Botany at Manchester: Prof. J. M. F. Drummond

Abstract

PBOF. J. M. F. DRUMMOND, Harrison professor of botany and director of the botanical laboratories in the University of Manchester, retires at the end of the current academic session. Prof. Drummond was educated at King's College, London, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he held the Frank Smart Research Studentship during 1904-6. His first academic appointment was at Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was lecturer in botany during 1906-9. He then transferred to the University of Glasgow, where, under Prof. F. O. Bower, he was lecturer in plant physiology from 1909 until 1921. Then for four years he was director of the Scottish Plant-Breeding Station, being the first director of that Institute. In 1925, he was appointed to succeed Prof. Bower as regius professor of botany in the University of Glasgow, and in 1930 transferred to the Harrison chair at Manchester. Prof. Drummond's outstanding published work was his translation from the German of Haberlandt's “Physiological Plant Anatomy”, a book which for years had considerable influence on the development of plant anatomical studies. But it is certain that Prof. Drummond's greatest influence lay in his encouragement of young research workers and lecturers under his charge. Nothing in this connexion was ever too much trouble for him, and there are many present-day botanists and others who owe much to the sympathetic interest and practical support of Prof. Drummond in the formative years of their professional careers. Prof. Drummond also had a brilliant military career during the First World War, and during the second was an enthusiastic worker in charge of the Manchester University Contingent Senior Training Corps.