Malcolm Wilson (botanist)

Malcolm Wilson FRSE FLS (1882–1960) was a 20th-century Scottish botanist and mycologist. He was an expert on the identification of dry rot and its remediation.

Life

Wilson studied science at the University of London, graduating with a BSc in 1905. In 1909 he became Senior Demonstrator in Botany at Imperial College, London. He gained a doctorate (DSc) in 1911. He was created a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1910.[1]

He joined the Botany Department of the University of Edinburgh in 1911 as the first lecturer in mycology and bacteriology.[2]

During the First World War he returned to London to serve as a pathologist at the County of London War Hospital. He returned to the University of Edinburgh after the war.

In 1920 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, Frederick Orpen Bower, James Hartley Ashworth and Robert Wallace.[3]

His students included Dr Mary Noble (1911-2002)[4] and Douglas Mackay Henderson.

He retired in 1951 and went to live with his son Graham in Sheffield, dying there on 8 July 1960.

Family

He was father to Graham Malcolm Wilson and Cedric Wilson.

Publications

• The Blueing of Coniferous Timber (1923)
• British Rust Fungi (completed and published by Douglas Mackay Henderson in 1966)

References

1. Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists: Ray Desmond
2. "Malcolm Wilson (d. 1960) - Our History". ourhistory.is.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
3. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 978-0-902198-84-5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
4. Scotsman (newspaper) obituary of Mary Noble 8 August 2002