Background
Mabel Fitzgerald was born in 1872 in Preston Candover near Basingstoke.
Mabel Fitzgerald was born in 1872 in Preston Candover near Basingstoke.
She was educated at home, as was typical for upper and middle class girls in her time.
She began to teach herself chemistry and biology from books, as well as attending classes at Oxford University between 1896 and 1899, even though women were not yet allowed to receive degrees. She continued her studies at the University of Copenhagen, Cambridge University and New York University. Fitzgerald returned to the United Kingdom in 1915 to serve as a clinical pathologist at the Edinburgh infirmary, a position that was empty because of World War I. She did not publish any more papers and remained out of contact with the physiology community even after her return to Oxford in 1930.
In 1961, on the centenary of Haldane"s birth, her work was rediscovered.
In 1972, at 100 years old, she received an honorary Master of Arts from Oxford University, 75 years after she had attended classes there.
She became the second female member of the American Physiological Society in 1913. She was also made a member of The Physiological Society.