Bidder, Anna McClean., 1903-2001

Lucy Cavendish College was founded in 1965 as the Lucy Cavendish Collegiate Society. Its origins can be traced back to 1950 and the establishment of The Society of Women Members of the Regent House who are not Fellows of Colleges, also more informally known as the Dining Group. Kate Bertram, Anna Bidder and Eileen Clifford were all members of the Dining Group and they all subsequently became founding fellows of the College, with Anna Bidder becoming its first President.

From the guide to the Lucy Cavendish College Oral History, 1987-1995, (University of Cambridge, Lucy Cavendish College)

Born in Cambridge on 4 May 1903, daughter of George Parker Bidder III, zoologist, and Marion Greenwood, biologist. Educated at Perse Girls School, Cambridge (1915-1921) and University College London (1921-1922), and then to Newnham College, Cambridge where she read Natural Sciences and Zoology (1922-1926). She was a research student at the University of Basle, Switzerland (1926-1928), and then undertook research at the Marine Biology Laboratories in Banyuls-sur-mer, Italy and Plymouth, England (1928-1934). She was awarded a Ph.D. on 'Functional morphology of the Cephalopod digestive system' in 1934. The digestive system of the Pearly Nautilus remained a principal research interest throughout her life. From 1929 until 1965 she taught in the Zoology Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and Newnham College, and was the Hugh Watson Curator of Malacology in the Museum of Zoology (1961-1970). She served as President of the Zoological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1973, and was elected as Fellow Honoris Causa by the Linnaean Society of London in 1991. Publications: Co-author of the volume on Cephalopods in P. Grasse's Traite de Zoologie (1989) Anna Bidder was one of three Newnham graduates (the others being Margaret Braithwaite and Kathleen Wood-Legh) who instituted the Dining Group in 1950. The Dining Group became formally known as The Society of Women Members of the Regent House who are not Fellows of Colleges, and its purpose was to have concern for the needs of women with home responsibilities trying to maintain or resume their academic responsibilities. The group was formally recognised by the University of Cambridge, as an Approved Society for women graduates in 1965. Anna Bidder was a Founding Fellow of the Lucy Cavendish Collegiate Society and served as its first President from 1965-1970, becoming an Honorary Fellow in 1970. Anna Bidder joined the Society of Friends in 1926 and remained active in the Society throughout her life. She served on the Society of Friends Peace Committee (1939-1946), and in 1951 attended the World Peace Council Conference in Berlin. In 1963 she was a co-author of the controversial Towards a Quaker View of Sex. She died in Cambridge on 1 October 2001. Catharine M. C. Haines (2001) International Women in Science: A biographical dictionary to 1950 includes an entry for Anna Bidder.

From the guide to the Papers of Anna Bidder, 1850-1997, (University of Cambridge, Lucy Cavendish College)