Career
Foreign nearly a decade, she was in charge of the Balfour Laboratory in Cambridge and in 1895 she was the first woman to speak about a paper she had written at a Royal Society meeting. Born in the Yorkshire region of England, her family moved to Oxenhope in 1869. While doing research at Newnham College, she wrote papers on the gastric glands of pigs, effects of nicotine on invertebrates, and the physiology of protozoa.
These papers appeared in the Journal of Physiology.
Starting in 1888, she acted as both a lecturer and director of studies in biology as well as a tutor for female physiology students at Newnham College. After marrying, Bidder continued to publish works, however they were on the subject of domestic economy.
In 1901, Domestic Economy in Theory and Practice was published, to which Bidder contributed on the theoretical and scientific aspects of the subject. Bidder was president of the Cambridge Women"s Liberal Association and was passionate about women becoming involved in town councils.
She also held the position of vice-chairman of the Cambridgeshire Voluntary Association for Mental Welfare.
She was a governor of both Homerton Teacher Training College in Cambridge and of Girton College. She served as governor of Girton College until 1932, the year she died of tuberculosis. Her daughter Anna McClean Bidder was a zoologist and academic.