Beatrice Baxter, a dedicated secondary school chemistry teacher and a wartime contributor to gas mask development, has passed away at the age of 102. Her daughter Gillian confirmed the news.
Early Life and Wartime Service
Born at the City of London maternity hospital to William Fox, an accountant, and Dora (nee Austin), a seamstress, Beatrice was a true cockney, born within earshot of Bow bells. A brilliant student at the Skinners' Company's school for girls in north London, she left at 16 just before the Second World War to work as a milk tester with Co-op Dairies. She then moved to Imperial College London to serve as a laboratory assistant for most of the war, aiding Dutch expatriate scientists in developing better gas masks. This work later earned her a medal from the Netherlands government. She also qualified as a first aider and tended to those injured in bombing raids.
Education and Teaching Career
After the war, Beatrice enrolled in evening classes at the Sir John Cass Technical Institute (now part of City, University of London), earning a degree in general science in 1948. She continued to study chemistry, obtaining a second degree in just two years in 1950, the same year she married Herbert Baxter, also a chemist. Following teacher training at Brentwood College of Education in Essex (now part of Anglia Ruskin University), she began teaching at Gearies boys' school in Ilford. She later taught at Fairlop and spent the remainder of her career at Ethel Davis, a community special school for disabled children, where she adeptly helped pupils in wheelchairs or with cerebral palsy conduct chemistry experiments. She retired in 1983.
Later Years and Legacy
After retirement, Beatrice assisted Herbert in his new career of producing high-level chemistry reference books, handling word processing and drawing diagrams of complex organic compounds. An armchair astronomer, she was also a keen knitter, though in old age she found the needles too difficult to manage. Herbert died in 2010. Beatrice is survived by their two children, Gillian and a son, and four grandsons. A third child, Laurence, predeceased her.
