Agnes Arber facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Agnes Arber
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Arber in 1916
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| Born |
Agnes Robertson
23 February 1879 |
| Died | 22 March 1960 (aged 81) Cambridge, England
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| Alma mater | University College, London, (BSc, 1899) Newnham College (1902) University College, London (Sc.D., 1905) |
| Spouse(s) | Edward Alexander Newell Arber (m. 1909) |
| Children | Muriel Agnes (1913–2004) |
| Awards | Gold Medal of the Linnean Society of London (1948) Fellow of the Royal Society (1946) President, Botany Section, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1921) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Plant morphology, plant anatomy |
| Influences | Ethel Sargant |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | A.Arber |
Agnes Robertson Arber (23 February 1879 – 22 March 1960) was a British scientist who studied plants. She was a plant morphologist (someone who studies the shapes and forms of plants) and anatomist (someone who studies the internal structures of plants). She also wrote about the history of botany and the philosophy of biology.
Agnes Arber was born in London but spent most of her life in Cambridge, England. She made history as the first woman botanist to become a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1946. This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. She was also the first woman to receive the Gold Medal from the Linnean Society of London in 1948. This award recognized her amazing work in plant science.
Her main scientific research focused on a group of flowering plants called monocotyledons. She also helped develop how we study plant shapes in the early 1900s. Later in her career, she explored the philosophical side of botany, thinking about how biological research works.
Contents
Biography
Agnes Arber was born on February 23, 1879, in London. She was the oldest of four children. Her father, Henry Robert Robertson, was an artist, and her mother was Agnes Lucy Turner. Her siblings included Donald Struan Robertson, who became a famous Greek professor, and Margaret Robertson, who was a notable women's rights activist. Her father taught her how to draw, which was a skill she used later to illustrate her own science books.
When she was eight, Agnes went to the North London Collegiate School. This school was known for its excellent education for girls. There, her science teacher, Edith Aitken, helped Agnes discover her love for botany. Agnes published her first research in the school magazine in 1894 and won a scholarship for her botany skills. At school, she also met Ethel Sargant, another plant scientist who became her mentor and friend. Sargant greatly influenced Agnes's research ideas.
In 1897, Agnes started studying at University College, London, where she earned her first science degree in 1899. She then went to Newnham College in Cambridge and earned another degree in Natural Sciences. She got top grades in all her exams at both universities and won several awards. After finishing her Cambridge degree in 1902, Agnes worked with Ethel Sargant for a year. She then returned to University College, London, and earned her Doctorate of Science degree in 1905.
In 1909, Agnes Arber married Edward Alexander Newell Arber, who was also a plant scientist. She moved back to Cambridge, where she lived for the rest of her life. Their only child, Muriel Agnes Arber, was born in 1913 and later became a geologist. Agnes and her husband shared many interests and had a happy marriage. In 1912, Agnes received a research grant from Newnham College and published her first book that same year. Her husband passed away in 1918 after being ill. Agnes never remarried and continued her important research.
She worked in the Balfour Laboratory for Women until it closed in 1927. After that, she set up a small laboratory in a back room of her house. She continued her hands-on research there until the 1940s, when she started focusing more on philosophical studies. Agnes Arber passed away on March 22, 1960, at the age of 81.
Scientific Career
Early Research
Before attending University College, London, Agnes spent a summer in 1897 working with Ethel Sargant. Sargant taught her special techniques to prepare plant samples for looking at under a microscope. Agnes often returned to Sargant's lab during her university holidays. From 1902 to 1903, Sargant hired Agnes as a research assistant. During this time, in 1903, Agnes published her first scientific paper about the anatomy of a plant called Macrozamia heteromera.
While at University College London, Agnes studied a group of plants called gymnosperms. She wrote several papers about their shapes and internal structures. The study of plant shapes, known as plant morphology, became a main focus of her later work.
Work at Balfour Laboratory, Cambridge
In 1909, Newnham College gave Agnes Arber space in the Balfour Laboratory for Women. This lab was created in 1884 for women students and researchers, as women were not allowed in other university labs at that time. Agnes worked there until the lab closed in 1927.
After receiving a research grant from Newnham College, Agnes published her first book in 1912, called Herbals, their origin and evolution. This book described how printed Herbals (books about plants and their uses) changed between 1470 and 1670. Agnes showed how the study of plants, or botany, grew as a science by looking at how these books described and classified plants. She used the large collection of Herbals in the Cambridge Botany School library for her research. This book was updated in 1938 and is still considered a very important book on the history of Herbals.
Agnes focused her research on the internal structure and shape of monocot plants, a group she learned about from Ethel Sargant. By 1920, she had written two books and 94 other scientific papers. Her second book, Water Plants, was published in 1920. In this book, Agnes compared different aquatic plants by looking at their shapes. She also explained the general ideas she used for her analysis. Her study was the first to give a full description and explanation of aquatic plants.
In 1925, Agnes published her third book, The Monocotyledons. This book continued her method of analyzing plant shapes, which she had used in Water Plants. She provided a detailed study of monocot plants by comparing their inside and outside structures. She also clearly discussed her methods and ideas about studying plant shapes. Agnes helped explain the differences between how British and European scientists approached plant morphology. She separated "pure" morphology (studying plant shapes for basic knowledge) from "applied" morphology (using plant shapes to answer bigger questions, like how plants evolved).
Later Research
After the Balfour Laboratory closed, Agnes set up a small lab in a back room of her house to continue her research. The head of the Botany School at Cambridge said there was no space for her there. Agnes had learned about private research from Ethel Sargant. She later told friends that she liked working from home because it allowed her to research independently, even though it wasn't her first choice.
After The Monocotyledons, Agnes continued to study monocots, focusing on the Gramineae family, which includes cereals, grasses, and bamboo. This led to her last book on plant shapes, The Gramineae, published in 1934. In this book, Agnes described the life cycles, early development, and reproduction of cereals, grasses, and bamboo. She used comparative analysis to study these plants. She recognized how important these plants are to human societies and started her book with their history in relation to people. Before this book, she had published 10 papers in The Annals of Botany sharing her research findings.
Between 1930 and 1942, Agnes researched the structure of flowers. She looked at many different flower forms and used information about their shapes to understand other flower structures. Her findings were published in 10 review papers during this time. In 1937, she published a summary of ideas about floral structure, which was considered a very important article for studies on plant shapes.
In January 1942, Agnes published her last paper that involved new botanical research. After this, all her writings were about historical and philosophical topics.
Philosophical Studies
During the Second World War, Agnes found it hard to keep her small home laboratory running because supplies were difficult to get. This led her to stop lab work and focus more on history and philosophy. Agnes wrote about famous botanists from the past, including a comparison of Nehemiah Grew and Marcello Malpighi in 1942, John Ray in 1943, and Sir Joseph Banks in 1945.
Agnes had been interested in the ideas of Goethe since school. In 1946, she published Goethe's Botany, which was her translation of Goethe's book Metamorphosis of Plants (1790). She also added her own introduction and explanation of the texts.
Her book The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form, published in 1950, is considered one of her most important works. It looks at two thousand years of biological ideas. Agnes discussed how scientists form ideas from their research and explored the philosophy behind studying plant shapes. She used this to examine the structure of flowering plants and suggested her "partial-shoot theory of the leaf." This theory says that every part of a plant is like a small shoot or a part of a shoot. Leaves, for example, are like partial shoots that don't grow as much. She explained that a leaf "reveals an inherent urge towards becoming a whole shoot, but never actually attaining this goal." Modern genetic research has supported parts of her partial-shoot theory, especially for compound leaves (leaves made of several smaller leaflets).
Agnes's studies on the philosophy of plant shapes led her to think more broadly about how science and philosophy are connected. Her book The Mind and the Eye: A Biologist's Standpoint, published in 1954, explains how biological research is done. Agnes described research as happening in six steps:
- Finding a research question.
- Collecting information through experiments or observation.
- Understanding the information.
- Checking if the understanding is correct.
- Sharing the results.
- Thinking about the research in a bigger picture, including its history and philosophy.
Her final book, The Manifold and the One, published in 1957, explored even bigger philosophical questions. It looked at ideas from literature, science, religion, and different philosophies, including Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist ideas. She discussed what she called the "mystical experience," which she described as a strong feeling of understanding everything as a single, unified whole.
Recognition and Awards
In 1921, Agnes was offered the position of president of the botany section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. She followed Edith Saunders, who had been president the year before. However, Agnes soon resigned. When she was offered the presidency again in 1926, she did not accept it.
In 1946, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a very prestigious scientific organization. In 1948, she received the Gold Medal of the Linnean Society of London for her contributions to botany.
Legacy
A Blue Plaque was placed on her childhood home (9 Elsworthy Terrace, Primrose Hill, London) in 2018. These plaques mark buildings where famous people lived or important events happened.
See also
In Spanish: Agnes Arber para niños
