British phycologist at Manchester University. Kathleen Drew-Baker was responsible for making important advances in the understanding of the life history of edible seaweeds. Born Kathleen Drew in Leigh, Lancaster, she attended Manchester University and became one of the first two women to achieve a first class honours degree at that institution in 1922. Following several years as an assistant lecturer in botany at the university, Drew was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship which allowed her to spend two years researching at the University of California at Berkeley. Here she continued to specialise in the red algae and produced a revision of the genera Chantransia A.P. DeCandolle, Rhodochorton Nägeli and Acrochaetum Nägeli.
Soon after returning to Manchester she married Dr. Henry Wright Baker (later a professor at Manchester University) and her employment at the university ended at this time. She did, however, continue to conduct her research at this institution thanks to an Ashburne Hall Residents Fellowship which allowed her to work as an Honorary Research Fellow.
Drew-Baker conducted research into the life history, cytology and morphology of many red algae species and was awarded a DSc in 1939. She focused on the life history of the edible seaweed Porphyria umbilicalis (L.) J.Agardh., a close relative of P. yezoensis and P. tenera, the two main species grown commercially in Japan and known as nori. Her discoveries (published in 1949) were particularly important because they allowed Japanese nori farmers to develop artificial seeding techniques. Drew is now recognised as having rescuing this industry from the brink of collapse after a series of natural disasters destroyed seaweed beds along the coast. For her work a statue was erected in Tokyo in 1963.
Drew-Baker was also keen to encourage the study of algae in British students and so became one of the founding members and first president of the British Phycological Society. During her 33 years of research she collected more than 2,700 species which were donated to BM.
Sources:
M. Calder, 1957, "Dr. Kathleen M. Drew", Nature, 180: 889-890
Dr Kathleen Drew-Baker (1901-1957), Museum of Science & Industry:
http://www.mosi.org.uk/media/33871089/drkathleendrew-baker.pdf, accessed 13 May 2011.
