Jocelyn Bell Burnell on new Irish bank note
'Prize-winning Quaker astrophysicist to feature on new £50 note.'
The work of Quaker astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell features on a new £50 note launched in Northern Ireland last week.
Ulster Bank picked the County Armagh-born scientist to celebrate her 1967 discovery of pulsars, as well as other women working in Northern Ireland’s life sciences industry. Speaking at a Belfast school on 15 June, Jocelyn Bell Burnell said she hoped the note would help raise the profile of women in science. ‘I’m passionate about encouraging more women to pursue scientific careers and I think it’s something that is very important for Northern Ireland. There is a burgeoning scientific sector here.’
Friends welcomed the news on social media, with the Quakers in Britain Facebook page saying: ‘A Quaker back on a bank note AND promoting women in STEM? Amazing!’
The banknote design also honours ‘millies’: women who worked skillfully at looms, but were viewed as unskilled operatives at the time.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell was famously overlooked for her discovery of pulsars, with the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics going to her male PhD supervisor instead. The Lurgan-born scientist was the second woman to be awarded the Royal Society’s oldest and highest prize, the Copley Medal. Ulster Bank announced the news of that bank note on International Women’s Day.
