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King's College London College Archives

HANSON, Professor (Emmeline) Jean (1919-1973)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP67

Held at: King's College London College Archives

Title: HANSON, Professor (Emmeline) Jean (1919-1973)

Date(s): 1938-1975

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 20 boxes or 0.2 cubic metres.

Name of creator(s): Hanson | Emmeline Jean | 1919-1973 | biologist

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born in Newhall, Derbyshire, 1919; educated at the Girls' High School, Burton-on-Trent, 1930-1938; read Zoology at Bedford College, London, 1938-1941; research student at Bedford College, 1941-1942, working on the histology of the vascular system of annelids; and worked at the Strangeways laboratory, Cambridge, 1941-1944; demonstrator in Zoology at Bedford College, 1944-1948; joined the Biophysical Research Unit at King's College London established by John Randall, 1948; researched the structural basis of muscular contraction, and moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology biology department under Professor Francis O Schmitt as a Rockefeller Foundation Research Fellow, 1953; collaborated with Hugh Esmor Huxley and formulated and tested the sliding filament hypothesis of muscular contraction; returned to the Biophysics Research Unit, 1954; continued research on sliding filament mechanism of muscular contraction, particularly in non striated muscles of invertebrates, the morphology of smooth muscle in invertebrates, the molecular structure of actin and bacterial flagella; Professor of Biology, University of London, 1966; elected fellow of the Royal Society, 1967; director of Muscle Biophysics Unit at King's College London, 1970; died 1973.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Professor Jean Hanson, 1938-1975, comprising undergraduate lecture notes; drafts for lectures, revised annually, for undergraduate teaching in zoology at Bedford College, 1938-1948; lectures in Biophysics given at King's College London, 1960-1973; research papers, comprising extensive laboratory notebooks and working papers, 1938-1973, which include ideas for research and comments on current and projected experiments as well as records and observations of work in progress; reports on the work of the Muscle Biophysics Unit; drafts for publications, 1950-1973; unpublished invitation lectures and talks, 1956-1973; scientific correspondence, 1956-1973, including letters exchanged with colleagues whilst at conferences or abroad, detailing research progress; 'Emmeline Jean Hanson' by Sir John Randall, reprinted from Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol 21, Nov 1975.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

By section as follows: Biographical and personal, Bedford College London, Laboratory notebooks and working papers, King's College London, Lectures and conferences, Scientific correspondence, Publications, index of correspondents.

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Director of Archive Services, King's College London.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre catalogue no 51/5/77, 25 pp. Available at the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath, and the College Archives, King's College London.

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The papers were received by the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, University of Bath, between 1975-1977 from Dr Gerald Hoffer, Hanson's scientific executor and presented to King's College London in 1978.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

Correspondence with John William Sutton Pringle, held at Oxford University, Bodleian Library, Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts.

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Sources: Based on the guide compiled by the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists; Who's Who 1897-1996 (A & C Black, 1996); 'Emmeline Jean Hanson' by Sir John Randall, reprinted from Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol 21, Nov 1975; National Register of Archives. Compiled by Julie Tancell for the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: January 2001


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Biographies | Prose | Literary forms and genres | Literature
Experiments | Research work
Research projects | Research programmes | Organization of research
Universities | Higher education institutions | Educational institutions
Biology
Biophysics
Higher science education
Zoology

Personal names
Hanson | Emmeline Jean | 1919-1973 | biologist
Randall | Sir | John Turton | 1905-1984 | Knight | physicist

Corporate names
Bedford College x Bedford College for Women
King's College London
King's College London | Muscle Biophysics Unit

Places