcast on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003. The ''Tomorrow's World' ...

'', and lectured at the Royal College of Surgeons, London and in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Her work imaging and measuring voice function using techniques such as

xeroradiography Xeroradiography is a type of X-ray imaging in which a picture of the body is recorded on paper rather than on film. In this technique, a plate of selenium, which rests on a thin layer of aluminium oxide, is charged uniformly by passing it in front ...

was noticed by the commercial sector, and in collaboration with

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, MacCurtain developed the IBM Speech Viewer computer which was used in speech clinics. She left research in 1988, and founded VoicePower (later renamed Zarbo), training business executives techniques to control their voices during high pressure presentations. MacCurtain died on 26 March 1998.

Selected publications

* MacCurtain, F. and Connor, S.M. (1992), "Women and Men Working Together: The Voice Power Experience", ''Industrial and Commercial Training'', Vol. 24 No. 4.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:MacCurtain, Frances 1936 births 1998 deaths Health professionals from Belfast 20th-century women scientists from Northern Ireland