Dates

• Existence: 1905 - 1990

Biography

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 and was made Professor Emeritus at The University of Sheffield 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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