Winifred E. Frost collection

Scope and Content

This collection contains

  • correspondence over a scientific and personal nature, including perch, salmon and memorial services
  • photographs of fish including eels
  • samples of fish scales from Windermere, Cumbria
  • annotated book
  • surveys, field notebooks and data on fish including trout, eels and fish parasites

Administrative / Biographical History

Winifred Frost died age 77, a native of Cheshire who graduated from Liverpool in zoology, later awarding her the D.S.c. degree. When working at the Limnological laboratory at the Irish Fisheries department, she worked with R.Southern and Alan Gardiner, before their death. International connections include that she paid a working visit to Kenya in connection with eel research. Work after retirement included scientific papers, especially on char in association with Charlotte Kipling. For Frost's personal life she was apparently a great joker and the young and old were equally her friends , and would help children in casting a fly or looking down a microscope. (Worthington 1979:23).

Winifred Frost was an authority on the natural history of fish in the Lake District. Research includes work on euphausids with professor James Johnstone at Liverpool university and she worked for the fisheries branch at Dublin investigating trout in the River Lifey. She was appointed to the FBA in 1938 and was remembered not only for her fish expertise but for her strict attitude to students(Haines 2001: 105). She was awarded a D.S.c. by Liverpool University for her published papers, and wrote The Trout with Margaret E.Brown (Varley) published in 1967 that took 21 years to prepare. She was a member of the Council of the Salmon and trout association, and president of the Windermere and District angling association, also travelling to international scientific meetings and undertaking investigation of eels in Africa. (Haines 2001: 105)

Worthington, Barton 1979: Dr Winifred Evelyn Frost. In: The journal of the salmon and Trout Association No 217 p.22-23

Haines, Catherine 2001: international women in science. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.] : ABC-CLIO, 2001.

Access Information

Contact dis@fba.org.uk to make an appointment

Subjects