Character
Retrato

Eleanor Anne Ormerod

Gloucestershire 11-05-1828 ‖ St Albans 19-07-1901

Period of activity: From 1877 until 1900

Geographical classification: Europe > United Kingdom

Socio-cultural movements

Groups by dedication

Scientists > Biologists > Zoologists

Context of feminine creation

Eleanor Ormerod was a contemporary of scientists such as Maire Curie, Nettie Stevens and Ellen Swallow Richards, among others. Like the naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), Eleanor illustrated her observations with her own drawings, which reflected in detail many aspects of the life cycles of the insects she studied.  
Throughout history, the field of Biology and Natural Sciences has been plagued by women researchers, such as Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) who was one of the most versatile and influential women of the Middle Ages in 12th century Western Europe, the anatomy professor Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716-1774), Laura Bassi (1711-1778) who fostered the constitution of a network of experimenters that connected Italy with the scientific culture of France and England.
More recently, in the 20th and 21st centuries women such as Jane Morris Goodall, known for her 55-year study of the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Rita Colwell, a researcher in oceanography and bacteriology. Tu Youyou Chinese scientist, known for discovering artemisinin (also known as dihydroartemisinin), used to treat malaria, who in 2015 won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Finally, Josefina Castellví, oceanographer, the first Spaniard to participate in an international expedition to Antarctica in 1984.

Review

She published reports and leaflets with advice and illustrations which, like Maria Sibylla Merian, she drew herself. Her drawings helped farmers and stockbreeders to identify harmful insects and the effects they produced. Despite this, she always shared her knowledge free of charge with interested people, helping them to reduce economic losses on their farms.

Justifications

  • Her contributions to entomological studies were groundbreaking because they focused on the economic losses that some pests caused to farmers and livestock breeders.
  • She published reports and leaflets with advice and illustrations which, like Maria Sibylla Merian, she drew herself. Her drawings helped farmers and stockbreeders to identify harmful insects and the effects they produced.
  • She always shared his knowledge free of charge with interested people.

Biography

He was born into an upper-class family. He had nine siblings. Her mother was a botanical illustrator and her father a historian and antiquarian.  
From an early age she was interested in insects, which she observed and collected from a very young age on the 300-hectare family estate where she lived. It could be said that her education was basically self-taught, both in the library at home and by direct observation on the family estate. 
Although her father did not find his daughter's interest in entomology appropriate, when the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) invited the general public to contribute to its collection of pest-producing insects, she set about collecting specimens on the family grounds, assisted by the workers. Her contribution was rewarded in 1872 with the RHS floral medal.
In 1877, he published Observation of injurious insects. This report was very well received and gave rise to other reports that she published periodically with recommendations to help farmers and stockbreeders control pests on their crops or insects harmful to livestock. 
She belonged to many international scientific societies and received awards for her contribution to economic entomology. At the end of her life she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, and was the first woman to receive this distinction at this university. She was a very popular speaker, sharing her knowledge freely with interested individuals, receiving numerous comments and contributions to her research from amateur entomologists, farmers, botanists and herders, thus generating truly collaborative knowledge.

Works

  • Manual of injurious insects, with methods of prevention and repair (1881).
  • Report of Observations on the Attack of the Onion Fly (1882).
  • Handbook of injurious insects for their attacks on food crops, forest and fruit trees (1890). Contains an appendix with a brief introduction to entomology.
  • Paris-green (or Emerald-green): uses and methods of application, as a means of killing orchard moth caterpillars (1891).
  • Handbook of Insects injurious to Orchards and Fruit Shrubs (1898)
  • Flies Detrimental to Existence: Life Histories and Means of Prevention of Some Commonly Injurious Types (1900). With special observations on hypoderma and oestridae.

Bibliography

Didactic approach

Biology and Geology for 1st and 3rd ESO.  
It could also be used for 4th ESO in ecosystems, trophic networks and interspecific relationships.

Documents