David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan FRSE FLS MRIA (12 March 1871 – 4 September 1915) was a Welsh botanist and academic who specialised in ferns. He was assocated with Queen Margaret College, Birkbeck College, Queen's College, Belfast, and Reading University.
Early life
editGwynne-Vaughan was born on 12 March 1871 at Royston House in Llandovery, Caernarvonshire, Wales.[1][2] He was the eldest son of Henry Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan of Cynghordy and Elizabeth Thomas.[1][3] His mother died in 1874.[1]
He was educated at Monmouth School, graduating in 1882.[1] He studied natural sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating with a first class for part I of the natural sciences tripos in 1893.[3][2] He did not continue with part II of his studies at Cambridge and, instead, taught science for a year.[2]
Career
editIn 1894, Gwynne-Vaughan worked with D. H. Scott at the Jodrell Laboratory in Kew.[2][4] While there, he began to specialize in the microscopic study of plants.[2] He then traveled overseas to exotic locations with a group of young British academics and adventurers, among them his second-cousin Gwynneth de Candia Vaughan. Gwynne-Vaughan spent 1895 in Amazonian rubber plantations.[3] Along these overseas trips, he acquired extensive botanical data and regional information that eventually became vital to write the research papers that granted him a successful academic career.
In 1896, Gwynne-Vaughan presented "The Arrangement of the Vascular Bundles in Certain Nymphaeaceae" at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.[2] After hearing this presentation Frederick Bower asked Gwynne-Vaughan to join his team in Glasgow.[2] After accepting the position, Gwynne-Vaughan was an assistant lecturer in botany at Queen Margaret College, studied the anatomy of Pteridophyta, and helped Bower write a book on practical botany.[1][2][3]
In the summer of 1897, Gwynne-Vaughan took a study trip to Siam and Malaysia with W. W. Skeat.[2][3] He became the head of the Botany Department at Birkbeck College in London in 1907.[1][3] In 1909, he accepted a botany professorship at Queen's College, Belfast.[1][3] In 1915, Gwynne-Vaughan became chair of the botany department at Reading University in Reading, Berkshire, but died in September of that year.[2][3]
During his career, Gwynne-Vaughan published many papers on ferns.[3]
Honors
editFrom 1906 to 1908, Gwynne-Vaughan won the Royal Society of Edinburgh Makdougall-Brisbane Prize.[1] In 1907, he became a fellow of the Linnean Society of London .[1] On 21 February 1910, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Frederick Orpen Bower, Isaac Bayley Balfour, Robert Kidston and John Horne.[1] He was also became a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1912.[1]
Personal life
editIn 1911, Gwynne-Vaughan married Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, a mycologist and botanist at Birkbeck College.[2] They had no children.
Gwynne-Vaughan died in Reading, England of tuberculosis on 4 September 1915.[2]
Select publications
edit- The Anatomy of Pteridophyta
- Observations on the Anatomy of Solenostelic Ferns (1901)
- On the Fossil Osmundacae (1907)
The standard author abbreviation Gwynne-Vaughan is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[5]
References
edit- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Simpkins, Diana M. "Gwynne-Vaughan, David Thomas |". Encyclopedia.com. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jenkins, Robert Thomas. "GWYNNE-VAUGHAN, DAVID THOMAS (1871–1915), botanist". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 12 July 2026.
- ↑ Boney, A.D. (January 1994). "David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan, 1871–1915". The Linnean. 10 (1): 27–57.
- ↑ International Plant Names Index. Gwynne-Vaughan.