[BITList] Metallurgist Constance Fligg Tipper

[John Feltham]

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Tipper  [née Elam],  Constance Fligg  (1894-1995), metallurgist and crystallographer, was born on 16 February 1894 in Station Road, New Barnet, Hertfordshire, the daughter of William Henry Elam, surgeon, and his wife, Lydia, nee Coombes. She was educated at St Felix School, Southwold, followed by Newnham College, Cambridge, from where she gained a third in part one of the natural sciences tripos in 1915. After working briefly at the National Physical Laboratory, metallurgical department, in Teddington, she joined the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, in 1916, and was appointed research assistant to Professor Harold Carpenter in 1917. Later she won two successive fellowships, the Frecheville (1921-3) and the Royal Society Armourers and Brasiers (1924-9). During this time she carried out significant research into the strength of single crystal aluminium. Though still employed by the Royal School of Mines she began working in Cambridge. Her research there, in collaboration with Geoffrey Taylor, led to the modern understanding of crystal plasticity and inspired Taylor's theory of dislocations (1934). In recognition of this and earlier work London University awarded her the DSc degree (1926).

In 1928 Elam married George Howlett Tipper (d. 1947), a Clare College graduate and superintendent of the geological survey in India; there were no children. Officially leaving the Royal School of Mines in 1929 she settled in Cambridge where Newnham College awarded her a research fellowship (1930-31). This association would last over thirty years. The university gave her testing facilities in the engineering department, but no official status, although the Leverhulme Trust awarded her a two-year research fellowship in 1936. Naturally shy, and always happier in research than in teaching, she nevertheless undertook considerable lecturing. In 1947 Newnham elected her an associate fellow for three years; and in 1949 Cambridge University made her a reader in mechanical engineering. Thenceforth until her retirement in 1960 she was a full member of the faculty of engineering.

Tipper's most significant contributions to metallurgy from 1943 onwards were in relation to the deformation and fracture of iron and steel. When the new Admiralty ship welding committee asked Professor John Fleetwood Baker, head of the engineering department, to investigate fractures in all welded ships, he assigned the metallurgical investigations to Tipper. Brittle fracture in large steel structures had become an urgent naval problem: several Liberty ships built in the accelerated wartime shipbuilding programme to bring vital supplies across the Atlantic had broken up in heavy seas as a crack ran instantaneously right around the ship. One split in half while still in harbour. The ships, built in both Britain and America, brought vital supplies across the Atlantic to Britain during the war years. These ships were the first to be all welded, rather than riveted. Tipper found that the cause lay not in the fabrication and welding, as first thought, but was intrinsic in the material used, which became dangerously brittle under certain circumstances. Her work in this area led to the development of the Tipper test for determining the brittleness of steel. This edge notched tensile test can predict whether steel will behave in a brittle or ductile manner at service temperature. As a result of her research manufacturers began improving both the quality of the steel and annealed welds. The results were published in the scientific literature and in her book The Brittle Fracture Story (1962), which Baker, who had given her so much encouragement and advice over the years, persuaded her to write.

Colleagues held Tipper in high esteem and found her a pleasure to work with, although independent and outspoken. Her work was always meticulous and remains one of the principal contributions to the development of metallurgical science. There can be no doubt that she was a brilliant metallurgist who should have had a great deal more recognition in her lifetime. Although she officially retired in 1960, she continued working well into her seventies, taking on consultancy work at the Barrow shipyards and on metal bridge construction. As her husband had died earlier, she went to live with her brother at Bank House, Langwathby, Penrith, Cumberland, where she could enjoy the family hobby of fly-fishing. She also enjoyed gardening, watercolour painting, and playing the piano and organ. To mark the occasion of her 100th birthday, in 1994, Newnham College planted a variegated sweet chestnut in the gardens, now known as the Tipper tree. She died at Penrith on 14 December 1995.

Anna Leendertz Ford 

Sources  C. F. Tipper, The brittle fracture story (1962) + J. Charles and G. Smith, 'Constance Tipper: her life and work', Materials World, 4/6 (1996), 336-7 + The Times (30 Dec 1995) + The Independent (20 Dec 1995) + private information (2004) [Newnham College, Cambridge] + b. cert.
Archives Newnham College, Cambridge
Likenesses  photograph, News International Syndication, London [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £200,978: probate, 1 March 1996, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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