Reginald Edward Vaughan OBE FRIC (27 October 1895 – 29 April 1987) was a British botanist who lived and worked in

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

from 1923.

Biography

Vaughan was born in

Wooburn Wooburn is a large village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located off the A4094 road between Wooburn Green and Bourne End in the very south of the county near the River Thames, about two miles south west of Beaconsfield and four miles east ...

, Buckinghamshire, 27 October 1895, the son of Herbert and Jane Vaughan, who lived at Dell House, Wooburn. He went to

Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

where he was awarded a second class degree in Chemistry in 1920. In 1916, at the age of 20, he enlisted in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

as a Pioneer and served until he was discharged, September 1918, when he was appointed Temporary Second Lieutenant in the

Royal Garrison Artillery The Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) was formed in 1899 as a distinct arm of the British Army's Royal Regiment of Artillery serving alongside the other two arms of the Regiment, the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) ...

. He first worked at Harper Adams College but in 1923 he moved to Mauritius where he worked as a chemistry teacher at the

Royal College Curepipe The Royal College Curepipe (commonly known as RCC) is a public secondary school with high admission standards in Curepipe, Mauritius. Since 1791 it has been regarded as one of the most prestigious secondary schools in Mauritius. In the past, ...

. His interest in botany developed and from 1934 he collaborated with

Paul Octave Wiehe Paul Octave Wiehe Order of the British Empire, CBE (1910-1975) was a Mauritius, Mauritian botanist. Wiehe was born on 21 October, 1910, in Labourdonnais, Rivière du Rempart District, Rivière du Rempart. He obtained a scholarship in 1930 to stu ...

on botanical exploration and conservative, seeing the creation of 16 nature reserves between 1951 and 1974, and in 1959 the creation of the Mauritius

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

. The herbarium collection moved from

Pamplemousses Pamplemousses () is a districts of Mauritius, district of Mauritius, located in the north west of the island, and is one of the most densely populated parts of the island. The name of the district comes from the French language, French word for ...

Réduit A reduit is a fortified structure such as a citadel or a keep into which the defending troops can retreat when the outer defences are breached. The term is also used to describe an area of a country, which, through a ring of heavy fortifications o ...

, within the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute (MSIRI) which he had created, with Wiehe, in 1946. He was director of the Mauritius Institute from 1946 to 1960. He was the curator of the Herbarium from 1960 until 1969, when he retired. Together with

Joseph Guého Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

, his assistant, he added to the collections in the herbarium. He continued to work on the flora and helped initiate the Flore des Mascareignes project. During

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 opposin ...

from 1943 he worked as the chief censor for the Bureau of Information. He was elected a fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

on 8 December 1932, obtained his Ph.D. in 1934 from the University of London and later a D.Sc. He was awarded an

O.B.E. 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 ...

in the

1950 Birthday Honours The King's Birthday Honours 1950 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate the o ...

"For public services in Mauritius." He was President of the Societe Royale des Arts et des Sciences de l'ile Maurice 1957–1959. In 1921 he married Gwendolin Kerby (1897–1938) in

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. ...

. They had a daughter Phyllis, born 1923 in

Maidenhead Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England, on the southwestern bank of the River Thames. It had an estimated population of 70,374 and forms part of the border with southern Bu ...

. His second wife, Elsie, died in 1973. He is recorded returning to England in 1932, 1936, and 1940, accompanied by Phyllis, on his own in 1944, and then with Elsie in 1949. He died in Mauritius on 29 April 1987.Probate 1988. https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/ '' Albizia vaughanii'' Brenan, '' Eugenia vaughanii'' J.Guého & A.J.Scott, ''

Syzygium ''Syzygium'' () is a genus of flowering plants that belongs to the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. The genus comprises about 1200 species, and has a native range that extends from Africa and Madagascar through southern Asia east through the Pacific. I ...

vaughanii'' J.Guého & A.J.Scott, '' Croton vaughanii'' Croizat, '' Myonima vaughanii'' Verdc., are some of the species named in his honour. The RE Vaughan Building, MSIRI Compound, Reduit, Mauritius is named after him.

Selected publications

Studies on the Vegetation of Mauritius: I. A Preliminary Survey of the Plant Communities. R. E. Vaughan, P. O. Wiehe 1937. Journal of Ecology, 25(2):289–343 The grasses of Mauritius and Rodriguez. C.E. Hubbard, R.E. Vaughan. (1940). Ed. Waterlow. Nature reserves in Mauritius, Reginald Edward Vaughan 1957, Tananarive Conservation of vegetation in Africa south of the Sahara: Mauritius & Rodriguez. Vaughan, R. E. Acta Phytogeogr. Suec., 54, 1968. pp. 265–72. Annotated bibliography of Mascarene plant life: including the useful and ornamental plants of the region, covering the period 1609–1990. David H. Lorence, R.E. Vaughan. (1992). National Tropical Botanical Garden. 274 pp. ISBN 091580915X

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaughan, Reginald Edward 1895 births People from Buckinghamshire 1987 deaths Alumni of Imperial College London Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Officers of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century British botanists British botanists Fellows of the Royal Institute of Chemistry British Army personnel of World War I Royal Engineers soldiers Royal Garrison Artillery officers British emigrants to Mauritius Military personnel from Buckinghamshire