Jane Herdman
Jane, Lady Herdman was a student and early patron of the University of Liverpool and was an education committee member in Liverpool in the early twentieth century. In the last year of her life, her husband acquired a knighthood and she was formally known as Jane, Lady Herdman or Lady Herdman.
Early life
Jane Herdman was the daughter of Alfred Holt, a Liverpool ship owner, merchant and engineer, and Catherine Long. The family lived at Crofton Mansion, Aigburth. In 1891, she graduated with a first class honours degree in chemistry from the University of London, having studied science at the University College Liverpool. She became the first President of the Women Students’ Representative Council in Liverpool, in 1892. She married William Abbott Herdman, who held the chair in Natural History at the University College, in 1893 at Toxteth Park Registry Office. They lived at Croxteth Lodge on Ullet Road.Patronage of the university and work in education
Jane and her husband William endowed the University of Liverpool £10,000, to found the George Herdman Chair of Geology in remembrance of their son, George, who died at the Battle of the Somme. They also funded a Chair of Oceanography.The George Herdman Professors of Geology
The first George Herdman Professor of Geology was appointed in 1917. Since then the holders of the chair have been:- Percy Boswell
- H H Read
- Frank Coles Phillips
- Robert Millner Shackleton
- Wallace Spencer Pitcher
- Trevor Elliott
- Peter Kokelaar
- John Wheeler.
The Herdman Professors of Oceanography
The Herdman Chair in Oceanography was endowed by the Herdmans in 1919. Holders of the chair include:- William Abbott Herdman
- James Johnstone
- Joseph Proudman
- Kenneth Frank Bowden
- John Price Riley
- Roy Chester
- George Wolff