Key Information
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1938-1975 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent
20 boxes or 0.2 cubic metres.
Scope and content
Papers of Professor Jean Hanson, 1938-1975, comprising undergraduate lecture notes; drafts for lectures, revised annually, for undergraduate teaching in zoology at Bedford College, 1938-1948; lectures in Biophysics given at King's College London, 1960-1973; research papers, comprising extensive laboratory notebooks and working papers, 1938-1973, which include ideas for research and comments on current and projected experiments as well as records and observations of work in progress; reports on the work of the Muscle Biophysics Unit; drafts for publications, 1950-1973; unpublished invitation lectures and talks, 1956-1973; scientific correspondence, 1956-1973, including letters exchanged with colleagues whilst at conferences or abroad, detailing research progress; 'Emmeline Jean Hanson' by Sir John Randall, reprinted from Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society , Vol 21, Nov 1975.
System of arrangement
By section as follows: Biographical and personal, Bedford College London, Laboratory notebooks and working papers, King's College London, Lectures and conferences, Scientific correspondence, Publications, index of correspondents.
General Information
Name of creator
Biographical history
Born in Newhall, Derbyshire, 1919; educated at the Girls' High School, Burton-on-Trent, 1930-1938; read Zoology at Bedford College, London, 1938-1941; research student at Bedford College, 1941-1942, working on the histology of the vascular system of annelids; and worked at the Strangeways laboratory, Cambridge, 1941-1944; demonstrator in Zoology at Bedford College, 1944-1948; joined the Biophysical Research Unit at King's College London established by John Randall, 1948; researched the structural basis of muscular contraction, and moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology biology department under Professor Francis O Schmitt as a Rockefeller Foundation Research Fellow, 1953; collaborated with Hugh Esmor Huxley and formulated and tested the sliding filament hypothesis of muscular contraction; returned to the Biophysics Research Unit, 1954; continued research on sliding filament mechanism of muscular contraction, particularly in non striated muscles of invertebrates, the morphology of smooth muscle in invertebrates, the molecular structure of actin and bacterial flagella; Professor of Biology, University of London, 1966; elected fellow of the Royal Society, 1967; director of Muscle Biophysics Unit at King's College London, 1970; died 1973.
Repository
Custodial history
The papers were received by the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, University of Bath, between 1975-1977 from Dr Gerald Hoffer, Hanson's scientific executor, and presented to King's College London in 1978.
Conditions governing access
Open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.
Conditions governing reproduction
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.
Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Archives.
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Finding aids
Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre catalogue no 51/5/77, 25 pp. Available at the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath, and the College Archives, King's College London. Please note that the KCL catalogue is now K/PP67, but the detailed numbering and arrangement are unchanged from the NCUACS original.
Existence and location of originals
Please note: We require 7 days notice to retrieve this collection as part, or all of it, is held off-campus. Read more ›
Related materials
Alternative identifier(s)
Place access points
People and Organisations
- Randall, Sir John Turton, 1905-1984, knight, physicist (Subject)
- Bedford College (Subject)
- King's College London Muscle Biophysics Unit (Subject)
Genre access points
Rules and/or conventions used
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.
Script(s)
Archivist's note
Sources: Based on the guide compiled by the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists; Who's Who 1897-1996 (A & C Black, 1996); 'Emmeline Jean Hanson' by Sir John Randall, reprinted from Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol 21, Nov 1975; National Register of Archives. Compiled by Julie Tancell for the RSLP AIM25 project.