Regius Professor of Botany (Aberdeen)

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The Sunk Garden of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden in Aberdeen

The Regius Professor of Botany is a Regius Professor of Botany at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland , founded in 1860 by Queen Victoria .

In addition to this Regius Professorship for Botany, there are other Regius Professorships at the Universities of Glasgow , the Regius Professor of Botany (Glasgow) , founded in 1818 and Cambridge , the Regius Professor of Botany (Cambridge) , founded in 1724 and the Regius Professorship since 2009.

History of the chair

Founded in the chair with the merger of King's and Marischal College, 1860. The merger was triggered by the Universities Act 1858, when the Catholic traditional King's with the Protestant was combined traditional Marischal College against the wishes of the faculty at a university. In paragraph 18 of the law professorships are named, which are subsequently treated as Regius professorships and whose professors are confirmed by a royal appointment document, the Letters Patent .

In 1898 Anne Cruickshank donated a site on which the Cruickshank Botanic Garden was established. The head of the garden (keeper) was usually the incumbent Regius professor for botany, who lived mostly in a house (No. 8, Chanonry) on the site until 1980. The first was James William Helenus Trail , but almost nothing of the garden design has been preserved because the garden was completely converted to vegetable production during the First World War . Trails successor as Keeper of the Gardens, for which Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan had also applied, was James Craib, the brother of the incumbent professor. He planted many of the trees in the arboretum and shaped many of the planted terraces.

From 1934 James Robert Matthews took over the professorship. He transformed Cruickshank Gardens with curb-lined paths with his chief gardener James Robb and established a collection of rhododendrons and dwarf conifers .

Regius professors

Surname Data from to annotation
George Dickie MD 1860 1877 Born and educated in Abdeen, Dickie taught at King's College, Aberdeen, and in Belfast , from where in 1860, after the merger of King's College and Marischal, he took over the Regius Professorship. He withdrew from the professorship in 1877 because of his increasingly poor health.
James William Helenus Trail MA, MD, FRS, FLS 1877 1919 Together with George Nicolson , the curator of Kew Gardens , Trail initiated the establishment of the Cruickshank Botanic Gardens. Today only remnants of this design are preserved.
William Grant Craib 1920 1933 Helen Gwynne-Vaughan had unsuccessfully applied for the successor to Trail .
James Robert Matthews Esquire, CBE, LLD, MA, FRSE, FLS 1934 1959
Paul Egerton Weatherley Esq., BA, D. Phil., AICTA, FRS 1959 1981 Weatherley developed a wind tunnel in which he could research the effects of the climate on plants, especially evaporation under the influence of wind.
Charles Henry Gimigham BA, Ph. D., Sc. D., FRSE, FI Biol., 1982 1988
unexplained gap
Ian James Alexander B.Sc., Ph.D. 1996 2010
unexplained gap

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Universities (Scotland) Act 1858. 1858 CHAPTER 83 21 and 22 Vict. In: Legislation.gov.uk. United Kingdom Government, accessed July 23, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f History of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden on the Cruickshank Botanic Gardens website, accessed July 7, 2015.
  3. ^ A b c d Benjamin Daydon Jackson (1888) Dickie, George (DNB00) , in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 15; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b Aberdeen University Review ; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Obituary for James William Helenus Trail in New Phytologist, Vol. 19, Issue 1-2, May 5, 2005; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b Magali Romero Sa (1996) James William Helenus trail: a British naturalist in nineteenth-century Amazonia , thesis for obtaining a doctorate in philosophy, at the University of Durham ; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  7. ↑ unknown: James William Helenus Trail (1851-1919) Professor of Botany. In: University of Aberdeen website. University of Aberdeen, accessed July 17, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Ray Desmond (1994) Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists Including plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers ; CRC Press, accessed on Google Books;
  9. ^ A b The Edinburgh Gazette of March 2, 1934; Warrants under His Majesty's Royal Sign Manual for the appointment of James Robert Matthews as Regius Professor of Botany, Aberdeen; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  10. ^ Mary RS Creese: Vaughan, Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne- (1879-1967). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed Online (library card only); doi: 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 33623
  11. ↑ a b c The Edinburgh Gazette, April 17, 1959; Warrants under Her Majesty's Royal Sign Manual for the appointment of Paul Egerton Weatherly as Regius Professor of Botany at Aberdeen; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  12. ^ Ian Alexander, obituary for Paul Egerton Weatherley on the Royal Society website; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  13. ↑ a b The Edinburgh Gazette, February 9, 1982; Warrants under Her Majesty's Royal Sign Manual for the appointment of Charles H. Gimingham as Regius Professor of Botany at Aberdeen; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  14. ^ Paul Egerton Weatherley, University of Aberdeen Regius Professor of Botany: papers. Special Collections Center, The Sir Duncan Rice Library, Bedford Road, Aberdeen AB24 3AA, 1939, accessed October 2, 2019 .
  15. ↑ unknown: Scottish Office Education and Industry Department. (PDF) In: London Gazette. August 6, 1996, p. 1913 , accessed on July 17, 2020 (English).
  16. ^ Announcement in Times Higher Education about the appointment of Ian Alexander as Regius Professor of Botany; Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  17. ↑ unknown: Botanist to retire after almost four decades at University. In: University of Aberdeen website. University of Aberdeen, September 30, 2010, accessed July 17, 2020 .