Alice Lee

Alice Lee (1858–1939) was a British mathematician, one of the first women to graduate from London University. She was awarded a PhD in 1901. She worked with Karl Pearson from 1892. She demonstrated that the correlation between cranial capacity and gender was not a sign of greater intelligence in men compared to women. Early life and education Lee studied at Bedford College from 1876 to 1884. In 1879–80 she attended the first mathematics class at Bedford and was one of the first women to graduate from the University of London (Bedford College was then a women's college of the University), getting a BSc in 1884 and a BA in 1885. She then stayed at Bedford until 1916, initially as a lecturer in mathematics and physics. From 1892 to 1894 she also worked as 'resident helper' at the college, received free board and lodging in return. Later she also helped out in Greek and Latin classes. Scientific practice From about 1895 Lee attended Karl Pearson's statistics lectures at University College London and became interested in his application of statistical methods to evolutionary biology. Under his direction she studied for an advanced degree. Her research topic was an investigation of variation in cranial capacity in humans and its correlation with intellectual ability. Lee courted controversy with her first published paper on the subject in 1901 A study of the correlation of the human skull. She examined three groups - women students from Bedford College, male faculty at University College, and a collection of distinguished male anatomists. The study demonstrated that there was no correlation between skull size and intelligence. Through a formula Lee calculated the cranial capacity from the anatomical measurements. The individuals in the groups were ranked in order of decreasing skull size, and identified by name. The dissertation was completed in 1899 and the findings caused considerable controversy. It was then an accepted theory in craniology that brain power increased with size, hence skull capacity was a measure of mental ability. As a consequence it was believed that men, who generally had larger heads than women, were mentally superior. Lee's findings shed doubt on that belief. Furthermore, one of the examiners of her dissertation was an anatomist with a low ranking in the skull capacity table of her study.