Leonora Jessie Little
{{Short description|Australian zoologist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}{{Use Australian English|date=October 2020}}
Leonora Jessie Little (1865 – 27 May 1945), later Leonora Jessie Wilsmore, was an Australian scientist and philanthropist. She was the first woman to graduate with a science degree from the University of Melbourne.{{Citation|last=Garis|first=B. K. De|title=Wilsmore, Norman Thomas Mortimer (1868–1940)|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wilsmore-norman-thomas-mortimer-9130|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|place=Canberra|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|access-date=2020-10-15}}{{Cite web|last=Centre|first=Australian Science and Technology Heritage|title=Little, Leonora Jessie - Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne Biographical entry|url=https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/umfs/biogs/UMFS162b.htm|access-date=2020-10-15|website=www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au|language=en-gb}}
Life
Little was born in Melbourne in 1865.{{Cite web|title=Births deaths and marriages Victoria|url=https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/5f879be55ba49023fb9a8a73/record/5c65422b4aba80ac311db399?q=efamily&givenName=Leonora%20Jessie&familyName=LITTLE|access-date=2020-10-15|website=my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au}} She was the second daughter of Leonora Smyth and Dugald Little, a merchant from Scotland.
Little graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BSc in 1893 and completed an MSc two years later.
On 28 June 1894 at St. John's Church of England, Camberwell, she married Norman Thomas Mortimer Wilsmore, a fellow science graduate, who was later Professor of Chemistry at the University of Western Australia. The couple wore academic dress and were unattended. The occasion was a double wedding, as Little's sister, Grace Lillias Little married Herbert Foley Rodda.{{cite news|date=6 July 1894|title=Family Notices|page=13|newspaper=Table Talk|issue=471|location=Victoria, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145859520|access-date=15 October 2020|via=National Library of Australia}}
A paper she wrote, entitled "Barriers to migration, and their effects as shown in the Australian region", was published in The Victorian Naturalist in 1894 by the Victorian Naturalists' Club to which she had been elected member in 1893.{{Citation|author1=Creese|first=Mary R. S.|title=Ladies in the laboratory III : South African, Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian women in science : nineteenth and early twentieth centuries : a survey of their contributions|page=65|date=2010|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-7289-9|last2=Creese|first2=Thomas M.}}
When her only child, a son born in Scotland, had begun school, Little enrolled at University College London where she studied zoology and described seven new species sea anemones, including Epiphellia browni,{{Cite web|title=Epiphellia browni (Willsmore, 1911)|url=https://www.gbif.org/species/2255755|access-date=2020-10-15|website=www.gbif.org|language=en}} Epiphellia capitata{{Cite web|title=Epiphellia capitata (Willsmore, 1911)|url=https://www.gbif.org/species/2255758|access-date=2020-10-15|website=www.gbif.org|language=en}} and Peachia hilli.{{Cite web|title=Peachia hilli Wilsmore, 1911|url=https://www.gbif.org/species/2256422|access-date=2020-10-15|website=www.gbif.org|language=en}}
Death and legacy
Little died in Perth, Western Australia on 27 May 1945.{{cite news|date=28 May 1945|title=Family Notices|volume=61|page=1|newspaper=The West Australian|issue=18,369|location=Western Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51750823|access-date=15 October 2020|via=National Library of Australia}} In her will, Little left an income from assets to her two unmarried sisters in Melbourne.{{cite news|date=3 October 1945|title=PROBATE.|volume=61|page=4|newspaper=The West Australian|issue=18,479|location=Western Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44823412|access-date=15 October 2020|via=National Library of Australia}} Upon their deaths, any residue was to be given to the University of Melbourne for them to set up the Norman Thomas Mortimer Wilsmore Research Fund,{{Cite web|title=UTR7.115 – THE NORMAN THOMAS MORTIMER WILSMORE RESEARCH FUND|url=https://www.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1793497/utr7115.pdf|access-date=2020-10-15|website=University of Melbourne}} in memory of her husband, who had predeceased her in 1940.{{cite news|date=14 June 1940|title=Family Notices|page=4|newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne)|issue=29,270|location=Victoria, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12472262|access-date=15 October 2020|via=National Library of Australia}}
References
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Category:University of Melbourne alumni
Category:Australian zoologists