New Sibthorpian Professor at Oxford: Mr. G. E. Blackman

Abstract

MR. GEOFFREY BLACKMAN, son of Prof. V. H. Blackman, goes to Oxford next term as Sibthorpian professor of rural economy. He succeeds Prof. J. A. Scott Watson, who last year joined the Ministry of Agriculture as chief education and advisory officer. Mr. Blackman was educated at King's College School, and at Cambridge (St. John's) where he took both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos. After a year of postgraduate work in the Soil Physics Department at Rothamsted, he took up, in 1927, the headship of the Botany Section of the Jealott's Hill Research Station, Berkshire, then newly established by Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd. In one sense his researches during his eight years tenure of the post were directed to practical ends, such as the improvement of pasture by various combinations of fertilizer and grazing treatments, and the use of various chemicals in the control of weeds. But he contributed materially to the application of modern statistical methods to the botanical analysis of pastures and, what was more important from the long-term point of view, played his part, along with the Aberystwyth workers and others, in developing the ecological approach to grassland problems and to those of weed-crop competition.