ELIZABETH WARREN

Botanist and Marine Algologist

1786 - 1864

Suggested by Susan Bovington

Susan writes, “Elizabeth Warren was a founding member of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (1833) and worked closely with the Royal Horticultural Society of Cornwall. She won many prizes in their annual competitions for the best and rarest plant specimens which led to her organizing local efforts to collect and record indigenous Cornish plants including algae and seaweed. Seeking to learn more she regularly sent specimens, which arrived in Falmouth on ships from around the world to William Hooker, professor of botany at Glasgow University. Hooker credited her in the 1841 Manual of British Algae, and botanist Robert Caspary named a type of algae after her.

As a female Elizabeth Warren was unable to access higher education, but through her passion for botany she collaborated with a number of scientific societies.The Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro holds her albums of pressed algae, plants and seaweeds, which are still in very good condition, retaining much of their pigments. As a woman born 167 years after Elizabeth, knowing how hard I have had to fight for my place in the world, I can only imagine how much more difficult it was for her to pursue her dreams and passions.

Elizabeth Warren was born in Truro in 1786, and lived most of her adult life in Flushing. She died in 1864 at her sisters home in Kea in May 1864.

The information I have given has come from the online archives of The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro.”