William Brown: Pioneer Leader in Plant Pathology

Abstract

William Brown was born on 17 February 1888 in the small Scottish village of Middlebie, some seven miles north of Annan in the county of Dumfriesshire. He retained his southwestern Scottish accent until he died on 18 January 1975; the strong physical constitution that enabled him to accomplish so much also endowed him with long life. He was not obviously destined by birth for the fame that he eventually achieved. He was the second child in the family. His father, Gavin, owned a small farm and supplemented his income by acting as an agricultural engineer, especially for the repair of farm mills and suchlike. His mother, Margaret Broatch, came from a background similar to that of her husband, although a somewhat more prosperous one. So Brown's parents were unable to give him a sheltered start in his career, but what they did endow him with was infinitely more valuable: good health and a mind that he was eventual­ ly to develop to its utmost limit. He had the traditional Scottish virtue of thrift, in its wider sense of economy of effort and material, and a habit of sustained hard work, for both of which his parents had set him an example. His eldest daughter, Lucy, remarked to me that her father's movements were unusually well coordinated, so that he easily acquired the rhythm that saves energy in farm work. He was accustomed to hard work in his own large garden and continued this until well into his eighties, regularly trying out new species and cultivars. His zest for growing plants, augmented by a wide knowledge of the British flora, dominated his spare time and took over the golf, tennis, and billiards that he had played before he had a garden. Similarly, he was deft and quick in laboratory work; his senior technician, Taylor. once said to me: Many's the time I've seen the Prof take off his coat and wash up a hundred Petri dishes in twenty minutes.