Agnes Arber

In 1909, she married Edward Alexander Newall Arber, who was a paleobotanist and the couple was blessed with a child named Muriel Agnes Arber.

The family shifted to Cambridge and Agnes stayed there until her death on 22 March, 1960.

Agnes was born to Henry Robertson and Agnes Lucy Turner on 23rd February, 1879, in London. She was the eldest of four children and her siblings were named Donald Struan Robertson, Margaret Robertson and Janet Robertson.

She received education from ‘North London Collegiate School’, where she cultivated an interest for the subject of botany. Her first research work was published in her school magazine, in 1894.

Following this she topped the botany paper in her class and earned a scholarship. During her school days she met plant morphologist Ethel Sargent, who later went on to become her guide in botany.

She enrolled at the ‘University College’, London in 1897 and two years later, she completed B.Sc. Later, she joined the ‘Newnham College’ and earned a degree in Natural Sciences in 1902. She excelled as a student earning many awards and accolades.

After completing her course at the ‘Newnham College’, she joined Ethel Sargent and for one year worked in her laboratory located in Reigate. There Sargent taught her to make plant specimens with the help of micro techniques, for microscopic evaluation.

During 1902-03, she aided Sargent in the research involving seedling structure, and during the same time, this biologist penned her first paper entitled ‘Notes on the anatomy of Macrozamia heteromera’ which was published in ‘Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society’.

She then became a holder of the ‘Quain Studentship’ in Biology at the ‘University College’, London. In 1905, she received her Doctorate of Science. During the years at this institute, she did research work on the group of plants which come under the gymnosperm category. She wrote many research papers about the morphology and anatomy of these plants.

She relocated to Cambridge in the year 1909, and earned a place in the ‘Balfour Laboratory for Women’ under the ‘Newnham College’.

In 1912, her first book ‘Herbals, their origin and evolution’ was published and the same year, the ‘Newnham College’ bestowed her with a Research Fellowship.

In 1950, she penned the book entitled ‘The Natural Philosophy of Plant Form’ became one of the most renowned works of this remarkable plant morphologist. The book focusses on the transition from research to the establishment of a philosophy. In this book she introduces the ‘partial-shoot theory of the leaf’. The theory says that each component of a plant is either a shoot or a partial-shoot.