Alice Brooke was born 1840 to Francis and Juliana Brooke. After her mother’s death, she was raised by her paternal grandmother. She married General Bell in 1857. The marriage produced one son and ended in divorce in 1869. Alice was remarried in 1873 to physician George Fowler Bodington. The couple had three children and remained married until her death in 1897. (Creese, 2004).
Bodington was an avid supporter of the dissemination of scientific literature, believing that scientific knowledge needed to be accessible to the people if it were to be of any real use to society. She wrote several articles for publications such as The American Naturalist, Popular Science Monthly, The Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science, and the Westminster Review. Her work remains an important window into the popular scientific culture of the 19th century and the mindset that drove British imperialism (Creese, 2004)( Broomfield, 1996).
Creese, Mary R. S., and Thomas M. Creese. Ladies in the Laboratory II: West European Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of Their Contributions to Research. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2004. Print.
Broomfield, Andrea, and Sally Mitchell. Prose by Victorian Women: An Anthology. New York: Garland Pub., 1996. Print.