English geologist

Throughout her life, Gertrude Elles made significant contributions to both the status of women in science, especially in the field of Earth sciences, and to the understanding of graptolites as zone fossils and their place within wider fossil communities.

Gertrude Lilian Elles was born in Wimbledon, Surrey near London, on October 8, 1872. At the age of 19, she attended Cambridge University studying the natural science Tripos, gaining a first class honors degree in 1895 and continuing on to become the first female to be awarded a Cambridge University Readership, 30 years later. She never married, but spent the majority of her life in Cambridge at Newnham College and was recognized as an excellent and enthusiastic teacher. Her name, however, was made not in the field of teaching, but in that of research. Elles' contribution to the study and classification of graptolites has not been surpassed to...