Mea Allan (23 June 1909 – 29 August 1982), born Mary Eleanor Allan, was a journalist who worked for the ''

Glasgow Herald ''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...

''. She also wrote a novel, ''Change of Heart'' (1943), set in the future. In 1967 she was awarded the Leverhulme Research Scholarship to write about the botanists William Hooker and

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of ...

Early life and education

Allan was born in Bearsden,

Dumbartonshire Dunbartonshire ( gd, Siorrachd Dhùn Breatann) or the County of Dumbarton is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the west central Lowlands of Scotland lying to the north of the River Clyde. Dunbartonshire borders Per ...

, Scotland, the daughter of Robert Greenoak Allan and Helen (née Maitland). She was educated at Park School,

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 ...

, and the

Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama was founded by Elsie Fogerty in 1906, as The Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students. It became a ...

Career

Journalism

Allan was a journalist, the first woman war correspondent to be permanently accredited to the British Forces and the first woman new editor in Fleet Street. She worked for the ''Glasgow Herald'' during and after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. She was living in London in 1940, where she described the wartime tension as "You felt you really were walking with death—death in front of you and death hovering in the skies." She reported from Germany in 1945, about death camp survivors and displaced persons temporarily sheltered at

Belsen Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentr ...

after the war, awaiting rehabilitation, family reunification, and transportation.

Other writing

Allan's first book was a novel, ''Lonely'' (1942). Her second novel, ''Change of Heart'', written in 1943, is about an alternate history (then future) in which the Allies win

, but are threatened by a resurgent

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

. Much of Allan's writing was about botany, including histories of gardens, biographies of famous gardeners and plant collectors, and guides for gardeners. In 1967 she was awarded the Leverhulme Research Scholarship to write on the botanists William Hooker and Joseph Dalton Hooker. In 1977 she wrote a book about Darwin's use of flowers to develop his theory of

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...

Death and legacy

Allan died in 1982, in

Walberswick Walberswick is a village and civil parish on the Suffolk coast in England. It is at the mouth of the River Blyth on the south side of the river. The town of Southwold lies to the north of the river and is the nearest town to Walberswick, around ...

, Suffolk, England. A collection of her papers was donated to the Centre for the Conservation of Historic Parks and Gardens at

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

. There are other papers of hers in the Imperial War Museum's Department of Documents. In 1999, Felicity Goodall wrote a BBC Radio program titled "Change of Heart," about Allan's life and career.

Select Bibliography

* ''Lonely'' (1942, novel) * ''Change of Heart'' (1943, novel) * ''Rose Cottage'' (1961) * ''The Tradescants: Their Plants, Gardens and Museum 1570-1662'' (1964) * ''The Hookers of Kew 1785-1911'' (1967) * ''Tom's Weeds: The Story of Rochford's and their House Plants'' (1970) * ''Fison's Guide to Gardens in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales'' (1970) * ''Palgrave of Arabia: The Life of William Gifford Palgrave, 1826-88'' (1972) * ''E. A. Bowles & his garden at Myddelton House (1865-1954)'' (1973) * ''Plants that Changed Our Gardens'' (1974) * ''Gardens of East Anglia'' (1975) * ''Darwin and His Flowers: The Key to Natural Selection'' (1977) * ''The Gardener's Book of Weeds'' (1978) * ''Weeds: The Unbidden Guests in our Gardens'' (1978) * ''The Family of Flowers'' (1979) * ''William Robinson, 1838-1935: Father of the English Flower Garden'' (1982) *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Allan, Mea Scottish science fiction writers Scottish women novelists Scottish journalists Scottish women journalists 1909 births 1982 deaths People from Bearsden Women science fiction and fantasy writers 20th-century Scottish women writers 20th-century Scottish novelists British women in World War II