Janette Stewart Steele

Title: 
Dr.
Other names: 
She was known as Ettie
Dates: 
5 Dec 1890 - July 1983

The daughter of William and Jessie Steele, she was born in Dunfermline in 1890. Her father was a slater. She had a younger sister, Dorothy. The family lived at 183 Bath Street, Dumfermline, in 1891, and at 28 Carnegie Street, Dunfermline, in 1901.

She matriculated at the University of St Andrews and in the course of her degree she won a medal and prizes for Geology in 1911. She graduated M.A. B.Sc in 1914.She was appointed a University Assistant in 1919 (the first woman to hold such an appointment) whilst working towards her PhD. In 1920 she became one of the first two women to gain a PhD from the University of St Andrews. She was made an assistant lecturer in 1921, again, the first woman to do so at St Andrews, and a lecturer in 1924. She visited Canada in 1924. She retired in 1956.

From 1930-1959 she was Warden of McIntosh Hall.

She died in 1983.

Sources
1891 census
Dunfermline 424 / 2/ 26
1901 census
Dunfermline 424 / 3 / 12
St Andrews Citizen
Prize lists -18 March 1911
Chemistry Was Their Life; Pioneering British Women Chemists 1880-1949
G&M Rayner-Canham p268