Catalogue description Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Arthur Roy Clapham FRS (1904-1990), botanist

This record is held by Sheffield University: Special Collections and Archives

Details of NCUACS 89.2.00
Reference: NCUACS 89.2.00
Title: Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Arthur Roy Clapham FRS (1904-1990), botanist
Description:

SECTION A BIOGRAPHICAL NCUACS 89.2.00/A.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/A.37

 

SECTION B UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD NCUACS 89.2.00/B.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/B.73

 

SECTION C RESEARCH NCUACS 89.2.00/C.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/C.78

 

SECTION D NATURE CONSERVANCY NCUACS 89.2.00/D.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/D.75

 

SECTION E INTERNATIONAL BIOLOGICAL PROGRAMME NCUACS 89.2.00/E.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/E.67

 

SECTION F PUBLICATIONS AND LECTURES NCUACS 89.2.00/F.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/F.117

 

SECTION G SOCIETIES AND ORGANISATIONS NCUACS 89.2.00/G.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/G.26

 

SECTION H VISITS AND CONFERENCES NCUACS 89.2.00/H.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/H.50

 

SECTION J CORRESPONDENCE NCUACS 89.2.00/J.1-NCUACS 89.2.00/J.44

 

The material is presented in the order given in the List of Contents. It covers the period 1925-1994.

 

Section A, Biographical, is not substantial. There are letters of congratulation on his election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1959 and the award of the CBE in 1969. There is also some family correspondence, chiefly from Clapham to his wife for the periods when Clapham was overseas.

 

Section B, University of Sheffield, chiefly comprises notes and teaching material for Clapham's lectures and field trips at the University of Sheffield. Subjects range from biogeography to statistics. The papers were found in Clapham's folders and envelopes in considerable disorder and represent lectures delivered over a number of decades and for a number of courses. Very few of the papers are dated.

 

Section C, Research, is notes and notebooks dating from post-graduate research at Cambridge in the mid-1920s to post-retirement work in the early 1970s. It includes Clapham's Ph.D. thesis, papers relating to forestry research in the 1940s, survey work in Glen Affric, Invernesshire in 1947 and botanical notes on visits abroad and from field trips. A number of notebooks used by Clapham during visits in the UK and abroad were kept as daily diaries as well as for a botanical record of the visit. Some research material may also be found with the University of Sheffield lecture notes in section B, with which some of it was kept, and in the Publications and lectures section F, including work on German forests undertaken during the Second World War.

 

Section D, Nature Conservancy, covers the period 1957 to 1974. There is some general policy material, 1959-1971, including papers relating to the relationship between the Nature Conservancy and the Natural Environment Research Council. The bulk of the material, however, is Scientific Policy Committee papers including papers for particular meetings and papers on particular topics kept together by Clapham. The best represented of these topics is woodland research. There is also significant material relating to Upper Teesdale in Durham. Following the flooding of a section of the valley for a reservoir the Teesdale Research Trust was established to oversee research into the flora and fauna of the remaining area. Clapham was the chairman of the Trust's Scientific Committee.

 

Section E, International Biological Programme (IBP), includes miscellaneous general papers relating to various aspects of the IBP, papers for meetings of the British National Committee for the IBP, material relating to various UK-supported projects and, the largest single component of the section, papers relating to systems of classifying vegetation types. The material covers the period 1964-1975.

 

Section F, Publications and lectures, is the largest in the collection though by no means representative of Clapham's output in these areas. Publications material covers the period 1944-1982 and includes documentation of Clapham's major books Flora of the British Isles (with T.G. Tutin and E.F. Warburg), The Oxford Book of Trees (with B.E. Nicholson), and Upper Teesdale, the area and its natural history. There are also papers and correspondence assembled by Clapham in the course of writing his Royal Society Biographical Memoirs of G.R.S. Snow, W.H. Pearsall, W.O. James and E.J. Salisbury. The material relating to Salisbury includes a short sequence of Salisbury's own correspondence spanning his career. Public and invitation lectures are not well documented. The most significant material is for lectures on 'The shapes of trees' and 'Common plants'.

 

Section G, Societies and organisations, is slight. The largest component is papers of the Botanical Society of the British Isles' Distribution-Maps Committee and there is also some material relating to the Aldabra Research Committee of the Royal Society.

 

Section H, Visits and conferences, documents a few of the visits made and conferences attended between 1933 and 1984. The section does not fully represent the extent of Clapham's travel as is indicated, for example, by his notebooks in section C and passports in section A. The most significant groups of material relate to Clapham's visit to Kenya in connection with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources General Assembly in Kenya in 1963 and visits to Australia and Pacific islands in 1969 and Fiji in 1970-1971.

 

Section J, Correspondence, presents a short alphabetical sequence of incoming correspondence arranged alphabetically. There are few extended sequences but a number of Clapham's colleagues are represented including H. Godwin and J.L. Harley.

Note:

Compiled by Timothy E. Powell and Peter Harper

 

The work of the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and organisations:

 

The Biochemical Society

 

The British Crystallographic Association

 

The Geological Society

 

The Higher Education Funding Council for England

 

The Institute of Physics

 

The Royal Society

 

Trinity College Cambridge

 

The Wellcome Trust

"
Date: 1925-1994
Held by: Sheffield University: Special Collections and Archives, not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Creator:

Clapham, Arthur Roy, 1904-1990, scientist and botanist

Physical description: ca 560 items
Access conditions:

NOT ALL THE MATERIAL IN THIS COLLECTION MAY YET BE AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION.

 

ENQUIRIES SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO:

 

THE CURATOR OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES

 

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

 

UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

Immediate source of acquisition:

The papers were received in December 1999 from Dr Jennifer Newton (daughter) via the University of Sheffield.

Subjects:
  • Botany
Administrative / biographical background:

Arthur Roy Clapham was born in Norwich in 1904. He was educated at the City of Norwich School and in 1922 entered Downing College Cambridge as a Foundation Scholar. He gained a first class degree in the Natural Sciences Tripos, taking Botany in Part II. He was awarded the Frank Smart Prize for Botany and this studentship enabled him in 1925 to begin post-graduate research on plant physiology under F.F. Blackman. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1929.

 

In 1928 Clapham joined the staff of Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station, Harpenden as a Crop Physiologist. In 1930 he took up a post as Departmental and then University Demonstrator in Botany at the University of Oxford. In 1944 he was appointed Professor of Botany at the University of Sheffield, a post he held until retirement in 1969. He was then made Professor emeritus. Clapham served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield 1954-1958 and Acting Vice-Chancellor in 1965. As Head of the Botany Department Clapham oversaw an expansion of its activities and a growing reputation as a centre for plant ecology research. In 1965 a second chair was established, which was filled by Clapham's ex-student and friend J.L. Harley.

 

Clapham had widespread national and international commitments in botany and the related field of nature conservation. He became a member of the Nature Conservancy in 1956 and served for many years. He was Chairman of its Scientific Policy Committee for seven years, 1963-1970, and Committee for England from 1961. He also headed the Conservancy's Teesdale Research Panel and went on to serve as Chairman of the Teesdale Research Trust's Scientific Committee that effectively replaced the Panel. Clapham was on the Council of the British Ecological Society, serving as Secretary 1948-1950 and President 1954-1956, and on the Council of the Linnean Society 1960-1963 (President 1967-1970). He was an influential member of many local groups, including the Derbyshire Naturalists' Trust, which he helped to found in 1962 (Chairman until 1969). Internationally Clapham was closely involved in the International Union of Biological Sciences' International Biological Programme (IBP), serving as chairman of the British National Committee for the IBP and as a member of its Productivity of Terrestrial Communities Subcommittee. He maintained an active interest in British research conducted for the IBP and participated in its African Savannah project and in the IBP's work on various systems of classifying vegetation. He made many overseas visits, including advising on the development of the University of the South Pacific in Fiji 1970-1971.

 

Clapham's contributions to botany were ecological rather than in the area of taxonomy. His research began from statistical studies of variance on small-plot field experiments at Rothamsted. Papers from his time at Oxford utilised statistical methods in studying the structure of vegetation distribution and its changes over time and the interacting influences at work. Clapham may have been the first to use the term 'ecosystem', suggesting it to A.G Tansley in the early 1930s. Following his move to Sheffield Clapham made major contributions to research through his work, with T.G. Tutin and E.F. Warburg, on the Flora of the British Isles, (1st ed., Cambridge 1952). This became the standard British Flora for over forty years, being revised for new editions in 1963 and 1987. The smaller Excursion Flora of the British Isles, (1st ed., Cambridge 1959) also reached three editions. Clapham was active following retirement, writing no fewer than four Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. He also wrote The Oxford Book of Trees (Oxford, 1975), illustrated by B.E. Nicholson and edited Upper Teesdale, the area and its natural history (London 1978).

 

For his distinguished contributions to plant ecology Clapham was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1959. He received the CBE in 1969 and among other honours was awarded the Linnean Gold Medal in 1972. Clapham died in December 1990.

 

A fuller account of Clapham's life and works can be found in the Royal Society Memoir of Clapham by A. J. Willis (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society vol 39, 1994) upon which this summary has drawn.

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