xii Obituary, — David Thomas Gwynne- Vaughan. 
Belfast, a post which he held for five years. On his appointment he wrote 
to me : 
‘ It will be a great change at first from the “ intensive’’ kind of work we 
do here in London. In spite of the much too hard work I have had to do 
here, I shall leave London with great regret. I am very fond of the South.’ 
He speaks also of the ‘ keen and appreciative students ’ he had at the 
Birkbeck. 
Although somewhat isolated from his botanical colleagues, he was 
happy in his relations with his fellow professors at the University of Belfast. 
He accomplished much good work while there, especially continuing the 
joint research with Kidston on the Fossil Osmundaceae, begun at the end of 
the Glasgow period. 
On December 7, 19 11, he married Dr. H. C. I. Fraser, the distinguished 
cytologist, who had succeeded him as Head of the Department of Botany 
at the Birkbeck, a post which she continued to hold during their married 
life and still occupies. 
In July, 1914, to the great joy of his friends in England, he accepted 
the chair of Botany in University College, Reading, which unhappily he 
was only destined to hold for about a year. 
At Belfast the teaching work had been much concentrated in the 
Summer term, and was then very hard ; at Reading it was more spread 
over the whole year, and would probably have proved less exacting when 
he had once got settled in the new position. 
He had long been seriously troubled with neuralgia, though few of his 
friends were aware of it. In spite of failing health, he was able to carry out 
to the end the duties of his first academic year, completing the work of the 
Summer term, though with some difficulty. During the vacation he became 
seriously ill, and, after some fluctuations, the end came on September 4, 
1915, the immediate cause of death being a rapid onset of tuberculosis. 
His friend Lang, who was with him almost at the last, says : ‘ He was very 
weak and changed, but, when he talked, absolutely himself. It was the 
bravest end to a long fight.’ 
I saw him last myself, about the end of January, when he was in his 
usual health, and we had a long and lively talk, partly on botanical subjects, 
especially that strange fossil, Tempskya , and partly on the war. 
His position as a botanist, and the great services to science which he 
was able to render in the course of a too short life, will best be considered 
after a brief survey of his published work. Before going on to this, a o few 
words may be added about his relations to the British Association and 
other Societies. 
When the Association met at Glasgow in 1901, Gwynne-Vaughan was 
one of the Secretaries of Section K. He was again Secretary at Winnipeg, 
Sheffield, and Portsmouth (1909-11), and at Dundee and Birmingham 
