Lisa Jardine (1944–2015) Historian of Science Who Chaired Pioneering Embryology Regulator

COMMENT OBITUARY Lisa Jardine (1944–2015) Historian of science who chaired pioneering embryology regulator.

isa Anne Jardine rewrote the and Albert Museum and a council history of European intellec- member of the Royal Institution. In her tual and scientific life in the two terms as chair of the HFEA, from Lsixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 2008 to 2014, she led efforts to reduce LISA JARDINE She was always most interested in the multiple births resulting from in vitro precise ways in which her research fertilization (IVF), provide fairer com- subjects did their jobs. She showed pensation for donors, reduce regulatory how the sixteenth-century theologian overlap and give better access to data Desiderius Erasmus invented a new for researchers — all this at a time when kind of career as a scholar and writer in the future of the globally respected the world of print; how Robert Hooke organization was uncertain. and Christopher Wren transformed the She felt particularly honoured to city of London’s landscape in the seven- have overseen the 2012 public consul- teenth century; and how the Huyghens tation on mitochondrial replacement. family and their Dutch compatriots This IVF technique aims to prevent created a sparkling world of exotic women from passing on harmful muta- gardens, spectacular works of art and tions in the cell’s energy-producing penetrating inquiries into nature. structures, mitochondria, by using a She told these stories in huge biogra- third party to provide healthy mito- phies and histories that were as acces- chondrial DNA for a future baby. The sible and elegant in style as they were United Kingdom this year became the novel in content. These included The first country in the world to allow this Curious Life of Robert Hooke (Harper technique in the clinic, and the HFEA’s Collins, 2003) and Going Dutch (Harper, As Jardine’s interests developed, she engagement exercise is frequently cited in 2008). Latterly, she steered the United King- invented new ways of writing history. Scholars current debates on genome editing in sperm, dom’s pioneering regulator, the Human knew for centuries that the sixteenth-century eggs and embryos. Fertilisation and Embryology Authority writer Gabriel Harvey adorned his books with What mattered most to Jardine was not the (HFEA) safely through choppy waters. vast marginal notes. Jardine deciphered them institution she served, but the quality of her Jardine, who died of cancer on 25 October — and identified Harvey as a figure of a previ- service. Of her many distinctions, election to 2015, was professor of Renaissance stud- ously unknown kind, a Renaissance political the Royal Society as an honorary fellow par- ies at University College London. Born on adviser who served great men by reading the ticularly delighted her. She was just as proud 12 April 1944 in Oxford, Jardine was in some classics with them. Historians of science, in of her stint as governor of a London school. ways fated to study and write about science the 1980s and after, concentrated on recon- Her favourite brooch read multum in parvo and the humanities. Her father, mathemati- structing the precise, local practices of men (‘a lot in a little’) — her joke about her height. cian and biologist Jacob Bronowski, created such as Hooke and Robert Boyle. Jardine She was a commanding presence in public, the landmark 1973 BBC documentary series, did the same: but she never forgot that they a dazzling speaker whose plenary lectures The Ascent Of Man. Like him, Jardine read were polyglots, in dialogue with others across were the most memorable events at many mathematics at the University of Cambridge, Europe. English science in its early heyday, as conferences. A wider British public knew her later switching to study English. She then did she portrayed it, was not a creation of national from many years of broadcasts, including the an master’s in translation at the University of genius but a structure raised on foundations 2013 BBC radio series Seven Ages of Science, Essex and a doctorate in Renaissance studies laid by the Dutch. in which she vividly conveyed the excitement at Cambridge. In the 1970s and 1980s, when women and complexity of historical research. Her She became fascinated with what might were still rare in academia, Jardine became voice on the page was distinctive: trenchant, be called the history of knowledge and the a mentor and model for a great many accurate and unfailingly eloquent, whether practices by which humans attain it. She younger scholars, both male and female. she was arguing a historical case in a journal admired dominant historical figures of the Her greatest talent — and greatest love — or engaging in a contemporary debate in a Royal Society in London, such as Hooke and was teaching. She lectured to prodigies newspaper or online article. Wren, and showed how they found new ways and ordinary students with equal engage- Lisa was a rare figure — she combined to unpick the fabric of nature. In 1996 she ment, mentored brilliant scholars with academic brilliance with a deep commit- devoted a pioneering book on the Renais- immense generosity, and always found a ment to public service, and made it all look sance, Worldly Goods (Macmillan), to the way to look after one more student than so easy. ■ merchants and customers of the fifteenth the budget allowed. Even more than her and sixteenth centuries who learned to books, her students are her monument. Anthony Grafton is professor of history appreciate fine paintings, sumptuous fabrics Committed to public service, Jardine held at Princeton University in Princeton, New and rare objects. The Renaissance itself, in many high-profile posts. She judged the Man Jersey, USA. He collaborated extensively her view, emerged from their finely honed Booker and Whitbread literary prizes, and with Lisa Jardine. consumerism. served as a trustee for London’s Victoria e-mail: [email protected]