Frederick Tom Brooks

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FRS (17 December 1882 – 11 March 1952) was an English

botanist 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 wo ...

and Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge.

Life

Brooks was born in

Wells, Somerset Wells () is a cathedral city and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, located on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, south-east of Weston-super-Mare, south-west of Bath and south of Bristol. Although the population recorde ...

the son of Edward Brooks and attended

Sexey's School Sexey's School is a Church of England, co-educational state boarding and day school in Bruton, Somerset, England for 11-18 year olds. Sexey's School is named after Hugh Sexey who, in 1599, was appointed as a Royal auditor to Elizabeth I and la ...

, Somerset from 1895 to 1898. He then attended Merrywood Teacher Training College in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

. He went up to

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

in 1902. Emily and Frederick Brooks at a British Mycological Society meeting in 1913 In 1907 he married Emily Broderick. They had no children. From 1905 to 1917 he held the role of demonstrator in the botany department. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he had the role of plant pathologist in the Department of Food Production. From 1919 to 1931 he was a lecturer at Cambridge and from 1931 to 1936 a reader. He became Professor of Botany at Cambridge in 1936. He specialised in

mycology Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as ...

and investigated, amongst other things, silver-leaf disease of fruit trees. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1930 and an Honorary 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 ...

in 1946. He was president of the Cambridge Philosophical Society from 1945 to 1947. He died in Cambridge aged 70. In 1956, Clifford Gerald Hansford

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

the genus ''

Brooksia ''Brooksia'' is a genus of fungus, fungi in the class Dothideomycetes. The relationship of this taxon to other taxa within the class is unknown (''incertae sedis''). The genus name of ''Brooksia'' is in honour of Frederick Tom Brooks (1882 – ...

'', a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

in the class

Dothideomycetes Dothideomycetes is the largest and most diverse class of ascomycete fungi. It comprises 11 orders 90 families, 1300 genera and over 19,000 known species. Traditionally, most of its members were included in the loculoascomycetes, which is not par ...

and named in Frederick Tom Brooks honour.

Publications

*''Plant Diseases'' (1928)

Botanical reference

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Frederick Tom 1882 births 1952 deaths People from Somerset Fellows of the Royal Society Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge English botanists Professors of Botany (Cambridge) English mycologists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Sexey's School