Dame Ethel Mary Reader Shakespear DBE JP (née Wood; 17 July 1871 – 17 January 1946) was an English geologist, Justice of the Peace, public servant, and philanthropist.
She was educated at Bedford High School for Girls and Newnham College, Cambridge (1891–95), graduating in natural sciences.
Upon collecting her degree in natural sciences alongside her close friend Gertrude Elles, they earned the nickname of Steamboat Ladies.
During her time at Newnham College, she played tennis, took piano lessons, and became involved in Liberal politics, and it was here that she met her lifelong friend and collaborator Elles.
During her time at Cambridge with Gertrude Ellas, they were also part of a greater community of female geologists, such as Ethel Skeat and Margaret Crosfield.
Despite success in her field, she left her job with Lapworth in 1906 when she married Gilbert Arden Shakespear, a physics lecturer at the university whom she had met in Cambridge.
The earliest available paper published by Ethel Shakespear was a three-page section in the Cambridge Geological Magazine in 1895.
They aimed to understand the environmental conditions that led to the preservation of these fossils and what they could reveal about the Earth's history.
[6] This not only contributed to the scientific understanding of the Drygill shale but also helped in reconstructing the prehistoric environments in which these organisms lived.
Which according to Shakespear and Ellas's results, these rocks were closely related to another kind found in the southern regions of Scotland in addition to other areas of Northern England.
Shakespear was appointed a justice of the peace for Birmingham in 1922, specialising in cases involving children and working-class girls.
She was a family visitor for foster parents and invited many poor women and girls to stay in her home at Caldwell Hall, Upton Warren, Worcestershire.
In recognition of her work on the paper, "The Lower Ludlow Formation and its Graptolite Fauna", she was awarded the Wollaston Fund in 1904.