Arthur Roy Clapham
| Arthur Roy Clapham | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 24, 1904 Norwich, United Kingdom |
| Died | December 18, 1990 (aged 86) |
| Institutions | Rothamsted Experimental Station; University of Oxford; University of Sheffield |
| Alma mater | Downing College, Cambridge |
| Notable awards | Linnean Medal (1972) |
| Spouse | Brenda North Stoessiger |
Arthur Roy Clapham, CBE FRS (24 May 1904 – 18 December 1990), was a British botanist. Born in Norwich and educated at Downing College, Cambridge, Clapham worked at Rothamsted Experimental Station as a crop physiologist (1928–30), and then took a teaching post in the botany department at Oxford University. He was Professor of Botany at Sheffield University 1944–69. He coauthored the Flora of the British Isles. In response to a request from Arthur Tansley, he coined the term ecosystem in the early 1930s.
Clapham was born in Norwich to George Clapham, an elementary school teacher and Dora Margaret Clapham, née Harvey. He was the oldest of three children and the only boy. He attended the City of Norwich School, where he sat the Cambridge Senior School Certificate in 1919 and Higher School Certificate in 1921. Clapham attended Downing College, Cambridge in 1922 after receiving a Minor Scholarship. He received a B.A. with First Class Honours and was awarded the Frank Smart Prize for Botany.
After completing his B.A., Clapham did graduate work in plant physiology under the supervision of Frederick Blackman before taking up a position as crop physiologist at the Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station where he worked with Ronald Fisher. Influenced by Fisher's work on statistical analysis and random sampling, Clapham worked on using small samples to reliably estimate wheat yields and designed the Ministry of Agriculture's protocol of sampling wheat crops to forecast crop yields. It was during this time period that he met his future wife, Brenda Stoessiger who was a research student working with Karl Pearson, a pioneer of mathematical statistics. According to C.D. Pigott, it was probably through his connection to Fisher that Clapham met Stoessiger. Clapham received a Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1929 based on his work with Blackman in physiology and his work on sampling methods at Rothamsted.
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