Martha Burton Woodhead Williamson

Who was Martha Burton Woodhead Williamson?

Martha Burton Woodhead Williamson was an American malacologist who was born in England in 1843. As a child, she moved with her parents to Ohio. She became an active participant in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In 1887 she moved to Los Angeles, California and started collecting seashells. It was in Los Angeles that she became active in malacology, the study of mollusks. She researched the marine family of gastropods, Mitridae, the miters.

Williamson maintained a correspondence with William Healey Dall and J. G. Cooper. The minute marine gastropod Vitrinella williamsoni was named in her honor. Her papers are held in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.