Winifred Smith (5 November 1858 – 1925) was an English botanist and educationist. She became a lecturer in the botany department at University College, London and took a leading role in supporting women students.

First forty years

She was born in

Mortlake Mortlake is a suburban district of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south bank of the River Thames between Kew and Barnes, London, Barnes. Historically it was part of Surrey and until 1965 was in the Municipal Borough of Barnes ...

, Surrey on 5 November 1858 Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie and Joy Harvey
''The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z''
Taylor and Francis, 2000 to Fanny and James Smith, who owned and ran a building business.''London Gazette'', 5 Dec 1879
/ref>Censuses Some of Smith's education was at

Queen's College, London Queen's College is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private day school for girls aged 11–18 with an adjoining prep school for girls aged 4–11 located in the City of Westminster, London. It was founded in 1848 by theologian and social ...

, a pioneering school for girls aged from 12 to 20. She then "devoted" herself to teachingObituary, ''The Times'', 11 January 1926 p16''Journal of Botany'', vol 64, 1926 until she began studying at

University College In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies f ...

in 1899. In the late 1870s her family experienced changes: her father went bankrupt and started working as a clerk, her only sister Ethel married and moved away, and Smith and her parents moved from the long-term family home in Mortlake High Street to live in

Putney Putney () is an affluent district in southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ...

Botany

She received a BSc with honours in botany in 1904. The year before, she had published an article on ''

Macaranga ''Macaranga'' is a large genus of Old World tropical trees of the family Euphorbiaceae and the only genus in the subtribe Macaranginae (tribe Acalypheae). Native to Africa, Australasia, Asia and various islands of the Indian and Pacific Oc ...

triloba''. After getting her degree she did research in symbiosis. In 1905 she was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship enabling her to study seedling phases of rubber-producing

sapotaceae 240px, '' Madhuca longifolia'' var. ''latifolia'' in Narsapur, Medak district, India The Sapotaceae are a family of flowering plants belonging to the order (biology)">order Ericales">family (biology)">family of flowering plants belonging to th ...

under the direction of

John Bretland Farmer Sir John Bretland Farmer FRS FRSE (5 April 1865 – 26 January 1944) was a British botanist. He believed that chromomeres not chromosomes were the unit of heredity. Farmer and J. E. S. Moore introduced the term ''meiosis'' in 1905. Life ...

. She became a Fellow of the

Linnaean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

in 1908 and read a paper there on the ''Anatomy of some Sapotaceous Seedlings'' which was published in 1909. She was also a member of the

British Ecological Society The British Ecological Society is a learned society in the field of ecology that was founded in 1913. It is the oldest ecological society in the world. The Society's original objective was "to promote and foster the study of Ecology in its widest ...

University women

Smith's lectureship in botany was not quite as important to her as her "main and absorbing work", from 1912 on, of being Tutor to Women Students. This was a senior post requiring her to offer guidance and support to female students. Her obituaries emphasise what a friendly nature she had and how much people warmed to her. She was well known and well liked, and some people spoke of her affectionately as Auntie Winnie. Smith was also vice-chairman of the College Hall of Residence for women students''The Times'', 9 June 1926 p10 and involved in a range of college activities, women's societies and causes. She was living with her mother in

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also ) is an area in London, England, and is located in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. Oxford Street forms its southern boundary. An ancient parish and latterly a metropo ...

in 1901 and 1911. Sunnyside Old Forge

She was a friend of

Margaret Murray Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, sh ...

, assistant professor of egyptology at University College. Both were committed to women's education, both supported women's suffrage, and both "detested that the women members of the academic staff were treated as second-class citizens". They did not want the women academics to be limited to a cramped, inadequate common room and planned a way of making the decision-makers take note of how much more space and comfort the men had. As Murray said, "Winifred Smith...and I cooked up a little scheme to get our way". They succeeded. After her death on 24 December 1925, a Winifred Smith Memorial trust fund, announced in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', was set up in her honour. The plan was to buy a cottage near her old farmhouse at Chiddingly, Sussex for the benefit of women students and members of staff: for holidays etc. The fund was enlarged by a bequest from the recent University College provost Sir Gregory Foster to commemorate his wife Maude as well as Smith, and so the college came to own two adjoining houses, Old Forge Cottage and Sunnyside in Muddle Green. This arrangement now takes the form of the Winifred Smith and Maude Foster Memorial Fund.Winifred Smith and Maude Foster Memorial Fund
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Winifred 1858 births 1925 deaths English botanists Academics of University College London Fellows of the Linnean Society of London People from the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames People from Chiddingly