Edith Philip Smith

She was one of the first female graduates to receive a degree at the University of Oxford when the first women's graduation ceremony was held there in 1920.[1] She studied at Somerville College, and in June 1920 passed exams in the School of Natural Science with first-class honours, leading to a BA.[2] She then spent a year at Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, and undertook research in the plant physiology laboratory at Harvard. Next came a period in the Department of Botany at King's College London. In 1925 she was awarded a PhD from the University of Edinburgh.[3] The following year, 1926, she was appointed as a lecturer in botany at University College, Dundee, which at that time was part of the University of St Andrews.[4]

Over the next decade Smith published various botanical papers, a textbook and an ecological report of a 1933 expedition to South Rona with scientific colleagues. She spoke about her survey of the island at a meeting of the British Association in Aberdeen. The report was illustrated with several of her own photographs. She told a newspaper that she was "official photographer and cook" for the South Rona team.[5] She created her own "lantern slides" for lectures, both for university lectures and for numerous talks to the public and to local associations, reported in the Dundee newspapers.[6] One article said she was "well known as a brilliant and entertaining lecturer".[7] She was also an exhibiting member of the Society of Scottish Artists.[8]

In 1932 she started the Dundee Soroptimist Club, a group for professional women interested in good citizenship and service to others. Smith was the first president,[9] and in 1935 she was elected president of the National Union of Soroptimist Clubs of Great Britain and Ireland. After a year she resigned that post for health reasons.[10]

She was awarded a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1941 after presenting a thesis called Stelar Structure in the Dicotyledons.[11] Around the same time she addressed the Royal Society of Edinburgh on Studies in the Vascular Anatomy of Trees and Herbs.[12] She became a fellow of the Society in 1953 and two years later was appointed Head of the Department of Botany at the recently restructured Queen's College, Dundee.[13] She retired in 1960 and died on 17 May 1976.[3] A collection of her papers are held by the University of Dundee's Archives.[14]

Edith Philip Smith was born in Stirling on 9 March 1897, the eldest child of Edith Abbot Philip and James Cruickshank Smith CBE LittD LLD.[3][15] At that time J.C.Smith was Rector of Stirling High School, but for most of his career he was a senior chief inspector of schools as well as a literary scholar.[16] The family moved away from Stirling in 1899 and lived in Glasgow, Perth and Fife. Smith's obituary described his wife as "sister of Lady Beveridge".[16] Lady Beveridge was the name after her second marriage of Jessie (aka Janet) Thomson Mair née Philip.[17] One of her children was anthropologist Lucy Philip Mair, a first cousin of Edith Philip Smith. Her mother and aunt were amongst the children of a well-educated Dundee joiner and builder running a successful business.[17][15]

One of Edith's three sisters, Amy Moir Philip Pantin née Smith, trained as a zoologist, then became a doctor and member of the Medical Women's Federation.[18] She was married to the zoologist Carl Pantin.[19]

• 1922 Comparative Studies on Respiration XXII. The Effect of Lactic Acid on the Respiration of Wheat, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp307-310
• 1922 A Note on Conjugation in Zygnema, Annals of Botany
• 1924 The Effect of General Anaesthetics on the Respiration of Cereals. I. Carbon Dioxide Production, Annals of Botany
• 1927 The origin of adventitious growths in coleus, Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh
• 1927 The anatomy and propagation of Clematis, Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh
• 1928 A Comparative Study of the Stem Structure of the Genus Clematis, with special reference to Anatomical Changes induced by Vegetative Propagation, Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh
• 1930 Flower colours as natural indicators, Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh
• 1932 Experimental biology, Oxford
• 1933 The calibration of flower colour indicators, Protoplasma
• 1934 The Vegetation of South Rona, The Scottish Naturalist, no.210

Not a complete list.