Kenneth Mather

Sir Kenneth Mather CBE FRS (22 June 1911 – 20 March 1990) was a British geneticist and botanist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1949, and won its Darwin Medal in 1964. He was the second vice chancellor of the University of Southampton serving from 1965-1971. He was instrumental in persuading the University Grants Committee to establish a new Medical School at the university.

He was born in Nantwich, Cheshire. His father was a furniture-maker in Nantwich.

In 1915 he attended the Church of England boys' elementary school in Nantwich. He won a county scholarship in 1922 to Nantwich and Acton grammar school which in 1977 became Malbank School and Sixth Form College, a comprehensive school. In 1928 he won a county university scholarship to read botany at Manchester University gaining a BSc with first-class honours in 1931. He then gained research scholarship from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries working at the John Innes Horticultural Institution in Merton Park, Surrey, on chromosome behaviour. In 1933 he gained a London University PhD.