Nevill Willmer

Who was Nevill Willmer?

Professor Nevill ""E.N." Willmer, FRS was Professor of Histology at Cambridge University from 1966-69.

He was the son of a cotton broker and married Henrietta "Penny" Rowlatt in 1939; they had two sons and two daughters.

He was educated at Birkenhead School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Then he became a demonstrator at Manchester University before being elected a Fellow of Clare College in 1936. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960 and became Professor Emeritus in 1969.

Willmer's major work was a three-volume treatise on tissue culture, "Cells and Tissue in Culture: methods, biology and physiology". This was a significant based on an immense amount of labour that went into the process of exploring and satisfying the dietary and other requirements of cells and tissues that were grown in the laboratory. Other books he wrote included Waen and the Willmers, The Sallow Bush and several books on Grantchester, to where he retired in 1969.

He was also an Artist, Oil Painting Landscapes, mainly in Cambridgeshire and Mid Wales. He designed the Fellows' Garden in Clare College as well as one or two others in Cambridge but the Fellows' Garden is a lasting legacy of his vision.