23 Facts About Helen Porter

Helen Kemp Porter was a British botanist from Imperial College London.

Helen Porter was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the first female professor at Imperial College London.

Helen Porter's father, George Kemp Archbold, was the headmaster of a school and her mother, Caroline Emily Broughton Whitehead, was a Belgian-trained professional singer.

The Archbold family moved to Bristol in 1901, when Helen Porter was two years old.

Helen Porter was educated at home during her early years in a conservative Victorian environment, acquiring skill in reading and writing French and English.

Helen Porter's childhood was disrupted by the beginning of World War I, prompting the family to split up; her mother moved to London to work in the government run National Kitchens and her father moved to Yorkshire to work at a different school.

Helen Porter remarried in 1962, to Prof Arthur St George Huggett FRS FRSE, a professor of physiology with two children; he died in 1968.

Helen Porter graduated from the school in 1917 with high achievement in all subjects.

Helen Porter matriculated at Bedford College, the women's subsidiary of London University, where she studied chemistry, physics, and mathematics and earned degrees in physics and chemistry, both with honours.

Helen Porter continued her studies at Imperial College London as a postgraduate student; she worked in the organic chemistry laboratory run by Professor Thorpe under Dr Martha Whiteley.

Helen Porter's study expanded from simple chemical analysis to examining the role of these chemicals in the development and maturation of the fruit; she researched their transport, synthesis, and metabolism.

Helen Porter began work with the Research Institute of Plant Physiology at Imperial College and the Rothamstead Experimental Laboratories.

Helen Porter studied the location of synthesis for starches found in the grain itself, and debunked the popular opinion that carbohydrates were synthesised and stored in the plant's stem, then transported to the grain, where they were converted to starch.

When World War II began, Helen Porter moved to the Rothamstead laboratories because of Imperial College's new focus on the war effort.

Helen Porter studied the breakdown of starch in 1948 and 1949 after she returned to London.

That year, Helen Porter spent six months at Bangor University, where she discovered that the enzyme starch phosphorylase is present in barley.

In 1953, Helen Porter became head of her own research group at Imperial College, thanks to a grant from the Nuffield Foundation.

Helen Porter's group used the then-innovative techniques of chromatography and radioactive labels to further study plants' metabolic pathways.

Helen Porter synthesised radioactive starches and glucose and used them in experiments that analysed the movement of photosynthetic metabolites and the process of starch and fructosan formation, one of the first scientists to do so in Britain.

The next year, Helen Porter was promoted to the position of Principal Scientific Officer of the Institute of Plant Physiology and was appointed Reader of Enzymology in the Botany Department.

Helen Porter retired from her position as department head in 1964, the same year that she spearheaded the creation of specialised task forces in the Society and became Second Secretary to the College's Agricultural Research Council.

Helen Porter was appointed as an honorary member of the Agricultural Research Council Society.

Helen Porter was honoured in 1966 by being appointed as a Fellow of the Imperial College of Science and Technology.