Nora Renouf

Nora Renouf (b. 1881 d. 1959) was a British pharmaceutical chemist who was a pioneer for women’s involvement in the profession.

Early life and education

She was born in Jersey to John Renouf and his wife Delahay Woods.^[1] After working in a chemist’s shop on her home island, she studied at the School of Pharmacy at the University of London.^[2] She passed the Major examination and received a certificate of honour in practical chemistry in 1903.^[3] She and Elsie Wardle were to become the first women to attend the School’s annual dinner in 1913.^[4]

Scientific career

Renouf received the Redwood Research Scholarship in 1904 and worked in the Research Laboratory of the Pharmaceutical Society.^[5] In 1905–7 she worked as a Salters Research Fellow, the first woman and the first pharmacist to receive the Fellowship in Chemistry from the Salters' Company.^[2] During this time she made several investigations with Arthur William Crossley,^[6] and together they 'cleared up several questions from the earlier literature on chemical constitution.'^[7]

She was a founding member of the Association of Women Pharmacists, where she served as treasurer from 1907 – 1916.^[2]

In 1909, she was one of the signatories of a letter to Chemical News requesting that women be admitted as Fellows of the Chemical Society.^[8] She became one of the first cohort of women fellows there in 1920.^[9]

Later life

During World War I, she worked in a hospital in the Channel Islands.^[2] She worked as a surveyor for the Fuel Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, where she was appointed Secretary in 1922.^[10]

She died in 1959.^[2]