Female Scientist: Beatrix Potter

When I was a child, I learned to read by listening and following along as mother read The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. I became fascinated with the bunny that the author illustrated as a companion for her tale. It was to my surprise, that she was more than a children’s book writer. She had a background as diverse as the characters in her stories.

As a young girl Beatrix grew up in the English country side and spent the summer holiday in Scotland with her brother Walter Bertram. Children to well off parents, the Potter children were privately tutored until they reach adulthood (18). Beatrix found her talent in art early and life and depicted in her paintings the English countryside. Her love affair with nature bloomed into a full out scientific inquiry, when she, in great detail, drew numerous illustrations of a variety of fungi.

Mentored by a friend of the family, and well established mycologist, Potter’s accuracy in her mycological illustrations improved greatly. She began using a microscope to see her muse in pronounced detail. This investigation led to her developing a theory on fungi spore germination in the 1890’s. Being a woman and not established in the scientific community, Beatrix was discouraged. However, a male friend submitted her papers to a university. Her theory was contrary to the current idea and she feared her work could have been contaminated, so she quickly withdrew her paper.

In the aftermath, she continued her drawings, many of which are used in fungal identification and are hung in the Perth Museum in Perth Scotland. While she was not supported in her quest to determine the fungal germination process because of her gender, she displayed the characteristic of the nature of science and therefore was a scientist. Regardless if she was correct or not, she discovered what all scientists do, which is that science is tentative.

Her story could be used to illustrate the hurtles involved when introducing a new idea that opposes the current thought.

Beartix Potter, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Retrieved on October 8, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Potter