Tom Petch

Who was Tom Petch?

Thomas Petch was a prolific English mycologist and plant pathologist best remembered for his work on the interaction between fungi and insects.

Petch was educated at the choir school of Holy Trinity at Hull, and taught at the King's Lynn Grammar School and Leyton Technical Institute while preparing for external degrees at the University of London. Petch had an early interest in natural history, but Charles Plowright, a doctor and mycologist in King's Lynn, encouraged him to study fungi. Through a friendship with George Massee of the Royal Botanical Gardens Petch was appointed Mycologist to the Government of Ceylon in 1905. He returned to England briefly to marry Edith Mary Plowright, Charles' daughter, in 1908.

Petch held this position until 1924. After a leave to visit England, he returned to Ceylon as the founding director of the Tea Research Institute. In 1928 he retired to England, where he lived in North Wootton in the house formerly owned by his father-in-law, near King's Lynn.

During his time in Ceylon Petch studied the fungal diseases of rubber, cocoanut palm, tea, pepper, tobacco, and other crops grown there.