Jane Ingham

Tupper‑Carey was born at Cromer House, Cromer Terrace, Leeds. Cromer House is now used by the University of Leeds as a career centre.[1]

Rose Marie was born on (1897-08-15)15 August 1897, at Cromer House, Cromer Terrace, Leeds, the third daughter of Helen Mary Tupper‑Carey (1864–1938), née Chapman, and Canon Emeritus Albert Darrell (1866–1943).[2] She was baptised at Donhead St Andrew, Wiltshire, on 14 September 1897.[3] Helen Mary, was the eldest daughter of Reverend Horace Edward Chapman, a former rector of Donhead St Andrew, and Adelaide Maria, née Fletcher.[4][lower-alpha 1] Helen Mary Chapman had married Albert Darrell Tupper‑Carey at Donhead St Andrew, on 16 May 1890.[6]

Albert Darrell Tupper‑Carey, was Chaplain to the King from 1938, and formerly chaplain at Monte Carlo. He was the son of the Reverend Tupper Carey and Helen Jane, née Sandeman, and educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with Second Class Honours in Modern History in 1888, and in the following year, obtained a Second Class in Theology. After training at Cuddesdon Theological College he was ordained in 1890 and became curate of Leeds, where he remained until 1898. That year he was appointed head of Christ Church Mission, Poplar, and in 1901, he was appointed rector of St Margaret's Church, Lowestoft.[lower-alpha 2] In 1910 he left to become canon residentiary of York, and in 1917 moved to Huddersfield, where he was vicar until 1924.[9]

Tupper‑Carey was educated at Claire House School, an all girl school in North Parade, Lowestoft, that specialised in the teaching of the French language and culture.[10][11][12] She was taught French by Marie Noémie Camille Maury and demonstrated an early aptitude for the language. In 1908, she won a preliminary degree in French, in examinations organised by the National Society of French Professors in England, that included candidates from other girls' schools in England.[11] The examinations were held annually in February, June and November, and the society granted certificates of aptitude for French taught in England, the written tests consisting of translation and composition (prose and poetry), essay, and questions on 17th to 19th century French literature.[13]

The Citadel Hill Laboratory (centre left), adjacent to the Royal Citadel on Plymouth Hoe, where Tupper‑Carey studied general zoology in 1919.

In 1916, Tupper‑Carey entered the University of Leeds to study botany.[14] Her paternal grandmother, Helen Jane Carey, née Sandeman, was a keen amateur botanist and specimen collector;[15] a popular and fashionable pastime in Victorian England,[16]^:29 and in her youth, Tupper‑Carey would collect wild flowers for local parish shows.[17] Her elder sister, Edith, known as "Betty" to her friends and family,[18] had married the author Michael Sadleir in 1914. Sadleir was the only son of Sir Michael Ernest Sadler, the then Vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds.[19] In 1919, Tupper‑Carey was given desk space at the Citadel Hill Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, to study general zoology.[20] In the following year, she was appointed a research assistant to Joseph Hubert Priestley in the Botany Department at the University of Leeds.[21][lower-alpha 3]

Around 1923, Tupper‑Carey sat for a portrait by William Roberts, the "English Cubist" artist, the painting being titled "Portrait of Miss Jane Tupper‑Carey", and later, "Head of a Woman", after Roberts was unable to remember the name of the sitter.[23] It was shown for the first time in November 1923 at the New Chenil Galleries, Chelsea, with The Times commenting on the exhibition:[24][25]

Properly to appreciate his powers the visitor should look first at such things as the "Portrait of Miss Tupper‑Carey" ... not because they are the best things in the exhibition, but because they make evident the fact that the treatment of form in some of the other works is deliberate, for the double purpose of racy comment and articulate design.

— Art Exhibitions. Mr. William Roberts, The Times 9 November 1923, p. 17

St John Hutchinson KC, a barrister, art collector, and trustee of the Tate, presented the portrait to the Contemporary Arts Society (CAS) in 1924, and CAS gifted it to the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea in 1928.[26][23] The commissioning of the portrait, and whether Tupper‑Carey knew William or Sarah Roberts, an immigrant to Leeds, is uncertain.[lower-alpha 4] Barry Plummer, art historian for the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, has stated that it was a commission, and furthermore, Roberts would supplement his income by taking on various portrait commissions.[24]

Weetwood Hall, the former University of Leeds hall of residence where Tupper‑Carey was sub-warden.

Tupper‑Carey's father had been a former Honorary Secretary of the Oxford University Dramatic Society and she herself had a continuing interest in the arts and amateur dramatics.[29] She had performed as Philaminte in her school's 1908 production of three scenes from Molière's Les Femmes Savantes,[12][lower-alpha 5] and in the 1920s, joined the university amateur dramatics society, acting in several well-received roles, such as Sybil Bumont in the The Watched Pot.[30] On 6 December 1928, she took part in a fashion show of dresses through the ages, at the Albion Hall, Leeds, in aid of St Faith's Homes. She wore a high-waisted, skin-tight coat of red cloth edged with fur, a long blue skirt trimmed with six rows of black velvet, and a feather toque on top of her head. Her appearance was greeted with "shrieks of laughter" from the audience.[31]

By 1926, Tupper‑Carey had been appointed sub-warden at Weetwood Hall, the university hall of residence for women students, with her close friend, Annie Redman King, as warden.[32][lower-alpha 6] Weetwood Hall had opened as a hall of residence in 1920, and had been expanded in 1920s to accommodate up to 60 female students.[34] In the same year, she was appointed the first honorary secretary of the Leeds branch of the British-Italian League. The League's aims were to found a chair in Italian at the University of Leeds and foster relations between the two countries. The inaugural meeting of the branch was held on 6 December 1926, in the university refectory, with Professor Piero Rébora as guest speaker, the then recently appointed Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Manchester.[35]

St Edward's church on Peas Hill, Cambridge, where Tupper‑Carey married on 6 July 1932.

In January 1930, Tupper‑Carey moved to 3 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge, to commence work at the Imperial Bureau of Plant and Crop Genetics.[36] After six months, Albert Ingham followed her to Cambridge, after he had been appointed a fellow and director of studies at King's College, following the sudden death of Frank Ramsey.[37]^:271–272[14] She had met him after he had been appointed Reader in mathematical analysis at the University of Leeds in 1926.[32][lower-alpha 7] They announced their engagement in May 1932; they had been engaged for some time but had not wished to make it public until lectures were over. However, their engagement came as a surprise to their circle of friends in Leeds, as there had not been the slightest suggestion that they were romantically involved.[38][14]

They married at St Edward's Church, Cambridge in the morning of 6 July 1932. Her father had travelled from Monte Carlo, where he was chaplain, to marry them, accompanied by her mother. They wanted a quiet wedding: Her parents, brother-in-law, Michael Sadleir, who gave her away, sister, Edith ("Betty") Sadleir, and her friend Annie Redman King, being the only people present. They left immediately after the ceremony to catch the boat train to Europe, honeymooning in Italy, before returning to Cambridge on 8 August 1932.[39] They moved to 14 Millington Road, Cambridge, and lived there for the rest of their lives, interrupted only by World War II.[14][37]^:272[lower-alpha 8]

In July 1939, Albert Ingham had been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to study at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), in Princeton, New Jersey.[42][43][44] By now, they had two sons, Michael Frank and Stephen Darrell,[lower-alpha 9] and the entire family sailed from Liverpool on 1 September 1939, arriving in New York on 13 September 1939.[45] The sailing gave them enough time to reach Princeton for the start of the first term at IAS on 1 October 1939. While they were at sea, and only two days into their voyage, Britain declared war on Germany.

The Inghams were hesitant to bring their family back due to reports from Europe containing speculation of imminent total war.[46] The IAS had provided them with a house at 291 Nassau Street, Princeton, and consequently, they made the decision to keep the family there rather than return home.[43] Albert Ingham left Princeton at the end of the first term on 16 December 1939.[47][48] Alan Pars recommended him for an Admiralty job in America, knowing that she and the children were still there.[49][lower-alpha 10] In 1942, she and the children had moved to 293 Nassau Street, Princeton, the neighbouring house to 291 Nassau Street.[51] She had become friends with Lyn Irvine, after Irvine and her two sons were evacuated to America in 1940, and this friendship would continue after the war.[52][53]

Millington Road, where the Ingham's lived in Cambridge.

The Ingham's owned a punt, called Pete, moored in the River Cam, and it was used regularly during the summer for trips and picnics.[40]^:127 They also went on many trips abroad, including India, and walking holidays in the French Alps.[54]^:563[40]^{:15, 128} It was on such a holiday that Albert Ingham died of a heart attack on a high path near Haute-Savoie, south-eastern France.[55][56] After his death she resisted offers for her husband's mathematical notes and papers, instead keeping the papers in a cupboard at the house.[40]^:46

[She] was very wiry and fit ... [I have] an abiding memory of how fast and vigorously my grandmother would walk. She was always frustrated with my brother and I as we 'dawdled' fifty yards behind her. We just could not keep up with her furious pace.

— Dr Mark Ingham describing Jane Ingham, in Afterimages: Photographs as an External Autobiographical Memory System, p. 46

Jane Ingham died at Cambridge on 10 September 1982 and was cremated at the Cambridge City Crematorium, Huntingdon Road, Dry Drayton, on 20 September 1982.[57][58] Alan Pars, Ingham's friend, and former colleague of her husband at Cambridge, sent a wreath.[59][60] Her ashes were scattered in Hayley Wood, close to where her husband's remains had been scattered in 1967.[56]

In 1920, Tupper‑Carey was appointed a research assistant to Joseph Hubert Priestley in the Botany Department at the University of Leeds.[21] She first investigated the endodermis at the growing points of plant roots and its role in water absorption.[21] This first physiological study was followed in 1923 to 1924 by two New Phytologist papers. Tupper‑Carey and Priestley were the first to isolate cell walls from meristematic tissues in Vicia faba (broad beans).[22]^:4 They fractionated the isolated walls, analysed the fractions for protein, cellulose, and pectin, and concluded that the meristematic cells had walls containing protein.[61] They also studied the differences in shoot and root development, and the role of the cork cambium in plants.[22]^:4 Described as a "brilliant scholar",[14] she was awarded a MSc degree on 3 July 1928, for her thesis Geotropism or Gravity and Growth, at a degree ceremony held in Leeds Town Hall.[62][63]

Tupper-Carey was a skilled microscopist, and when Reginald Dawson Preston, the biophysicist, joined the Botany Department in July 1929, she taught him how to cut and stain sections.[64][65]^:350 She would use panchromatic plates, with colour screens, to photograph sections of cortical cells in etiolated broad beans, stained with Nile blue sulphate in glycerine.[66][lower-alpha 11] She also provided unpublished work to Pearsall & Ewing (1927) on the swelling in buffer solutions of air-dry, but living, embryos of broad bean seeds.[68]

Cell wall and middle lamella (top).

Tupper‑Carey and Priestley, in Tupper‑Carey & Priestley (1923), were the first to isolate cell walls from the middle lamella of the radicle and plumule meristems of Vicia faba.[22]^:4[69]^:191 They fractionated the isolated walls and analysed the fractions for protein, cellulose, and pectin. They noted that the cellulose walls of the radicle failed to react with iodine and sulphuric acid, or with chloriodide of zinc.[lower-alpha 12] They showed that the cellulose in the wall of the radicle is masked by other substances, particularly proteins and fatty acids. In the plumule, the cellulose is associated with greater quantities of pectin, but less protein and fatty acid, particularly when the adult parenchyma is growing in light.[71][72] They concluded that the meristematic cells had walls containing a protein‑pectin complex,[61][69]^:191[70]^:78 that is, these walls "... commencing as interfaces in a protein-containing medium may be regarded as composed at first mainly of protein".[73]

Frederic Wood, in Wood (1926), questioned their results, and concluded that less than 0.001% of protein was found in the cell walls of the plants examined. Tripp, Moore & Rollins (1951), Dieckert & Snowden (1960), and King & Bayley (1963), found protein in the cells but were unable to rule out the possibility of cytoplasmic contamination.[61] It is now known that the middle lamella consists of a pectic polysaccharide rich material. However, the material properties and molecular organization of the middle lamella, is still not fully understood.[74]

Tunica‑Corpus model of the apical meristem (growing tip). The epidermal (L1) and sub-epidermal (L2) layers form the outer layers called the tunica. The inner L3 layer is called the corpus.

In Tupper‑Carey (1928b), Tupper‑Carey found that in the arch of the hypocotyl from sunflower seeds, Helianthus annuus, there are considerably more cells on the outside than on the inside. The nutation curvature of the hypocotyl was investigated and the number of cells in 10 layers of cortex (outside and inside) in the curve was determined using microtome sectioning. Counting from the beginning to the end of the curvature, the result was "3,299 cells on the upper side as against 1,531 on the lower".[75]

This result means that the convex side of the arch leads the concave side, not only in terms of cell extension, but also in cell division behaviour i.e. a different division rate would cause the growth difference. Consequently, the concave and convex sides show profound physiological differences.[75] The observation that in the hypocotyl the cells on the convex side are considerably larger than those on the inside could be explained by the uneven transverse transport of the growth hormone auxin. Auxin has a strengthening effect on the elongation growth of the cells. In the case of nutation phenomena, it is possible that curvature only occurs in a narrowly limited section of the shoot.[76]^:2

Kaldewey (1957) measured the differences in the length of the sub-epidermal cells on the outer and inner periphery of the arch in the nutation curvature of the pedicels of snake's head fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris. The result was expected if the curvature is based exclusively on differences in elongation growth. A difference in width or thickness between the sub-epidermal cells of the outer and inner periphery of the arch of curvature was not found. Salisbury (1916) found good agreement between the ratio of the epidermal cell lengths and the arch lengths of the nutation curvature of the epicotyl in seedlings of different woody plants. The findings of Tupper‑Carey, Salisbury, and Kaldewey, do not necessarily contradict each other as the epidermis and sub-epidermal layer may well behave differently than cortical layers in terms of division and extension growth.[75]

A tree that has been ring-barked.

In Tupper‑Carey (1930), Tupper‑Carey ring-barked laburnum and sycamore tress, but left bridges of tissue with horizontal portions linking the bark above and below the cut, that is, a zigzag bridge of phloem was left across the ring.[77][78] At first the lack of pressure within these bridges resulted in the formation of callus-like tissue, and the cambial initials, by repeated division, come to resemble ray cells. At a later stage, some of this mass of isodiametric (roughly spherical) cells became elongated horizontally in the direction of the bridge tissue.[79] Xylem and phloem is eventually formed in the horizontal portion of the bridge with its tracheary elements extended in a horizontal direction.[77]

It has been postulated that calluses are formed because the cambium cells cannot function correctly under a change of orientation. For example, the altered direction of sap flow might affect the direction of cambial cell growth. Pressure, nutrient movements, and cambial basipetal auxin transport have also been suggested as causes.[78]

In February 1930, Tupper‑Carey joined the Imperial Bureau of Plant and Crop Genetics as a translator and scientific officer. The bureau was housed in a few rooms at the Plant Breeding Institute, in the School of Agriculture, Downing Street, Cambridge.[80]^:140 The Imperial Agricultural Bureaux were set-up in 1929 under the control of an executive council, and were located at British universities and research institutes, under the directorship of the heads of those research stations.[81][lower-alpha 13] They were responsible for publishing a series of abstract journals on eight branches of agricultural science and were financed out of a common fund to which all the British Empire countries represented on the Executive Council contributed a share.[83][84][lower-alpha 14]

The Imperial Bureau of Plant and Crop Genetics, Plant Breeding Institute, in the School of Agriculture, Downing Street, Cambridge. It now houses the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge.

Professor Sir Rowland Biffen was the first director of the Cambridge bureau, and Tupper‑Carey's supervisor, Penrhyn Stanley Hudson ("Pen") OBE, was deputy director.[80]^:140 Hudson was a remarkable linguist, who spoke most European languages fluently, including Russian and Ukrainian.[83][lower-alpha 15] Biffen's research had been in wheat varieties and he was an early proponent of using genetics to improve crop plants.[85] It was realised from the beginning that the bureau could inform people working overseas of recent scientific developments, many of whom had no ready access to scientific literature, especially those in foreign languages.[80]^:139

Tupper‑Carey was fluent in French, Italian, German and Swedish, and as a whole, the bureau was capable of dealing with Spanish, Dutch, and Russian.[80]^:139[14] To make sure nothing was overlooked, it was decided to make periodic visits to the London libraries to consult periodicals not available in Cambridge. This was a large undertaking and it was decided to deal with certain crops in succession.[80]^:139 A start was made with wheat, by examining the literature, typing out the titles on index cards measuring 13 by 8 centimetres (5 by 3 inches), and cross-indexing according to author and Dewey number.[83]

From this material, a bibliography was compiled dealing with the various aspects of wheat breeding and genetics, with some of the foreign language papers requiring complete translations, and others, detailed summaries.[80]^:139[86] Similar bibliographies were compiled on barley breeding, breeding varieties resistant to disease, lodging in cereals, oat breeding, rice breeding, and interspecific crosses.[80]^:141 These classified abstracts were published in a quarterly journal called Plant Breeding Abstracts and included book reviews, notices of new journals, and articles in associated fields such as applied statistics and other sciences.[87] To formalise the translation and cataloguing process, Tupper‑Carey attended the eighth conference of the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (ASLIB), at Oxford, in September 1931, as a member of the panel of expert translators.[88][89] After her marriage, Ingham worked from home on a part-time basis, translating most of the German documents,[90][83] and in 1939, was put in charge of the bureau after Hudson fell ill.[91]