Marjory Stephenson (24 January 1885 – 12 December 1948) was a British biochemist. In 1945, she was one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the other being Kathleen Lonsdale. She wrote Bacterial Metabolism (1930), which ran to three editions and was a standard textbook for generations of microbiologists. A founder of the Society for General Microbiology, she also served as its second president. In 1953, the Society established the Marjory Stephenson Memorial Lecture (now the Marjory Stephenson Prize Lecture) in her memory. This is the Society's principal prize, awarded biennially for an outstanding contribution of current importance in microbiology. Childhood and education Stephenson grew up in Burwell, a village on the edge of The Fens in Cambridgeshire, between Newmarket and Cambridge. Her father Robert (1847–1929) was a farmer, surveyor and owner of a cement-manufacturing company; her mother was Sarah Rogers (1848–1925). Robert Stephenson was a prominent figure in the local community, appointed as a Justice of the Peace and then Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire; he was also a chairman of the County Council. He employed many local people in his cement works. Both of Stephenson's grandfathers, Robert Matthew Stephenson (1815–1870) and Samuel Rogers, were racehorse trainers in Newmarket, a major horse-racing centre. Samuel Rogers had been a jockey before becoming a trainer. Stephenson was the youngest of the family by nine years. She was first inspired to take an interest in science by her governess Anna Jane Botwright, the daughter of a carpenter from Bungay. Botwright later married a solicitor and named one of her daughters Marjory. Stephenson later studied at the Berkhamsted School for Girls in Hertfordshire. In 1903 she went to Newnham College, Cambridge. Alice Mary Stephenson, one of her sisters, had studied history at Newnham College and became headteacher of Francis Holland School in London, and a brother, Robert, graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge. Stephenson read Natural Sciences, taking courses in chemistry, physiology and zoology for Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos. At this time, women were still excluded from Cambridge University's chemistry and zoology laboratories; Newnham College had its own chemistry laboratory and women attended biology practicals in the Balfour Laboratory. Early career and war service Stephenson originally intended to study medicine after Newnham, but her plans changed due to a lack of funds and she became a domestic science teacher, first at Gloucester County Training College and then