Winifred Evelyn Frost (2 March 1902-August 1979) was a freshwater biologist. Her research focused primarily on

eels Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

minnows Minnow is the common name for a number of species of small freshwater fish, belonging to several genera of the families Cyprinidae and Leuciscidae. They are also known in Ireland as pinkeens. Smaller fish in the subfamily Leusciscidae are co ...

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

, and

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by observing fish in the wild. After some time as chair, Frost was then appointed president of the Windermere and District Angling Association.

Early life and education

From 1913 to 1916, Frost attended County Secondary School in

Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston ...

, followed by Cowley Girls' School in St. Helens from 1917 to 1920. She earned her

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

from

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

from 1920 to 1923, as well as her

Diploma of Education The Diploma of Education, often abbreviated to DipEd or GradDipEd, is a postgraduate qualification offered in many Commonwealth countries including Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Overview The diploma can build on the ...

in 1924.

Career

Frost worked with Professor James Johnstone researching

euphausids Krill are small crustaceans of the order (biology), order Euphausiacea, and are found in all the world's oceans. The name "krill" comes from the Norwegian language, Norwegian word ', meaning "small Fry (biology), fry of fish", which is also oft ...

at Liverpool University, where she also earned her

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

in zoology in 1926. Starting in 1938, Frost worked as an assistant inspector studying trout in the

River Liffey The River Liffey (Irish: ''An Life'', historically ''An Ruirthe(a)ch'') is a river in eastern Ireland that ultimately flows through the centre of Dublin to its mouth within Dublin Bay. Its major tributaries include the River Dodder, the River ...

for the Fisheries Branch in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. That same year, she became a research scientist for the

Freshwater Biological Association The Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) is an independent scientific organisation founded in 1929 in Cumbria by Felix Eugen Fritsch, William Harold Pearsall, Francis Balfour-Browne, and Robert Gurney among others. Whilst originally created to ...

. In 1945, the quality of her published work encouraged Liverpool University to grant Frost her

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

. Frost co-wrote ''The Trout'', published in 1967 as part of the

New Naturalist The New Naturalist Library (also known as ''The New Naturalists'') is a series of books published by Collins in the United Kingdom, on a variety of natural history topics relevant to the British Isles. The aim of the series at the start was: "To ...

series, with Margaret E. Brown. The majority of the book was written in the late 1950s, but it took Frost and Brown, in all, 21 years to compile. Frost was also a member of the Council of Salmon and Trout Association, which facilitated her travel to central Africa where she studied eels. Frost remained a staff member at the Freshwater Biological Association until she died in 1979. She bequeathed most of her assets to the Freshwater Biological Association, which then created a scholarship to fund postgraduate students studying freshwater biology.

Publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frost, Winifred 1902 births 1979 deaths 20th-century British biologists 20th-century British women scientists Alumni of the University of Liverpool British women biologists