David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan


Prof David Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan FRSE FLS MRIA was a 20th century Welsh botanist and botanopalaeolontologist, specialising in fossilised plants.

Life

He was born on 12 March 1871 at Royston House in Llandovery in Wales, the eldest son of Henry Thomas Gwynne-Vaughan of Cynghordy, and his wife, Elizabeth Thomas. His mother died in 1874 when he was still very young. He was educated at Monmouth School then studied Natural Sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1893. He then worked for some time at the Jodrell Laboratory in Kew.

Academic Career

After a period of his life, traveling overseas visiting exotic locations with a group of young British academics and adventures, among them his second-cousin "Gwyn" Sir Gwynneth de Candia Vaughan son of Lord Arthur Powys-Vaughan and countess Clelia de Candia, daughter of the famous count Mario the Tenor, David spent the year of 1896 in the Amazon rainforest and in the summer of 1897 he took a study trip to Siam and Malaysia. Along these overseas trips, he acquired extensive botanical data and regional information that eventually became vital to write the research papers that granted him a successful lecturing career, taking postings in renown universities:
He died in Reading of tuberculosis on 4 September 1915.

Publications

In 1911 he married Helen Charlotte Isabella Fraser and who was famed in her own right as Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan. They had no children.