Marjorie Elizabeth Jane Chandler

Marjorie Elizabeth Jane Chandler
Born	18 May 1897 Royal Leamington Spa
Died	1 October 1983 Swindon
Nationality	United Kingdom

Marjorie Chandler (1897–1983), paleobotanist who made her own reputation as a scientist after a long partnership with Eleanor Mary Reid, as a research assistant.

Life

Marjorie Elizabeth Jane Chandler was born in Leamington Spa to jeweller, Frederick Augustus and Alice Sarah (born Roberts) Chandler. Chandler obtained a scholarship to Newnham College in 1915 after attending Leamington High School. At Cambridge University she obtained a first class degree in the natural sciences in 1919. The following year she went to work as the research assistant of Eleanor Mary Reid. Reid was one of four women who became fellows of the Geological Society that year^[1] Reid's base was in Milford-on-Sea from where she worked^[2] and where they established a lifelong scientific partnership.

Chandler and Reid researched prehistoric plants using the collections of the British Museum. After six years they published Bembridge Flora which was an extensive description of Cainozoic Plants and particularly those growing historically on the Isle of Wight. Their second volume was published by the two companions in 1933 and this looked at the fossilised plants of the clay of London. Reid's attic was their laboratory and Chandler endured the lab's frozen winter's and hot summers. Reid described the changing climatic conditions in the Tertiary period using the remains of the changing flora seen in the different aged minerals. This gave new evidence of the evolutionary changes that takes place within those plants. Reid and Chandler's studies showed that the land now known as London had at one time been part of a tropical forest.^[2] Reid was recognised for this work when she was awarded the Lyell Medal in 1936 by the Geological Society.^[3]

From 1933 Chandler took the lead focussing on Tertiary floras although Reid continued to support her and to write the occasional short paper. Chandler's finances were dependent on a small grant from the British Museum that were awarded each year. Chandler obtained her master's degree in 1948. Chandler was recognised internationally as she extended the work she and Reid had done as partners to other aspects of the Eocene and Oligocene periods. Chandler's own research described the historic plants of Dorset and Bournemouth and she created a supplement to the London Flora which ran to hundreds of pages. A noted publication of hers was The Lower Tertiary Floras of Southern England which she published in 1961.^[4]

Chandler eventually became Reid's nurse until she died in 1953 in Milford-on-Sea.^[5] Chandler herself retired and died in Swindon in 1983.^[2]

The standard author abbreviation M.Chandler is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.^[6]

References

1. Cherry Lewis; Simon J. Knell (1 January 2009). The Making of the Geological Society of London. Geological Society of London. p. 385. ISBN 978-1-86239-277-9.
2. Mary R. S. Creese, ‘Reid , Eleanor Mary (1860–1953)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011 accessed 6 Oct 2015
3. The Geological Society website list of winners, Retrieved 6 October 2015
4. Chandler, M.E.J. 1961. The lower Tertiary floras of southern England I. Palaeocene floras, London Clay flora. London: British Museum (Natural History).
5. Marilyn Ogilvie; Joy Harvey (16 December 2003). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century. Routledge. pp. 385–386. ISBN 978-1-135-96343-9.
6. "Author Query for 'M.Chandler'". International Plant Names Index.