Papers relating to the Department of Botany (including cryptogamic botany). The papers cover the usual range of administrative issues, and include Department's research into byssinosis, funded by the British Cotton Growers Association [the Department of Occupational Health undertook complementary research]. Also of interest is correspondence (1962) relating to the erection of a memorial in Japan to Kathleen Drew Baker (1901-1957), a long-serving member of the Department. Drew Baker had carried out innovative research into the cultivation of seaweed for food, which had proved highly successful in Japan.
Other subjects covered include: an appeal by Professor Harland to the Agricultural Research Council for funds to research plant genetics; differences of opinion between Harland and Professor Wardlaw (cryptogamic botany) over the running of the Department (1950); the management of Jodrell Bank grounds; the employment of student gardeners; a memorandum by Professor Wardlaw on the position of botany at the University, dated November 1963, and a letter from Wardlaw, 11 January 1965, outlining his views on the teaching of plant taxonomy in response to an enquiry by the Royal Society.
Former reference: 282