Helen Gwynne-Vaughan

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Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan

GBE
Portrait by William Orpen, 1918
Birth nameHelen Charlotte Isabella Fraser
Born(1879-01-21)21 January 1879
Westminster, London, England
Died26 August 1967(1967-08-26) (aged 88)
Storrington, Sussex, England
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchAuxiliary Territorial Service
RankDirector
UnitFirst Chief Controller, Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) in France
Commands heldWomen's Royal Air Force
Spouse(s)David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan
(m. 1911–1915, his death)

Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne-Vaughan,

mycologist. During the First World War, she served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and then as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) from 1918 to 1919. During the Second World War, from 1939 to 1941, she served as Chief Controller of the Auxiliary Territorial Service
(ATS).

Early life and education

Helen Charlotte Isabella Fraser was born on 21 January 1879 in

Rifle Brigade and the Royal Ayrshire and Wigton Rifle militia. Lucy Fraser was a novelist and extra lady-in-waiting to HRH Princess Beatrice;[2][1][3] in 1887, having been widowed, she remarried, to diplomat Francis Hay-Newton.[1]

Due to her stepfather's career, Fraser spent a large amount of her youth living abroad and was educated mainly by governesses.[1] From 1895 to 1896, she was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, an all-girls private boarding school in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.[1][3]

In 1899, she attended the ladies' department of

King's College, London to study for the University of Oxford entrance exams.[1] However, she stayed on at King's College as one of its first female students to study botany and zoology.[1][4] She was awarded the Carter Medal in 1902, and graduated from the University of London with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in 1904.[3] She also studied under Margaret Jane Benson, head of the Department of Botany at Royal Holloway College.[5] She was awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) degree in 1907.[3]

Career

Academic career

Having completed her bachelor's degree, she spent 1904 working as a

University College, Nottingham.[1][4] In 1909, she was named head of the botany department at Birkbeck College, London.[3] From 1917 to 1919, she took a break from academia to serve during the First World War.[1]

In 1920 she applied for the

Professor Emeritus by the University of London.[1][3]

Military service

In 1917, she was appointed Controller of the

Mona Chalmers Watson, Chief Controller of the WAAC in London[6] For her service she was the first woman to be awarded a military DBE in January 1918.[7] She served reluctantly as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) from September 1918 until December 1919.[8]

Gwynne-Vaughan was first made Chief Controller of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in 1939.[7] This was a role that Mary Baxter Ellis had turned down as she preferred to lead the volunteer First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANYs). Ellis agreed however to supply 1500 women to serve with the ATS as long as the rest of the FANY could be independent. This was agreed but Gwynne-Vaughan broke the agreement and forced the FANY to be absorbed.[9] Gwynne-Vaughan held the role to 1941.[7]

Other work

Gwynne-Vaughan was interested in politics. While she was at Royal Holloway College she and Louisa Garrett Anderson co-founded the University of London Suffrage Society.[10] In 1926 she spoke as part of a National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship meeting.[11]

She stood in the

Unionist parliamentary candidate for Camberwell North in the 1922, 1923, and 1924 General Elections.[1]
She lost by 254 votes in 1922, by 4686 in 1923, and by 3736 in 1924.

She was also active in

Silver Fish. In 1930, Gwynne-Vaughan chaired the Guides' Sixth World Conference. At this conference, the constitution of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts was agreed and Olave Baden-Powell
was unanimously voted World Chief Guide.

After her retirement in 1944 she was the full-time honorary secretary of the London branch of the Soldiers', Sailors' and Air Force Association until 1962.[10]

Personal life

In 1911, she married

FRSE FLS (1871–1915), whom she had succeeded as head of the botany department at Birkbeck College, London.[1] Her husband died from tuberculosis after four years of marriage, and they did not have any children.[1][3] She died at her home in Storrington, Sussex, in 1967, aged 88.[12]

Honours and distinctions

In the

Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) "for public and scientific services".[7][14][15]

She was elected to the

Linnean Society in 1905 and awarded its Trail Medal in 1920.[1][16]

She was the president of the British Mycological Society in 1928.[10]

Fungal species named in her honour include Palaeoendogone gwynne-vaughaniae[17] and Pleurage gwynne-vaughaniae.[18]

English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque in Gwynne-Vaughan's honour in March 2020, placed on the house on Bedford Avenue in Bloomsbury London, where she lived for nearly 50 years.[19]

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33623. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, vol. 1 p. 1411, vol. 3 p. 3513
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U50455. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help
    )
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-1860645020
    .
  5. Marilyn Ogilvie, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century, Volume 1 (Google eBook)
    , p. 116, Taylor & Francis US, 2000.
  6. ^ Noakes, Lucy. Women in the British Army Routledge, 2006, p. 68
  7. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33623. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  8. ^ "Commandant of the WRAF September 1918-December 1919". Archived from the original on 5 August 2010. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  9. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70523. Retrieved 21 May 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  10. ^ a b c Dearnley, Elizabeth. "Fungi and the forces: The pioneering life of Helen Gwynne-Vaughan". University of London. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  11. ^ "The". The Woman Teacher (Vol. 7 No. 34 ed.). London, UK: National Union of Women Teachers. 1926. p. 5.
  12. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/1967/08/31/archives/dame-helen-gwynnevaughan-botanist-and-army-leader-dies.html
  13. ^ "No. 31378". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 May 1919. p. 7026.
  14. ^ "No. 33501". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 May 1929. p. 3675.
  15. OCLC 773504359
    .
  16. ^ Beharrell, Will; Douglas, Gina. "New Exhibition: Celebrating the Linnean Society's First Women Fellows". The Linnean Society of London. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  17. PMID 24750009
    .
  18. doi:10.1016/s0007-1536(60)80032-0
    .
  19. ^ "Six New Blue Plaques for Women". English Heritage. Retrieved 4 March 2020.

Sources

  • Kerr, Rose
    (1976). Story of the Girl Guides 1908-1938. London: Girl Guides Association.
  • Noakes, Lucy (2006). Women in the British Army; War and the Gentle Sex, 1907-1948. London: Routledge.
Military offices
Preceded by Commandant, Women's Royal Air Force
1918–1919 		Succeeded by
Appointment abolished
Preceded by
New appointment
 Director, Auxiliary Territorial Service
1939–1941 		Succeeded by
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