Ernest Lee: 1886-1915. 
T HE death of Ernest Lee in the trenches of the Western Front on 
July 10, 1915, has robbed British Botany of a capable teacher and 
promising investigator, and will be greatly regretted by all who knew him 
or his work. 
He was born on April n, 1886, at Stanley-Lane End in Yorkshire, 
whence his family removed to Burnley while he was still a small child. 
In Burnley, therefore, he grew up, and there, in spite of hard work during 
the day-time, he contrived to attend the evening classes of the Burnley 
Technical Institute. He soon developed a deep interest in Natural Science, 
and so excellent was his work that he obtained a National Scholarship 
in Geology in 1906. This took him to the then Royal College of Science, 
London, where his enthusiasm for biology found scope, and where he won 
a First Class in the A.R.C.Sc. examination in 1909, and in the same year 
received the Edward Forbes Medal and Prize in Botany and a Marshall 
Scholarship. 
His scholarship enabled him to spend another year in Professor 
Farmer’s laboratories in an investigation, the result of which was his paper 
on Leaf Fall, 1 a piece of work which brought him into correspondence with 
various older botanists. 
He earned the approval of his fellow students as ‘ a thoroughly good 
sort ’, and one who was always willing to give help. He was highly thought 
of by the staff and left behind him the reputation of a first-rate worker. 
In May, 1910, he was appointed Demonstrator, and in the following 
autumn Assistant Lecturer in Botany at Birkbeck College, London, where he 
remained till the autumn of 1913. 
During these three years of close association in the work of the 
department I came to know Mr. Lee well and to think highly both of 
his character and his abilities. He was one of the keenest colleagues one 
could have had, always on the track of some scheme for the development of 
the department, some fresh possibility of research, some method of bringing 
home to the students the interest of his special subjects. 
He worked at various semi-physiological as well as anatomical investi- 
1 The Morphology of Leaf Fall. Ann. of Bot., 1911, p. 51. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXIX. No. CXVI. October, 1915.] 
