Lucy Cranwell
Lucy Cranwell Auckland Museum, University of Arizona | |
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Author abbrev. (botany) | Cranwell |
Lucy May Cranwell
Early life and education
Cranwell was born in
During her university studies she developed a love of
Auckland Museum
In April 1929, a few weeks after graduating, the director of the
As well as finding botanical specimens for display she also set about organising the Cheeseman herbarium of about 10,000 specimens. During her 14 years as botany curator she introduced "botany trots" for children to places like Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf, wrote weekly short articles for children about plants for the Auckland Star newspaper, and collected over 4000 plants for the herbarium during her 14 years as the botanist.
Field work
Cranwell's field work was among the first and certainly the most extensive undertaken by a woman scientist in New Zealand. These included trips into the pristine, ancient podocarp forests of the King Country looking for root parasites, various trips to Te Moehau peak on the tip of the Coromandel peninsula where she documented the unique alpine flora found there, and several visits to Maungapohatu in Te Urewera. She also undertook a study of marine algae of New Zealand's northern islands (a green and a red algae are named after her), surveys of Auckland Harbour and its west coast between Muriwai and Piha, as well as several trips to take fossil pollen samples from South Island bogs.[3]
Field trips in the 1920s and 1930s were tough assignments. Cranwell and her botanical companion Lucy Moore often slept out in the open in canvas sleeping bags, occasionally waking up covered in frost. Her field experience led her to be a conservationist recognising early that possums and wallabies represented a serious threat to the biodiversity of New Zealand forests. In 1940, Cranwell published The Botany of Auckland, the first definitive work of flora in the Auckland Region.[1]
Palynology
During a trip to Europe, which included attending the International Botanical Congress in Amsterdam in 1935, she was invited by Professor Lennart von Post of Stockholm to learn his method of fossil pollen analysis. With knowledge of this new field study, palynology, Cranwell opened up a whole new field of botany in New Zealand.[3] Her work analysing pollen taken from the sediment in bogs revealed the past botanical assemblages in New Zealand and aided an understanding of New Zealand's past as part of the supercontinent of Gondawana.
She was made a Fellow of the Linnaean Society (London) in November 1937, "in recognition of botanical research work done both in New Zealand and Sweden and because of efforts she has made to stimulate interest in botany through her position at the Auckland Museum." In the same year she won New Zealand's premier conservation award, the Loder Cup. She was awarded the Hector Medal from the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1954, the first woman ever to receive this honour.[4]
War effort and marriage
Cranwell's war effort during World War II was to research to and prepare a booklet for downed allied airmen called Food is Where You Find It: A Guide to Emergency Foods of the Western Pacific.[5] It detailed, with illustrations, what fish and foods the downed pilots with could eat. The booklet proved extremely popular and five facsimile impressions followed the initial print run of 5,000 copies. Cranwell also recommended to the Ministry of Works that wattle trees, pampas grass and nasturtiums should be planted across New Zealand as emergency rations and stock feed.[6]
Cranwell married Captain (later Major)
Recognition
Lucy May Cranwell Smith was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1944, and was the second woman to receive this award.[7][8] In 1992, Cranwell was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Auckland.[9]
In 2017, Cranwell was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.[10]
Legacy
The New Zealand Association of Scientists Cranwell Medal is awarded to a practising scientist for excellence in communicating science to the general public in any area of science or technology. In 2017 this medal was renamed from the Science Communicator Medal to honour Cranwell, a remarkable communicator of science – in a time when this was essentially unheard of. The inaugural winner was the physicist Ocean Mercier.[11]
Cranwell's childhood home in Henderson, which was bought by her father from Thomas Henderson, was donated to Waitakere City by the Cranwell family, and is now the location of Cranwell Park.[1][12]
The New Zealand native grass species Festuca luciarum is named after both her and Lucy Moore. A tramping track at Anawhata on the west coast of the Waitākere Ranges, which Cranwell was a passionate advocate for, is named after Cranwell.[13]
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-476-00520-4.
- ^ a b c Obituary in the Yearbook of the Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand 2000
- ^ a b Obituary by Ewen Cameron in the New Zealand Journal of Botany https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0028825X.2000.9512702
- ^ University of Arizona obituary http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/lcrnwobt.html Archived 12 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Food is where you find it : a guide to emergency foods of the Western Pacific". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
- Wikidata Q118286377.
- ^ "A-C". Royal Society Te Apārangi. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ Cameron, Ewen K. (12 July 2017). "Lucy Cranwell - Pioneering young curator, adventurous and outstanding". Auckland War Memorial Museum.
- Wikidata Q115749508.
- ^ "Lucy Cranwell". Royal Society Te Apārangi. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
- ^ "New Zealand Association of Scientists - Cranwell Medal". scientists.org.nz. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
- ^ "Cranwell Park". Auckland Council. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
- ISBN 9781869790080.
External links
- Information on an exhibit held at the Auckland Museum about Lucy Cranwell
- Lucy Cranwell - Pioneering young curator, adventurous and outstanding by Ewen K. Cameron, Auckland War Memorial Museum.