Norman Willison Simmonds
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 ...
FIB
FLS (5
or 15
December 1922–4 January 2002)
was a British botanist. He was a world authority on the cultivation of bananas. He was the first non-American to be awarded the Bronx-based
Society for Economic Botany's Distinguished Economic Botanist Award.
Life
He was born in
Bedford on 5
or 15 December 1922
the son of a civil servant. He was educated at
Whitgift School from 1934 to 1940. He won a scholarship to study natural sciences at the
Downing College, Cambridge
Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...
, and then in 1943 won a further scholarship to study at the
Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture
The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the ...
on the island of
Trinidad. In 1945 the college invited him to begin lecturing in botany. He was later Senior Cytogeneticist at the Banana Research Section on the island. He received an
M.A. in 1948. During this time he collected banana samples in East Africa in 1948 and further samples in Asia and Malaysia in 1954/5.
From 1959 to 1965 he was the head of the Potato Genetics Department of the
John Innes Institute
The John Innes Centre (JIC), located in Norwich, Norfolk, England, is an independent centre for research and training in plant and microbial science founded in 1910. It is a registered charity (No 223852) grant-aided by the Biotechnology and B ...
.
In 1965 he became Director of the Scottish Plant Breeding Station which was then in
Pentlandfield, a suburb of
Edinburgh.
The University of Cambridge awarded him with a doctorate (DSc) in 1966.
On March 2, 1970, 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 Sir
David Lowe, Sir
Stephen John Watson
Sir Stephen John Watson FRSE FRIC FRAgS CBE (24 March 1898 – 25 June 1976) was a 20th-century British agriculturalist. He had an expert knowledge of the nutritional values of hay, straw and silage under different conditions.
In 1947 he founded ...
,
Hugh Paterson Donald
Hugh Paterson Donald (1908–1989) was a New Zealand-born, British biologist, noteworthy as an important contributor to Peter Medawar's research on skin grafts.
Hugh P. Donald was educated at Lincoln College in New Zealand, where he acquired t ...
and
Noel Farnie Robertson
Noel Farnie Robertson (1923–1999) was a Scottish botanist and agriculturist who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).
Biography
Early life
Robertson was born on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1923, in Dundalk, Irel ...
.
In 1975 he was made an Honorary Professor of the
University of Edinburgh.
He died in Edinburgh on 4 January 2002.
Publications
Books
*''Taxonomy and Origins of the Cultivated Banana'' (1955)
*''Bananas'' (1959, 1966, and with
Robert Stover
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, ho ...
in 1987)
*''Variability in Crop Plants'' (1962)
*'' Evolution of Bananas'' (1962)
*''Evolution of Crop Plants'' (1976, ed. and author)
*''Principles of Crop Improvement'' (1979); 2nd edition with coauthor J. Smartt (1999)
*''Plant Breeding: The State of the Art'' (1983)
*''Early Scottish Angling Literature'' (1997)
Articles
*
*
AGRIS i
MY8605599
*
CABI ISCbr>
19952307374
References
External links
*
*
1922 births
2002 deaths
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Bananas
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Fellows of the Linnean Society of London
British phytopathologists
{{UK-botanist-stub