Jump to content

Edith Philip Smith

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edith Philip Smith
FLS DSc FRSE
photograph of Dr Edith Philip Smith
Born(1897-03-09)9 March 1897
Stirling, Scotland
Died17 May 1976(1976-05-17) (aged 79)
Alma materSomerville College, Oxford
University of Edinburgh
Known forbotanist, academic, teacher

Edith Philip Smith FLS FRSE (9 March 1897 – 17 May 1976) was a botanist and teacher who became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Head of the Botany Department at Queen's College, Dundee (now the University of Dundee).

Career

[edit]

She was one of the first female graduates to receive a degree at the University of Oxford when the first women's graduation ceremony was held there in 1920.[1] She studied at Somerville College, and in June 1920 passed exams in the School of Natural Science with first-class honours, leading to a BA.[2] She then spent a year at Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, and undertook research in the plant physiology laboratory at Harvard. Next came a period in the Department of Botany at King's College London. In 1925 she was awarded a PhD from the University of Edinburgh.[3] The following year, 1926, she was appointed as a lecturer in botany at University College, Dundee, which at that time was part of the University of St Andrews.[4]

Over the next decade Smith published various botanical papers, a textbook and an ecological report of a 1933 expedition to South Rona with scientific colleagues. She spoke about her survey of the island at a meeting of the British Association in Aberdeen. The report was illustrated with several of her own photographs. She told a newspaper that she was "official photographer and cook" for the South Rona team.[5] She created her own "lantern slides" for lectures, both for university lectures and for numerous talks to the public and to local associations, reported in the Dundee newspapers.[6] One article said she was "well known as a brilliant and entertaining lecturer".[7] She was also an exhibiting member of the Society of Scottish Artists.[8]

In 1932 she started the Dundee Soroptimist Club, a group for professional women interested in good citizenship and service to others. Smith was the first president,[9] and in 1935 she was elected president of the National Union of Soroptimist Clubs of Great Britain and Ireland. After a year she resigned that post for health reasons.[10]

She was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1941 after presenting a thesis called Stelar Structure in the Dicotyledons.[11] Around the same time she addressed the Royal Society of Edinburgh on Studies in the Vascular Anatomy of Trees and Herbs.[12] She became a fellow of the Society in 1953 and two years later was appointed Head of the Department of Botany at the recently restructured Queen's College, Dundee.[13] She retired in 1960 and died on 17 May 1976.[3] A collection of her papers are held by the University of Dundee's Archives.[14]

Family

[edit]

Edith Philip Smith was born in Stirling on 9 March 1897, the eldest child of Edith Abbot Philip and James Cruickshank Smith CBE LittD LLD.[3][15] At that time J.C.Smith was Rector of Stirling High School, but for most of his career he was a senior chief inspector of schools as well as a literary scholar.[16] The family moved away from Stirling in 1899 and lived in Glasgow, Perth and Fife. Smith's obituary described his wife as "sister of Lady Beveridge".[16] Lady Beveridge was the name after her second marriage of Jessie (aka Janet) Thomson Mair née Philip.[17] One of her children was anthropologist Lucy Philip Mair, a first cousin of Edith Philip Smith. Her mother and aunt were amongst the children of a well-educated Dundee joiner and builder running a successful business.[17][15]

One of Edith's three sisters, Amy Moir Philip Pantin née Smith, trained as a zoologist, then became a doctor and member of the Medical Women's Federation.[18] She was married to the zoologist Carl Pantin.[19]

Bibliography

[edit]

Not a complete list.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ First Oxford Women Graduates - Historic Ceremony, The Times, 15 Oct 1920, p7
  2. ^ (Following the Oxford custom a BA not a BSc.) University Intelligence, The Times, 28 June 1920, p10
  3. ^ a b c University of Edinburgh Journal, Volume 27, p325
  4. ^ The Scotsman, 28 June 1926
  5. ^ Aberdeen Journal, 3 September 1934, p6
  6. ^ Local newspapers from the late 1920s onward, searchable in archives like britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
  7. ^ Dundee Courier, 20 January 1938 p7
  8. ^ Dundee Courier, 9 October 1943
  9. ^ Dundee Evening Telegraph 24 May 1932 p4
  10. ^ Dundee Courier, 16 April 1936
  11. ^ The Scotsman, 13 December 1941, p6
  12. ^ Scotsman 2 December 1941
  13. ^ Archives Hub: Edith Philip Smith, F.R.S.E., Lecturer in Botany
  14. ^ "UR-SF 12 Edith Philip Smith, F.R.S.E., Lecturer in Botany, 1926-1960". Archive Services Online Catalogue. University of Dundee. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  15. ^ a b Birth and census records
  16. ^ a b Death of Eminent Scots Scholar, The Scotsman, 8 Nov 1946 p4
  17. ^ a b John Davis, ‘Mair, Lucy Philip (1901–1986)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, OUP 2004
  18. ^ Archives: Medical Women's Federation
  19. ^ James Beament, ‘Pantin, Carl Frederick Abel (1899–1967)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, OUP 2004
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edith_Philip_Smith&oldid=1242114570"