Obituaries published in The Guardian in late 1998 drew attention to the work of two women writers whose work focused on scientific activities. Monica Baly, nurse and historian was born in May 1914; Professor Margaret Gowing, historian, was born in 1926. Both died in November 1998.
Monica Baly qualified as a nurse in 1938 but, after the war, turned to a study of public health at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), in the belief that most ill-health stemmed from social causes rather than disease. As a student she demonstrated this belief practically and revealed her fighting spirit by drawing up a cost of living index to show that the salary of first year nurses was impossible to live on.
She extended her representation of nurses as an area officer for the RCN for 24 years from 1952. Nurses she visited in isolated places gained comfort from her obvious commitment to the profession while her negotiatng skills made positive gains such as the 22 per cent pay rise in 1972.
On her retirement in 1974 she extended her experience as author and lecturer by completing a history degree at the Open University and then went on to obtain a doctorate from the University of London for her research on Florence Nightingale. Her book, Florence Nightingale and the Nursing Legacy, showed Nightingale's influence not just in the field of nursing but in many other aspects of public life.
Baly set up the RCN History of Nursing Society, was responsible for the establishment of an archive and helped make the study of the history of nursing a professional rather than an amateur concern. She stressed the importance of seeing nursing in the whole social context as she had demonstrated in her 1973 book, Nursing and Social Change. She also worked to ensure the inclusion of more women and nurses in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Margaret Gowing is best remembered for her two-volume Independence and Deterrence, the authoritative history of government policy and the development of nuclear power which revealed the close links between Britain's civil and military nuclear programs, e.g. the development of Calder Hall as an electricity provider but also as a producer of plutonium for warheads.
She was educated at Christ's Hospital and the London School of Economics, worked in the Board of Trade during the war and later joined the historical section of the Cabinet Office. From 1959 to1966 she was historian and archivist at the UK Atomic Energy Authority and later took up an academic post in contemporary history at the University of Kent. In 1973 she became Oxford University's first professor of the history of Science.
Gowing was aware of the potential political power of scientists, especially in the US, and appreciated the need to break down the barriers between science and the rest of human knowledge. Historian Sir Michael Howard said that she conveyed the message that 'science is not simply knowledge but activity, and a social activity'.
She fought for the release of public records, criticised decision makers for failing to learn from the past, and defended threatened public services such as libraries and admission free museums as institutions which encouraged a thirst for knowledge.