Margaret Jane Benson

Margaret Jane Benson (1859–1936) was an English botanist. Most of her career was spent as a University Professor and head of the Department of Botany at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Her leadership of the newly founded department began in 1893, and in 1927, a botanical laboratory was dedicated in her name. She travelled extensively with Ethel Sargant, a fellow female scientist, collecting specimens, laboratory equipment, and meeting other botanists around the world. Her students included Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan and Netsa Ferguson.^[1]

Benson was introduced to botany by her father, an engineer and architect with an interest in the subject. Her mother was a painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art. She was first educated by her sister, who had attended Queens College. She then matriculated to University College London in 1887 and earned her bachelor's degree from the university in 1891. She got her doctorate at the University of London. Her work focused on embryology of a category of Fagales that were called Amentiferae at the time. She was published in Annals of Botany and New Phytologist.^[2]

Upon her retirement, she was succeeded by another female scientist, Professor Elizabeth Marianne Blackwell, as Head of Botany at Royal Holloway College. Blackwell authored Benson's official obituary.^[3]

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