Dorothy Hodgkin

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Lore & Background

Dorothy Wrinch was born in Rosario, Argentina, the daughter of Hugh Edward Hart Wrinch, an engineer, and Ada Souter. The family returned to England and she grew up in Surbiton, near London. She attended Surbiton High School and in 1913 entered Girton College, Cambridge to read mathematics. Wrinch often attended meetings of the Heretics Club run by Charles Kay Ogden, and through a 1914 lecture organised by Ogden she first heard Bertrand Russell speak. She graduated in 1916 as a wrangler. For the academic year 1916–1917, Wrinch took the Cambridge Moral Sciences tripos and studied mathematical logic with Russell in London. In December she was invited to Garsington Manor, the home of Russell's then mistress Ottoline Morell, and there encountered Clive Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members. In 1917 she introduced Russell to Dora Black who would later become his second wife. From 1917 Wrinch was funded by Girton College as a research student, officially supervised by G. H. Hardy in Cambridge but in practice by Russell in London. When, in May 1918, Russell was imprisoned for his anti-war activities, Wrinch assisted with his writing projects by bringing him books and articles. Wrinch secured the first publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus in a German philosophical journal in 1921. In London she attended the Aristotelian Society, including a debate between D'Arcy Thompson and John Scott Haldane on the nature of physics, biology and psychology, and she became a friend of Thompson. In the autumn of 1918 Wrinch registered for graduate study on asymptotic expansions with the applied mathematician John Nicholson at King's College London, started to teach at University College London, and continued to work with Jeffreys on the philosophy of scientific method. In 1920 Girton awarded Wrinch a four-year Yarrow Research Fellowship with the freedom to work on any area of her choice. In 1920 she was awarded an MSc and in 1921 a DSc by the University of London. Wrinch moved to Oxford in 1922 upon her marriage, where she held a succession of research fellowships and lectureships or tutorships at the Oxford women's colleges for the next 16 years. She was Lady Carlisle Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford and first woman lecturer in mathematics at the university. In 1929 she was the first woman to receive an Oxford DSc. Wrinch's first paper was a 1917 defence of Russell's philosophy, and between 1918 and 1932 she published 20 papers on pure and applied mathematics and 16 on scientific methodology and on the philosophy of science. At the 1928 International Congress of Mathematics in Bologna she delivered the paper 'On a method for constructing harmonics for surfaces of revolution.' She also presented on 'Harmonics Associated with Certain Inverted Spheroids' at the 1932 ICM in Zürich. The papers she wrote with Harold Jeffreys on scientific method formed the basis of his 1931 book Scientific Inference. In the Nature obituary Jeffreys wrote, 'I should like to put on record my appreciation of the substantial contribution she made to [our joint] work, which is the basis of all my later work on scientific inference.' From about 1932 Wrinch shifted towards theoretical biology. She was one of founders of the Biotheoretical Gathering (aka the 'Theoretical Biology Club'), an inter-disciplinary group that sought to explain life by discovering how proteins work. Also involved were Joseph Henry Woodger, Joseph and Dorothy Needham, C. H. Waddington, J. D. Bernal, Karl Popper and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. From then on Wrinch could be described as a theoretical biologist. She developed a model of protein structure, which she called the 'cyclol' structure. The model generated considerable controversy and was attacked by the chemist Linus Pauling. In these debates Wrinch's lack of training in chemistry was a great weakness. By 1939, evidence had accumulated that the model was wrong but Wrinch continued working on it. However, experimental work by Irving Langmuir done in collaboration with Wrinch to validate her ideas catalysed the principle of the hydrophobic effect being the driving force for protein folding. In 1936 Ida Busbridge secured a position as assistant to Wrinch from whom she took over mathematics tutorials for all five women's colleges. In 1939 Wrinch moved to the United States. She had a variety of teaching positions at three small Massachusetts colleges, Amherst College, Smith College, and Mount Holyoke College. From 1942 until she retired in 1971 Wrinch held research positions at Smith.

Reader's Guide

Dorothy Wrinch's career spanned mathematics, philosophy, and theoretical biology. Her early work with Bertrand Russell and Harold Jeffreys on scientific method laid groundwork for Jeffreys' 1931 book Scientific Inference. She shifted to theoretical biology around 1932, co-founding the Biotheoretical Gathering with figures like J. D. Bernal and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. Her cyclol model for protein structure sparked fierce debate, notably with Linus Pauling, and while ultimately proven wrong by 1939, her collaboration with Irving Langmuir on the model helped catalyse the principle of the hydrophobic effect driving protein folding. Wrinch published 20 papers on pure and applied mathematics and 16 on scientific methodology between 1918 and 1932. She was the first woman lecturer in mathematics at Oxford and the first woman to receive an Oxford DSc in 1929. Her personal life included marriage to her graduate supervisor John William Nicholson, who was later certified as mentally ill in 1930 and confined until his death in 1955. She divorced him in 1937 on grounds of insanity. In 1941 she married Otto Charles Glaser, chairman of the biology department at Amherst College. Dorothy Hodgkin wrote in Wrinch's obituary that she was 'a brilliant and controversial figure who played a part in the beginnings of much of present research in molecular biology,' adding on a personal level, 'I like to think of her as she was when I first knew her, gay, enthusiastic and adventurous, courageous in face of much misfortune and very kind.'

Did You Know?

• Dorothy Wrinch secured the first publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus in a German philosophical journal in 1921.
• She was the first woman to receive an Oxford DSc, in 1929.
• Wrinch's cyclol model was attacked by Linus Pauling, and by 1939 evidence had accumulated that the model was wrong.
• Experimental work by Irving Langmuir done in collaboration with Wrinch to validate her ideas catalysed the principle of the hydrophobic effect being the driving force for protein folding.
• Dorothy Hodgkin wrote in Wrinch's obituary that she was 'a brilliant and controversial figure who played a part in the beginnings of much of present research in molecular biology.'

Intellectual Formation in Cambridge and Bloomsbury

Born in Rosario, Argentina in 1894, she grew up in Surbiton after her family returned to England. She attended Surbiton High School before entering Girton College, Cambridge in 1913 to study mathematics. Her intellectual world expanded through the Heretics Club run by Charles Kay Ogden, where she first heard Bertrand Russell speak in 1914. She graduated as a wrangler in 1916, then took the Moral Sciences tripos and studied mathematical logic with Russell in London. A December 1916 invitation to Garsington Manor, home of Ottoline Morell, connected her to Clive Bell and the Bloomsbury Group. In 1917 she introduced Russell to Dora Black, who would become his second wife. She was funded by Girton as a research student, officially supervised by G. H. Hardy but in practice by Russell. When Russell was imprisoned in May 1918 for his anti-war activities, she brought him books and articles to assist his writing projects.

Mathematical Contributions and Philosophy of Science

Between 1918 and 1932 she published twenty papers on pure and applied mathematics alongside sixteen on scientific methodology and the philosophy of science. Her first paper, in 1917, was a defence of Russell's philosophy. She attended the Aristotelian Society, where she encountered a debate between D'Arcy Thompson and John Scott Haldane on the nature of physics, biology, and psychology, and became a friend of Thompson. She spoke to the Society on the summation of pleasures and through it met Harold Jeffreys and Raphael Demos. In autumn 1918 she registered for graduate study on asymptotic expansions with John Nicholson at King's College London and began teaching at UCL. Her joint work with Jeffreys on scientific method formed the basis of his 1931 book Scientific Inference; Jeffreys later acknowledged her substantial contribution in a Nature obituary. At the 1928 ICM in Bologna she presented on harmonics for surfaces of revolution, and at the 1932 ICM in Zürich on harmonics associated with inverted spheroids. In 1929 she became the first woman to receive an Oxford DSc.

The Cyclol Hypothesis and Theoretical Biology

From around 1932 she shifted her focus toward theoretical biology. She was among the founders of the Biotheoretical Gathering, an interdisciplinary group seeking to explain life by understanding how proteins function. Fellow members included Joseph Henry Woodger, Joseph and Dorothy Needham, C. H. Waddington, J. D. Bernal, Karl Popper, and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. She developed a model of protein structure she termed the cyclol structure, which generated considerable controversy and was attacked by chemist Linus Pauling. In these debates, her lack of formal training in chemistry proved a significant weakness. By 1939, evidence had accumulated suggesting the model was incorrect, yet she continued working on it. However, experimental work by Irving Langmuir, conducted in collaboration with her to validate her ideas, catalysed the principle that the hydrophobic effect serves as the driving force for protein folding, representing an important indirect contribution to the field.

Personal Life and Intellectual Companionships

Her personal life was marked by complex intellectual and romantic entanglements. Prior to 1918, her Cambridge tutor G. N. Watson proposed to her, but the feeling was not mutual; she had to ask her father to explain this to Watson, though Watson later recommended her as his replacement lecturer at UCL. Around the postwar period of her closeness to Russell, she may have had a romantic connection with his brother Frank and probably experienced an unhappy attachment with his disciple Raphael Demos. For some years she was a close intellectual companion of Harold Jeffreys, and some observers believed them engaged. The breaking of their engagement may have encouraged Jeffreys to enter psychoanalysis, then fashionable in Cambridge. In 1922 she married her graduate supervisor at King's College London, the mathematical physicist John William Nicholson. The DSc examination in 1921 had unusually included an additional referee, possibly due to perceptions of a relationship. After moving to the United States in 1939, she held teaching positions at Amherst, Smith, and Mount Holyoke colleges, and from 1942 until her retirement in 1971 held research positions at Smith.