Elsie M. Burrows

Who was Elsie M. Burrows?

Elsie May Burrows was an English botanist. She graduated from the University College in Leicester where she received a B.Sc. She married in 1936, and took up her first post in Liverpool University, where she studied for the rest of her working life.

She was a founder member of the British Phycological Society and was its vice-President from 1957 to 1958. She received her Ph.D. in 1948. Her main studies were in the ecology of the macroalgae, especially Fucus and the green algae - Chlorophyta. She began collecting information for the "Seaweeds of the British Isles" in 1915. The draft manuscript of the flora was completed shortly before her death and the book was published in 1991, unfortunately she died before she was able to see it. Some specimens collected and determined by her for the Seaweed Mapping Scheme are now in the Herbarium of the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Her obituary by Professor T.A.Norton outlines the important role she played in British post-war phycology.