Professor Thomas Maxwell Harris FRS (8 January 1903 – 1 May 1983)HARRIS, Thomas Maxwell
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2015; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 was an English

paleobotanist Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...

Education and career

He was educated at

Bootham School Bootham School is an independent Quaker boarding school, on Bootham in the city of York in England. It accepts boys and girls ages 3–19, and had an enrolment of 605 pupils in 2016. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The school ...

, York, Wyggeston School, Leicester, and

University College, Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

, before continuing to complete his doctorate at

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

. Tom Harris became a professor at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in 1934, working in the botany department with

Theodora Lisle Prankerd Theodora Lisle Prankerd (21 June 1878 – 11 November 1939) was a British botanist who worked on the growth of ferns, and lectured at Bedford College and the University of Reading. Early life and education Theodora Lisle Prankerd was born in ...

and Terrance Ingold. He was Head of the Department of

Botany 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 w ...

.J. B. Riding (interviewer)
Interview with Professor William G. (Bill) Chaloner
, at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, AASP Oral History Project,
The Palynological Society
', 16 December 2002. At Reading he supervised

William Chaloner William Chaloner (1650 – 22 March 1699) was a serial counterfeit coiner and confidence trickster, who was imprisoned in Newgate Prison several times and eventually proven guilty of high treason by Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Royal Mint. ...

and

Winifred Pennington Winifred Anne Tutin (née Pennington) Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1915 – 1 May 2007) was a British limnologist and biologist. Life Pennington was born in Barrow-in-Furness on 8 October 1915, the daughter of Albert Roger ...

, both later professors of botany. The

Harris Garden The Harris Garden is a botanical garden of the University of Reading, situated about from the centre of the English town of Reading. It was established in 1972 and expanded into its current form in 1988. It is named after Professor Tom H ...

, located on the University of Reading's

Whiteknights Campus Whiteknights Park, or the Whiteknights Campus of the University of Reading, is the principal campus of that university. The park covers the area of the manor of Earley Whiteknights, also known as Earley St Nicholas and Earley Regis. Whit ...

, was named after him. Harris was 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 ...

. He served as president of the

Linnean Society of London 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 ...

from 1961 to 1964.

Awards

*1968

Linnean Medal The Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or (as has been common since 1958) to one of each in the same year. The medal was of gold until 1976, and ...

Partial bibliography

* ''The Fossil Flora of Scoresby Sound East Greenland'' (

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, 1931). * ''The British Rhaetic Flora'' (

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, 1938). * ''British Purbeck Charophyta'' (London, 1939). * ''Liassic and Rhaetic Plants collected in 1936-38 from East Greenland, etc.'' (Copenhagen, 1946). * ''Conifers of the Taxiodiaceæ from the Wealden Formation of Belgium, etc.'' (

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, 1953). * ''The Yorkshire Jurassic flora'' (five volumes, London, 1961–1979).

References

1903 births 1983 deaths British palaeontologists Paleobotanists 20th-century British botanists People educated at Bootham School People educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys Alumni of the University of Nottingham Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Reading Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences {{UK-botanist-stub