Editor's Note: At the BCA Annual meeting held in Leeds in 1997 Mike Glazer organised members to sign a special birthday card sending our good wishes to Helen Megaw on the occasion of her 90th birthday later in the year.

We now offer her our congratulations on receiving an honorary degree from Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland on 7 July 2000. I am grateful to Dr. E.V McKee of Loughborough University who sent me the photograph and the copy of the Citation reproduced below.

Further information about Helen Megaw can be found in 'Crystallography News' for June 1997 page 16 and from the web pages on women crystallographers at URL . Durward Cruickshank visited the Antarctic in January 1998 and subsequently researched the article published in the March 99 issue pages 10-13 on the naming of features of Crystal Sound after crystallographers who worked on the structure of ice, including Megaw Island.

In 1951 Helen Megaw was a scientific consultant to the 'Festival Pattern Group' who promoted crystallographic patterns as a basis for household textiles, window glass and china as part of the 'Festival of Britain'. These are beautifully described in 'The Souvenir book of CRYSTAL DESIGNS, the fascinating story in colour of the FESTIVAL PATTERN GROUP', from which the illustration below was taken.

Figured rolled glass made by Chance Bros. which was popular for many years. The pattern is on a slant, and the repeat small; the blobs themselves are also small so that sunshine does not burn any curtains behind the glass.

Samples of some of these textiles and ashtrays have been safely stored in the Science Museum, London where they were on display earlier this year. Many more were displayed in 1951 in the Regatta Restaurant, South Bank, London, including a fine tea set by R.H. and S.L. Plant Ltd, If anyone knows the current whereabouts of samples of this tea set, please let me know. Who knows? We may be able to inspire the designers of 2001 to emulate those of 1951 and base their designs on crystallographic patterns.
Kate Crennell

Dr Helen Megaw is a crystallographer who is best known for her work determining the structure of ferroelectric crystals. She is a native of Northern Ireland who attended Queen's for a year before moving to get her degrees of BA and PhD from the University of Cambridge. She returned to Northern Ireland when she retired from the University of Cambridge in 1972.

It is difficult for us to imagine the scientific environment in the nineteen thirties. It was a time of depression with little money and few jobs. Science departments were much smaller and more intimate. X-ray crystallography was a new science which attracted a number of young women such as Dr Megaw who became distinguished scientists. In those pioneering days preparation of crystals and collection of data was more difficult and more skilled than it is today. Another big difference, which today's graduates may find hard to imagine, was that there were no computers and the tedious and detailed calculations which lead from the brightness of spots on a photographic plate to a three dimensional crystal structure were all done by hand. Dr Megaw was one of the pioneers in this field. She completed her PhD on the structure of ice in the early nineteen thirties. Then, after a couple of years' postdoctoral work in Vienna and Oxford, she spent seven years teaching in girls' schools in England and a year in an industrial research laboratory. After the second world war her career changed and she spent the rest of her working life in Universities, mainly in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. She became a Fellow of her old college, Girton, where she acted as Director of Studies in Physical Sciences encouraging and guiding generation of young women scientists.

Her research work was concerned with ferroelectric crystals. You are all familiar with magnets which have two ends with opposite magnetic polarity. Ferroelectric crystals are the electric analogues with two ends with opposite electric polarity. As you can imagine they are important industrially. The source of the ferroelectricity lies in the arrangement of the atom in the crystals and this was determined by Dr Megaw for an important clas of ferroelectric crystals known as Perovskites. She then wrote a standard book on "Ferroelectricity in Crystals".

She also did pioneering work on disorder in crystals and its effect on the X-ray diffraction patterns. She was awarded the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 1989 and has an Island in the Antarctic named after her in recognition of her work on ice.

 Dr Megaw, Queen's University wishes to recognise your contribution to science and the example that you have set to generations of young women and young men. I now call upon the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering to present Helen Megaw for the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.