ABSTRACT
Education was still the key to gendered opportunities both generally and in science. In the mid-eighteenth century, for example, the intelligent, talented Anna Aikin (later Barbauld) lived at Warrington where her father was an eminent tutor at the Academy which stood at the forefront of modern, scientific education in England. She was highly educated by her father and learnt much from fifteen years sojourn within an exciting intellectual community but she could not actually attend the lectures as her brother John did. He went on to attend Edinburgh University and become a doctor. 1 Anna was able to join the small band of progressive educationalists in the eighteenth century for whom natural philosophy in its various forms became an intrinsic and important part of the curriculum for both sexes, but she was unlikely to become a natural philosopher herself. She did, however, become a writer and encouraged girls to think scientifically. The part played in the interrelationship of science, gender and education by her and other networks of social, scientific and educational reformers will be the focus of the following case study.
