Dr Alice Douglas
Allie Vibert Douglas, OC MBE (December 15, 1894 – 2 July
1988) was a Canadian astronomer and the first Canadian woman to
become an astrophysicist. Because both of Douglas' parents
died the year she was born, she first lived in London, England
with her brother, George Vilbert Douglas and her grandmother.
Douglas' grandfather was Rev. George Douglas, a prominent
Methodist minister and educator. In 1904 both Douglas and her
brother returned to Montreal where they attended Westmount
Academy. Growing up, Douglas was interested in science but felt
that her gender was a handicap. In high school she was refused
admission to a small science club solely based on the fact that
she was a woman. Her brother helped her circumvent this issue by
leaving the door ajar and letting Allie sit outside the
classroom to listen to lectures. Douglas graduated at the top of
her class and received a scholarship to McGill University.
In 1912 she began her studies in honors
mathematics and physics at McGill, but they were interrupted
during her third year with the outbreak of World War I. Her
brother George enlisted as an officer and was stationed near
London, England. Here, George suggested that Allie and their two
aunts, Mina and Mary, move to London with him. Allie was then
invited to join the war effort by a family friend and decided to
work in the War Office as a statistician. Despite the fact that
bombs would fall close to her workplace, Douglas persevered and
had the highest pay out of all of the temporary women civil
servants in the National Service. In 1918, at the age of 23, she
was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her work.
Having returned to Montreal in 1920, she continued her
studies, earning a Bachelors degree and then Masters Degree in
1921. Then she went on to Cambridge, studying under Arthur
Eddington, one of the leading astronomers of the day. She earned
her PhD in astrophysics through McGill in 1925 and was the first
person to receive it from a Quebec university, and one of the
first woman to accomplish this in North America.
Vibert
Douglas remained at McGill for the next 14 years. Then in 1939
she moved to Queen's University where she served as Dean of
Women until 1958. She was Professor of Astronomy from 1946 until
her retirement in 1964 and was instrumental in having women
accepted into engineering and medicine. In 1967 she became an
Officer of the Order of Canada. In the same year, the National
Council of Jewish Women named her as one of 10 Women of the
Century. In 1988, the year of her death, asteroid 3269 was named
Vibert Douglas in her honor. She was also a Fellow of the Royal
Astronomical Society in Britain and a president of the RASC.
While in Kingston, she was an active member of the Kingston
Centre RASC. There was interest in astronomy in the Kingston
area long before the Centre was founded in 1961. The Kingston
Observatory opened in 1855, the first in Ontario, and astronomy
has been taught at Queens since 1863. In the early 1900s Queen's
professors and others from the area had become members of the
Society. Vibert Douglas was an active member dating back to her
Montreal years and became National President in 1943-44. It was
largely due to Vibert Douglas' work that the Kingston Centre was
formed in 1961, the 16th Centre of the Society.
Vibert
Douglas has a crater on Venus named after her. The Vibert
Douglas patera is located at 11.6 South latitude 194.3 East
longitude. It is almost circular and 45 km in diameter.
She died in Kingston in 1988.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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