Alan Robertson Gemmell

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

OBE JP (10 May 1913 – 5 July 1986) was Professor of

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

Keele University Keele University, officially known as the University of Keele, is a public research university in Keele, approximately from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire, Keele ...

and a regular member of the panel on the BBC Radio Home Service (later BBC Radio 4) programme ''

Gardeners' Question Time ''Gardeners' Question Time'' is a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme in which amateur gardeners can put questions to a panel of experts. History The first programme was broadcast in the North and Northern Ireland Home Service of the BBC at 2 ...

'' from 1950 for some 30 years. Disagreements on the programme between Gemmell and fellow panel member Bill Sowerbutts became legendary.

Life

Gemmell was born in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, the son of Alexander Nicol Gemmell, a cashier, and his wife Mary Robertson. He was brought up in

Troon Troon is a town in South Ayrshire, situated on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland, about north of Ayr and northwest of Glasgow Prestwick Airport. Troon has a port with freight services and a yacht marina. Up until January 2016, P&O Ferrie ...

and educated at

Ayr Academy Ayr Academy (Scottish Gaelic: ''Acadamaidh Inbhir Àir'') is a non-denominational secondary school situated within the Craigie Estate area at University Avenue in Ayr, South Ayrshire. It is a comprehensive school for children of ages 11–18 fro ...

followed by

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

where he gained a first class

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

Botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

BBC Desert Island Discs 1977, Accessed 30 December 2013
/ref> and later, on a

Commonwealth Scholarship The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) is an international programme under which Commonwealth governments offer scholarships and fellowships to citizens of other Commonwealth countries. History The plan was originally proposed b ...

, the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1935 where he did agricultural research in

plant pathology Plant pathology (also phytopathology) is the scientific study of diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungus, fung ...

gaining an MS in 1937. He specialised in the diseases of cereals but his first paper was published on the diseases of golf course greens. Returning to Glasgow, Gemmell obtained a PhD in 1939 and then carried out agricultural research at the

West of Scotland Agricultural College Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) is a public land based research institution focused on agriculture and life sciences. Its history stretches back to 1899 with the establishment of the West of Scotland Agricultural College and its current organi ...

(1937–41). He was a lecturer in Botany at Glasgow (1942–44); a biologist at West Midlands

Forensic Science Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal ...

Laboratory (1944–45); lecturer in Botany at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

(1945–50) before joining the then recently established University of Keele, the first new post-war British university which opened in 1950, where he stayed for 27 years as professor and later

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

.Gemmell, Prof. Alan Robertson ''Who Was Who'' A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 accessed 27 Dec 2011
/ref> He was instrumental in establishing the course in biology at Keele University, which was not then offered in the UK. His career also took him to

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

(then

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

) and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

to establish similar courses. In 1950 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were Frederick W Sansome,

Claude Wardlaw Claude Wilson Wardlaw (4 February 1901 – 16 December 1985) was a British botanist, who specialised in diseases of the banana.

, John Walton and Samuel Williams. On BBC Desert Island Discs he estimated he had appeared on over 1,200 Gardeners Question Time programmes. He died in

Brodick Brodick ( , gd, Tràigh a' Chaisteil ("Castle Beach") or ''Breadhaig'') is the main village on the Isle of Arran, in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. It is halfway along the east coast of the island, in Brodick Bay below Goat Fell, the tallest mo ...

on the

Isle of Arran The Isle of Arran (; sco, Isle o Arran; gd, Eilean Arainn) or simply Arran is an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at . Historically part of Butesh ...

on 5 July 1986.

Family

In 1942 he married Janet Ada Boyd Duncanson.

Publications

* ''Gardener's Question Time'' (1964) * ''Developmental Plant Anatomy'' (1966) Hodder & Stoughton * ''Penguin Book of Basic Gardening'' (1975) * ''Sunday Gardener'' Fontana (1973) * ''Practical Gardener's Encyclopaedia'' (1977) Collins,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gemmell, Alan Academics of Keele University BBC people Scottish botanists University of Minnesota alumni Alumni of the University of Glasgow People educated at Ayr Academy People from Troon 1913 births 1986 deaths 20th-century British botanists Scottish gardeners