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

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0100 KCLCA K/PP67
Held at	: King's College London College Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/archivespec/ ›
Full 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
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

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of work in progress; reports on the work of the Muscle Biophysics Unit; drafts for publications, 1950-1973; unpublished invitation lectures and talks, 1956-1973; scientific correspondence, 1956-1973, including letters exchanged with colleagues whilst at conferences or abroad,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 & 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.

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.

Archival Information

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

Related material:

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

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

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