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 The Society for Economic Botany is an international learned society covering the field of economic botany. It was established in 1959. Its official journal is ''Economic Botany'', published on their behalf by Springer Science+Business Media and th ...

's Distinguished Economic Botanist Award.

Life

He was born in

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

on 5 or 15 December 1922 the son of a civil servant. He was educated at

Whitgift School ("He who perseveres, conquers") , established = , closed = , type = Independent school , religious_affiliation = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head Master , head = Christopher Ramsey , c ...

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 on the island of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. 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. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

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 Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. 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 The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. 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 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 AGRIS (International System for Agricultural Science and Technology) is a global public domain database with more than 12 million structured bibliographical records on agricultural science and technology. It became operational in 1975 and the data ...

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