Portsmouth History Centre unveiled a display all about Hertha Ayrton with help from pupils from Bramble Infant School in Portsmouth.
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00:00 Hi, my name is Dr Gareth Edwards. I'm the Learning and Outreach Officer here at Portsmouth History Centre.
00:05 Tell me what we're doing here today.
00:08 Okay, so today is both International Women's Day and the start of British Science Week.
00:13 To mark that, we've done a display all about Heather Ayrton, a Portsmouth-born scientist, inventor, engineer, academic writer and suffragette who was born in the 1850s.
00:25 Brilliant. And why is it important to do an exhibition about this?
00:29 Well, Heather Ayrton is one of the most inspirational figures I think that's ever come from the city.
00:34 Without doubt, she's one of the most inspirational scientific women that's lived through the past 200 years.
00:42 She's a real trailblazer and I think in terms of people that have been born in this city and gone on to achieve great things, of which there are many, one of the ones that we don't speak about enough is Ayrton.
00:52 I'm pretty sure that if she'd been born a man, if her name was Bob or Phil or whatever, there'd be statues to her in the city already.
01:01 And tell me, you've had some children come down today as well.
01:05 Yeah, yeah, it's been absolutely wonderful. So the display that we've put on here is in three parts.
01:11 One is things that we put together to tell the story of Heather Ayrton's life.
01:15 We also have fantastic, absolutely beautifully crafted miniature replicas of Heather Ayrton's study and Mary Curie's laboratory done by Sarah Houghton from the University of Portsmouth.
01:27 And we've also had, and these are my absolute favourite things, we've had the year two pupils from Bramble Infant School come down and they've been inspired by Heather Ayrton's life and created their own inventions, which people can see around the History Centre today.
01:41 Not only did they make them in class, but they photographed them and they've done blueprints for them.
01:46 And they range from robotic butterflies that fly around and bring you dinner, to toasters that make the toast and butter it for you, to the most beautiful ones that include a cat, especially for people that are allergic to cats.
02:01 It's just been wonderful to see a whole new generation of children inspired by the story of Heather Ayrton, letting their imaginations run wild and create the most incredible inventions.
02:12 And tell me, how long is the display able to be viewed?
02:17 Well, the display here in the History Centre will last over the weekend, and then it will be moved to the ground floor of the Central Library.
02:24 So it's the same building, but as you come through the foyer, you'll be able to see everything there.
02:29 And then in April, because the display is here today to mark International Women's Day and British Science Week, but in April, it will be the 170th anniversary of Heather Ayrton's birth.
02:40 So it will be back up here in the History Centre for all of April as well.
02:44 And tell me what you've been doing?
02:47 We've been drawing and making our own inventions, and we've all named them, and we've been putting, we've been naming the tools and what it can do.
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