Background
Catherine Raisin was born 24 April 1855 to a father who was a pannierman at the Inner Temple.
Catherine Raisin was born 24 April 1855 to a father who was a pannierman at the Inner Temple.
She attended North London Collegiate School where she stayed to work as a teacher until the age of 20 whilst also attending geology and mineralogy classes at University College London. There she studied geology and zoology, the first woman to study geology at the university, and obtained her bachelor"s degree in 1884 as the top geology graduate of the university.
Head of the geology department at Bedford College for 30 years, she was also Vice President of the college for 3 years. She was the first woman to be an academic head of a geology department in Britain and in 1919 became a fellow of the Geological Society of London. She spent her entire academic career at Bedford College where she was the first full-time head of the geology department and helped form a separate geography department, whilst teaching a large amount of geology classes.
Whilst head of the geology department she was also head of the botany department from 1891 to 1908 and head of the geography department from 1916 to 1920.
Raisin accepted an offer of the post of Vice Principal of the college in 1898, but resigned in 1901 due to the high work load. The main focus of Raisin"s research was in microscopic petrology and mineralogy, topics in which she published 24 papers between 1887 and 1905.
In particular she studied chert, serpentines, and spilites. She was seen as a leading expert on metamorphic facies.
Over the course of her career Raisin fought for equality in education, specifically for the right of female students to study at university and become researchers or lecturers.
She founded the Somerville Club in 1880, a women"s discussion group which would grow to over 1000 members by 1945. At Bedford College she sometimes paid wages herself and set up various funds and awards to encourage students. After retiring she again worked with women"s groups.
Raisin became a fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1906 and in 1919, after the society changed its rules to allow women, also became a fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Raisin retired in 1920 and in 1945, at the age of 90, died from cancer.