Tom Harris (botanist) explained

Professor Thomas Maxwell Harris FRS^[1] (8 January 1903 – 1 May 1983)^[2] was an English paleobotanist.

Education and career

He was educated at Bootham School, York,^[3] Wyggeston School, Leicester, and University College, Nottingham, before continuing to complete his doctorate at Christ's College, Cambridge.^[2]

Tom Harris was a Palaeobotanist on East Greenland Geological Survey, 1926-27.^[4] He became a professor at the University of Reading in 1934,^[5] working in the botany department with Theodora Lisle Prankerd and Terrance Ingold. He was Head of the Department of Botany.^[6] At Reading he supervised William Chaloner and Winifred Pennington, both later professors of botany. The Harris Garden, located on the University of Reading's Whiteknights Campus, was named after him.^[7]

Harris was a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[1] He served as president of the Linnean Society of London from 1961 to 1964.

Awards

• 1968 Linnean Medal

Partial bibliography

• The Fossil Flora of Scoresby Sound East Greenland (Copenhagen, 1931).
• The British Rhaetic Flora (London, 1938).
• British Purbeck Charophyta (London, 1939).
• Liassic and Rhaetic Plants collected in 1936-38 from East Greenland, etc. (Copenhagen, 1946).
• Conifers of the Taxiodiaceæ from the Wealden Formation of Belgium, etc. (Brussels, 1953).
• The Yorkshire Jurassic flora (five volumes, London, 1961–1979).

Notes and References

1. Chaloner . W. G.. William Gilbert Chaloner . 10.1098/rsbm.1985.0009 . Thomas Maxwell Harris. 8 January 1903 – 1 May 1983 . . 31 . 228–260. 1985 . 72170558.
2. http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U165071 HARRIS, Thomas Maxwell
3. Book: Bootham School Register . York, England . Bootham Old Scholars Association . 2011.
4. Book: Desmond, Ray . Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists . Taylor & Francis . 1977 . 9780850660890.
5. Chaloner. W. G.. 1985. Thomas Maxwell Harris. 8 January 1903 – 1 May 1983. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 31. 229–260. 10.1098/rsbm.1985.0009 . 0080-4606. 769926. 72170558 .
6. J. B. Riding (interviewer), Interview with Professor William G. (Bill) Chaloner, at University College London, AASP Oral History Project, The Palynological Society, 16 December 2002.
7. Web site: The Harris Garden – Description . Friends of the Harris Garden . 2009-05-28 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090123110520/http://friendsoftheharrisgarden.org.uk/garden_description.html . 23 January 2009 .