Irene Manton

Irene Manton around 1955

Irene Manton (born April 17, 1904 in Kensington , † May 13, 1988 in Leeds ) was a British botanist . She made significant contributions to the study of ferns and algae and was a pioneer in the use of photography in botanical research. She was the first woman to be elected President of the Linnean Society . Her botanical author abbreviation is Manton .

Life

Irene Manton was the daughter of the French noblewoman Milana Angèle Thérèse Manton, b. d'Humy, embroiderer and designer a. a. for Liberty's of London and the dental surgeon George Sidney Frederick Manton.

Manton was baptized in the French version Irène after an aunt of her mother. She kept the French spelling and spelling of her first name until she was 18. Then Manton decided on the English form of her first name and adopted it for her subsequent life. Her sister, like Irene Manton also a member of the Royal Society of London , was the entomologist Sidnie Milana Manton (1902–1979).

Irene Manton grew up in the Royal Borough of Kensington , which is one of the upper classes of London. The von Manton family employed a cook, a maid and housekeeping. The parents attached great importance to the upbringing and education of their daughters. They owned a small country estate in Brookwood, Surrey , where the girls spent the summer months. They were supported there in observing and enjoying the landscape. Expeditions were made to catch butterflies that were post-drawn. Both girls developed a high level of expertise in painting with watercolors. Out of this enthusiasm for the world of nature, it was a matter of concern to the parents to provide Irene and Sidnie with a progressive education that promoted and deepened these interests.

Irene Manton received her early education at Froebel Demonstration School and St. Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, London. In 1923 she won a scholarship and attended Girton College in Cambridge , where she completed her Master of Arts in botany with honors in 1926 . She found the university unsatisfactory, partly because of the clear rejection of women within the university walls.

Then she went to Stockholm to live with Gustaf Otto Rosenberg . She received her PhD from Manchester University on cruciferous vegetables as an assistant professor (1928–1930). To do this, she started classifying cruciferous vegetables according to their chromosomes . She evaluated 250 species, the basis for her first major publication. She then received a lectureship (1930-1946) at the University of Manchester. There she researched ferns under the supervision of WH Lang . Using chromosomes, she determined families and species of ferns and their phylogenetic relationships. She summarized the results of these studies in the book "Problems of Cytology and Evolution in the Pteridophyta" (1950). She discovered the thylakoid structure of chloroplasts and details of the ultrastructure of cells.

She spent most of her professional career at Leeds University , where she researched and taught as a professor of botany from 1946 to 1969. She then continued to work as an emerita with a focus on ferns and algae. Research on ferns focused on cross-breeding (hybrid formation), chromosome duplication ( polyploidy ) and asexual reproduction ( apomixis ). Her research on algae is particularly noteworthy for the use of the electron microscope , which made her cytological work known worldwide. This enabled her to describe the structure of cilia and flagella in detail.

After her retirement, Irene Manton worked in various laboratories (including Canada, South Africa, Marburg) and discovered a. numerous new flagellates .

Irene Manton bequeathed her collection of modern and oriental art to the University of Leeds. Many of these paintings were on the walls of the Botanical House during her career at Leeds University.

Honors

In March 1961, Irene Manton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1967 she became a member of the Leopoldina , the Schleiden Medal of which she was awarded in 1973. Manton received the Linnaeus Medal in 1969 together with Ethelwynn Trewavas . In 1969 she was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . From 1971 to 1972 she was President of the Pteridological Society. She was the first woman to be appointed President of the Linnaeus Society in London and presided over it from 1973 to 1976.

University of Leeds plaque for Irene Manton

A plaque at the University of Leeds commemorates the discoveries Manton made at that university.

The Biological Sciences building at the University of Leeds was given the name Irene Manton Building in 1998 on the tenth anniversary of her death.

In 1990, the Irene Manton Prize for the best dissertation in botany within one academic year was created by the Linnaeus Society.

A crater of Venus was named Manton crater in honor of her and her sister .

In 1972 Desikachery named a genus of green algae from the Mamiellaceae family in memory of Irene Manton's contributions on flagellated green algae Mantoniella .

Irene Manton has received honorary doctorates from five universities: McGill University, Montreal (1959), Oslo, Norway (1961), Durham (1966), Lancaster (1979) and Leeds (1984).

Fonts

• Problems of cytology and evolution in the Pteridophyta . Cambridge University Press, 1950. doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.4667

swell

• Manton, Irene (1904-1988) in Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages, Jan. 1, 2007
• Barry Leadbeater: Irene Manton: Biography (1904-1988) - The Linnean Special Issue No 5
• Renate Strohmeyer: Lexicon of natural scientists and women of natural knowledge in Europe , Verlag Harri Deutsch, page 184. ISBN 3-8171-1567-9

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for Irene Manton at the IPNI

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Renate Strohmeyer: Lexicon of the natural scientists and women of natural science in Europe, Verlag Harri Deutsch, page 184. ISBN 3-8171-1567-9
2. ^ Author entry and list of the described plant names for Irene Manton at the IPNI
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Barry Leadbeater: Irene Manton: Biography (1904 - 1988) - The Linnean Special Issue No 5
4. ^ University of Leeds, Reporter 420, May 11, 1998
5. ^ Linnean Society biography
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ http://www.lippymag.co.uk/women-in-sciene-series-irene-manton
9. ↑ Krämer, 1987
10. ↑ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2007". London: The Royal Society. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
11. ^ American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Book of Members ( PDF ). Retrieved April 18, 2016
12. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ↑ Manton, Problems of cytology and evolution in the Pteridophyta, 1950
14. ^ RD Preston, FRS: Irene Manton, April 17, 1904 - May 13, 1988 , Biogr. Mems Fell. R. Soc. 1990 35 pp. 247-261, March 1, 1990