Frederick Campion Steward

Frederick Campion "Camp" Steward FRS (16 June 1904 – 13 September 1993) was a British botanist and plant physiologist.

Early life and education

He was born in Pimlico, London, but brought up in Yorkshire. He was educated at Heckmondwike Grammar School and then attended the University of Leeds, where he gained a BSc in biology in 1924 and then undertook research in the botany department.

Career

A Rockefeller Foundation fellowship took him first to Cornell University in 1924 and then to the University of California at Berkeley four years later, where he worked as postdoctoral researcher with Dennis Robert Hoagland from 1928 to 1929. In 1934 he returned to England as a reader in botany and from 1940 to serve in the Ministry of Aircraft Production. After the war he returned to the USA, holding appointments at the Universities of Chicago and Rochester before finally moving to Cornell in 1950.

Professor F.C. Steward discovered and laid the foundation for plant tissue culture; genetic engineering and plant biotechnology, whether of food crops or trees.

From his Cornell classrooms and laboratories, Steward was responsible for creating and inspiring a generation of botanists. Former students said that his lectures, in "advanced plant physiology" were the high point of their education. The lectures covered an entire year, he used no notes, and would speak as he walked back and forth in front of the lecture theatre in Plant Science hall. From the outset of his career, Steward was often associated with scientific controversy and he often tended to be at its epicentre. He believed that one could be and maybe should be a "majority of one" if scientific convictions dictated it.

Recognition

Steward was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1957.

In 1939/1940, together with Dennis Robert Hoagland, he published two interesting articles in one of the world's premier scientific journals, Nature, on the "Metabolism and Salt Absorption by Plants".

He wrote more than 100 scientific journal articles and several books and was an editor and contributor to the 10 volumes and 15 books of "Plant Physiology: A Treatise" (Academic Press, 1959–1991).

Family life

He died in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He had married Anne Temple Gordon, whom he met at Cornell. They had one son.

References