She was born in Birmingham, the daughter of George Jordan Lloyd, surgeon and later professor of surgery at the University of Birmingham, and his wife, Marian Hampson Simpson. One of four children, she was educated at the King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham, and entered Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1908. At the age of 12 when she decided she wanted to become a scientist. She was placed in the first class in part one of the natural sciences tripos in 1910 and in part two in 1912, was a Bathurst student, and became the third Newnham fellow. She worked for a time at Cambridge on problems of regeneration and osmotic phenomena in muscle, and this led her to a study of osmotic phenomena in simpler non-living colloidal systems. Her researches were interrupted by the First World War when she investigated – for the Medical Research Committee – substitute culture media for bacteriology, and the causes and prevention of ropiness in bread.
Research and later life
She accepted an invitation from R. H. Pickard in 1921 to join the newly formed British Leather Manufacturers' Research Association. While maintaining her interest in fundamental research, she rapidly acquired an insight into the art of leather manufacture, and introduced many methods of control which have since become normal tannery practice. In 1927, she succeeded Pickard as director, and was, until her death, the only woman leading such an association for industrial research. In spite of many set-backs, including the destruction of new laboratories by German bombing in 1940, support for the association increased under her directorship, and it was recognised as an integral part of the industry. She served on the councils and committees of many societies, including the executive committee of the International Society of Leather Trades' Chemists. In 1939, she was awarded the Fraser Muir Moffat medal by the Tanners' Council of America for her contributions to leather chemistry. She was also vice-president of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and a member of the Chemical Council.As Dorothy got old she started to enjoy mountain climbing. Besides many contributions to scientific journals, Dorothy Jordan Lloyd was the author of The Chemistry of the Proteins, and planned and contributed to Progress in Leather Science, 1920–45, which became one of the world's foremost textbooks on leather technology.
Death
A keen mountaineer, in 1928 Dorothy Jordan Lloyd achieved the distinction of making the first ascent and descent in one day of the Mittellegi Ridge of the Eiger. She died at Kenilworth Lodge, Great Bookham, Surrey, on 21 November 1946, aged 57.
