Catalogue description British Museum (Natural History): Department of Botany: Algae Section Correspondence and Papers

This record is held by Natural History Museum Library and Archives

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Details of DF 421
Reference: DF 421
Title: British Museum (Natural History): Department of Botany: Algae Section Correspondence and Papers
Description:

The series consists of a small collection of Geoffrey Tandy's (b 1900) correspondence, papers, photographs and newscuttings, including the scripts for a number of unofficial radio broadcasts. There is also a packet of Shirley Eskritt (Mrs Phillips) correspondence.

Series held at The Natural History Museum are catalogued more fully in its online catalogue (reference DF BOT/421). Online descriptions of some individual records can also be viewed on Discovery, see DF 421.

Date: 1925-1965
Arrangement:

The series has not been arranged or listed in detail.

Related material:

Tandy's diaries and notebooks are held in the Marine Algae Section.

Held by: Natural History Museum Library and Archives, not available at The National Archives
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
Immediate source of acquisition:

The series was transferred to the archives from the Botany Library in 1989.

Custodial history: Previously housed in the Crypogamic Herbarium.
Publication note:

'The Great Barrier Reef Expedition, 1928-1929', G Tandy, Natural History Magazine, 2: 82-92 (1929). 'A summer at the Dry Tortugas Laboratory, Florida', G Tandy, Natural History Magazine, 3: 145-156 (1932).

Administrative / biographical background:

Geoffrey Tandy (b 1900) was the first member of staff to specialise on the algae. He was appointed in January 1926 having read Forestry at Oxford, and was in post when Antony Gepp retired in 1927. Tandy remained at the Museum until September 1939 when he joined the Royal Navy, and did not return after the war. He was given special leave in 1928 and 1929 to act as botanist to the Great Barrier Reef Expedition, and again in 1931 to work on the Dry Tortugas, Florida. Most of his career at the Museum was spent working on the collections made on these two trips.

After Tandy's departure in 1939 algae, along with bryophytes and lichens, were the responsibility of Alan H Norkett, and it was not until Linda Newton (Mrs Irvine) was appointed in 1950 that there was a separate Algae Section once again. She was succeeded by Yvonne Chamberlin (Mrs Butler) in 1954 and J H Price in 1963. Shirley Eskritt (Mrs Phillips) worked in the Alga Section from 1956 until she resigned in 1964/5.

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