Thereza Rucker

Thereza Charlotte, Lady Rucker (born Thereza Charlotte Story-Maskelyne; 3 June 1863 – 20 December 1941) was a British promoter of household science teaching. She helped establish Domestic Science as a university subject but only at one university. Life Rucker was born in 1863 in London to a landed gentry family. Her father, Nevil Story Maskelyne, was a politician and a professor of mineralogy at Oxford and her mother, Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn of Penllergare House, was a leading scientist studying astronomy and photography. Rucker was granddaughter of the Welsh botanist and photographer John Dillwyn Llewelyn and a great-granddaughter of Nevil Maskelyne, who served as Astronomer Royal. Her education was important. She took correspondence courses with the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh. She had lessons at home and she studied at Bedford College, London. She married on 7 September 1892 becoming the second wife of Arthur William Rücker who was the Principal of the University of London. They had one son, Arthur Nevil Rucker. She was involved with the Association of Teachers of Domestic Science becoming their president in 1908. She wrote to the Pall Mall Gazette noting that the only way to create some status for their sunject was to give it university status.