{{short description|English physiologist}} {{Infobox person | name = Rachel Alcock | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software --> | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name --> | birth_date = {{Birth date text|1862}} | birth_place = Stockport, Cheshire, England | death_date = 2 February {{Death year and age|1939|1862}} | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = physiologist | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | education = Newnham College, Cambridge,<br/>Biblioteca Nacional,<br/>Liverpool University }} thumb|Clough, Newnham College, Cambridge

'''Rachel Alcock''' (1862 – 2 February 1939) was an English physiologist and academic.

== Early life and education == Born in Stockport, Cheshire, in 1862, Alcock received her early education from tutors and private school. She attended Newnham College, Cambridge, from 1886. She took the Natural Sciences Tripos examinations and stayed on in Newnham with a Bathurst studentship. She undertook research on digestive processes, and on nerve distribution in the primitive fish, which was supervised by British physiologist Walter Gaskell.

Alcock taught morphology and anatomy to women students in the Balfour Laboratory for a short period in 1891 and again in 1898–1899, filling in after the resignation of zoologist Lilian Sheldon.

By the late 1890s, despite continuing to work as a demonstrator in the Balfour Laboratory, Alcock became interested in Spanish literature. She spent two years at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, and in Toledo from 1914 to 1916, and then went on to study for an M.A. at Liverpool University in 1916.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Creese|first1=Mary, R.S.|title=Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900|date=1998|publisher=The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Md., & London|isbn=0-8108-3287-9}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcock, Rachel}} Category:English physiologists Category:People from Stockport Category:Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Category:1862 births Category:1939 deaths