Voices of the Bodleian

Georgina M. Montgomery is a Byrne Bussey Marconi Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries. Her current project focuses on the history of Wytham Woods, and on the role of emotion in scientific work and the contributions of under-represented individuals to studies conducted in the woods. Wytham Woods is an ancient semi-natural woodland, which is owned and maintained by the University of Oxford.

My career spans over 15 years. I’m an interdisciplinary scholar, interested in history but also life sciences and the biological sciences. I’ve focus on long-term field sites and fieldwork that looks at animal behaviour. My first book was on primatology, including a study in Kenya where I went to observe a long-term primate research project. My current project is a history of Wytham Woods, which is similar because, although there are no primates, it’s a long-term field site and I’m particularly interested in contributions from under-represented individuals to field work. So, the work of women – so-called “amateurs” – and other under-represented individuals in the academy. I look at the people, the methods and practices used to study animal behaviour as well as issues of biodiversity in long-term field sites. 

There were lots of women doing fieldwork from the 1940s/50s onwards, it’s common to find women in the biological sciences rather than the physical sciences. Sadly, what’s also common is their lack of visibility and lack of recognition. Charles Elton is an incredible scientific figure, no question, but when you look back on the history of Wytham Woods, it’s only him and a couple of other white men who tend to be remembered. And yet when you go into the archive, what you find is a very collaborative approach – Elton did great work recruiting and teaching women. In the Oxford University Museum of Natural History archive, you can find Elton’s lesson plans and there’s a point when there’s a lot more women than men taking those classes and I think that is unusual. What’s harder is tracking the careers of those women, what they did after, where they went, partly because if they married, they changed their names, or sometimes they just disappear from the archival record.

There’s a lot of technology and equipment which is still in Wytham Woods. It’s interesting as a site as it has multiple land uses. Back in the 40s and 50s, the professionalisation of ecology was occurring and some people wanted Wytham Woods to be a scientific site and there was a lot of exclusion. Now you can easily get permits to walk in the woods. It’s a lot more open and democratised than it was historically. Wytham Woods is both special and very ordinary. It has exceptionally high biodiversity but it’s also just a quintessentially British, charming site. It’s an interesting tension. 

Kitty Paviour-Smith was probably the most well-known woman to conduct research at Wytham. There was also Elton’s second wife, Edith Joy Scovell who was a poet and wrote a number of poems inspired by Wytham Woods, including one called The Naturalistinspired by her husband. In fact Wytham has historically been a site for the arts as well as the sciences, and that’s going to be the subject of an event we will be running on September 4. It’s very cool that he was married to a poet, and the synergies between the two. Emotion does have a place in science. Researchers of Wytham had – and still have – a deep attachment to the place.

I love the routine of going to the archive. In times of COVID, I start off with 45 minutes with a security aid to ensure we’ve done all the necessary checks and safety protocols. Then you get your see-through bag – you’re only allowed your laptop, a pencil and your phone. Once you’ve checked in, you can go to the reading room. You’re assigned a table and the grey boxes with the material you’ve requested will already be there. In those boxes are the material in grey folders, wrapped with cream ribbon - I’ve never seen that presentation at any other library archive! I remember being so excited the first time I saw them, and that smell of old books you get from special collections. I love reading letters from Elton as they are often a mixture of the personal and the professional. There’s also a lot of photo albums from the ecology classes in the 40s and 50s, and you can really see these women looking out at you. Then you start digging around and trying to find out more about how they got onto the course, and what they did after. There’s a lot of material from Elton’s childhood in the archive which I really enjoy – he was inspired by Beatrix Potter. You really see the human in the archival record. The scale of the Bodleian’s archives is truly impressive. I think it’s amazing how the staff have operated and kept things going during the pandemic. There were a few weeks where I accessed things remotely but it’s difficult to explain the sense of being in the room and what it offers. There’s a real feeling of nostalgia and opportunity looking at these gifts of materials you’re about to dive into. I still feel excited every time. It’s a sensory and emotional experience. You might well be the first person to review these materials for a really long time. It’s exciting. 

Elton is open about times he has failed. He’s someone who wanted to attract a more diverse range of individuals to the discipline and being able to fail is a key part of that. Huge names like Elton did fail, we should be more open about that. If we want to be innovative, you’re going to stumble sometimes. I applied for a fellowship here and I didn’t get it, but I applied again and I got it. I will continue to advocate for diversity and inclusion in STEM. Public outreach is an important part of that. I recently did an event with children aged 10–12, and we talked to a female ecologist about what it means to be in the profession. Making science a more inclusive and diverse place is so important and influencing children is crucial to that work.