OBITUARY
Florence
Eva Crackles, MBE, DSc (Hull), FLS, MSc (Hull), BSc (London)
21.3.1918 – 14.7.2007
John Flenley (now, FRSNZ), introduced Eva to me in 1973 as the official recorder of plants in the East Riding of Yorkshire for the BSBI (Botanical Society of the British Isles) and for the Yorkshire Naturalist Union (YNU). John wanted someone to help her collate their data on the computer (then an ICL machine running George 2) and produce tetrad maps (on line printers) showing the distribution of the plants.
The naturalist Eva was an independent research worker seeking to develop her research and expertise when not employed to do so. Her love of nature and especially of wild plants and birds had been kindled by her unemployed father. She in turn enthused others - through her evening classes for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and through her ‘Crackles Country’ column for the Hull Daily Mail. She coordinated the recordings of local botanists, who regarded their field excursions with her as a learning experience. Her fame as a local naturalist began when she recorded the presence of some very rare plants in Hull’s Second World War bomb sites and attracted the attention of “John Humber” of the Hull Daily Mail. He helped to organise and joined the botanical rambles around these bomb sites, and included regular reports on her botanical exploits in his columns. Fellow recorders were impressed by her scientific and meticulous approach as she always work through the identification process systematically to check for new mutations.
Although she knew nothing of computers, she was keen to learn what was needed in her mid-50s and undertook the tedious task of data entry in the evenings. She was then a teacher at Malet Lambert High School and her botanical research activities were largely self-funded. Unfortunately, I left Hull in 1974 and without someone on hand to sort out minor computing problems, the project stalled and the software became obsolete when the University upgraded its computing systems. After I returned to Hull in 1979, I renewed contact with Eva and found out a bit more about her life, her values, her problems and her aspirations.
Education Eva was born and bred in Hull. She was educated at the Boulevard Secondary School, and then at the newly established University College of Hull. When she was aged 22, she was awarded a Bachelor of Science Degree (External, London) in Botany, Zoology and Pure Mathematics. She appreciated the role played by her mentors and tutors in shaping her aspirations and scientific outlook. They included Sydney Smith who later became Lord Mayor of Hull and stimulating tutors who became eminent in their respective fields, namely Jacob Bronowski (mathematics), Professor Ronald Good (Botany) and Sir Alistair Hardy (Zoology). After a couple of temporary school teaching positions at the Newland High School for Girls and at Cambridge, she held the post of Head of Biology at Malet Lambert High School in Hull until she retired in 1978.
Research While in fulltime employment, she recorded and studied further rare plants, including the rare grasses Calamagrostis stricta, C. canescens and their hybrids which she found at Leven Canal. In 1978, she was awarded a Masters Degree of the University of Hull for research into the taxonomy and biosystematics of these local grasses.
Eva was an enthusiastic and active member of various organisations and made many life long friends. She joined the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists Club in 1941; she became a past president and honorary life member of the Yorkshire Naturalist Union which she joined in 1943; and, was also a member of the BSBI. She was elected to Fellowship of the Linnean Society of London in 1966 and was made an Honorary Life member of the BSBI in 2000. Eva was also a supporter of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the South Holderness Countryside Society and the East Yorkshire Local History Society.
From 1966 to 2000, Eva published over 90 papers on botanical themes in Naturalist (Hull); Watsonia; E. Yorkshire Field Studies; Bull. Yorkshire Naturalists' Union; Local Historian; BSBI News; Garden History; Holderness Countryside; Plant-Lore Notes & News; and E. Yorks. Local Hist. Soc. Bull.
Eva made major contributions to the Atlas of the British Flora published in 1962. After her retirement, the Leverhulme Trust awarded her a Research Fellowship in 1980 with a generous grant to cover expenses for two years of fieldwork and herbarium research. Despite increasing illness and disability, Eva was keen to ensure that her specialist knowledge and the findings of many other enthusiastic plant recorders, to whom she had provided inspiration and leadership, were not lost to posterity. She had published regular reports on progress and on the tetrad maps being compiled. Piecemeal pre-publication of the plant distribution data by others was forbidden to preserve the integrity of the database and to protect intellectual property rights. A small pump-priming grant from the University of Hull’s Cartographic Information Systems Research Group enabled her to gain further funding and assistance from within and outside the University. Despite failing health she completed the Flora of the East Riding of Yorkshire, published in 1990 by the Hull University Press in association with Humberside County Council. This was the first authoritative flora to be published in almost 90 years in Yorkshire and it became an essential resource for amateur and professional botanists.
To quote Professor John Flenley, “Eva did not just record the flora: she also analysed the results. She explained the peculiar plant introductions around Hull docks, relating them to the countries from which cargo arrived. She explained the bizarre distributions of plants in the River Hull valley in relation to canal construction dates. She discovered amazingly biodiverse communities on the Yorkshire Wolds, and tried desperately to have them conserved. Eva's contribution will stand forever. She converted the East Riding from a backwater of field botany to a vice-county with one of the very best accounts of its flora. Because of Global Warming and the inevitable extinctions which will result, her work will never be superseded”.
Forensic botany Eva and her collaborators botanised for the sheer love of wild flora. Little did they realise that their scientific legacy would become a valuable resource to Patricia Wiltshire, a forensic ecologist and botanist. Patricia helped Humberside police find the remains of a girl who had been murdered by her boyfriend. He had hidden the body in woodland east of York but had forgotten where he had put it. Patricia retrieved microscopic trace evidence, in the form of pollen grains and spores, from the footwear, car, and garden fork belonging to the suspect. From this, she was able to provide a mental picture of the place where the body lay. Eva’s Flora contained distribution maps for the plants indicated by the analytical data. By a process of elimination, the botanical evidence enabled the police to find the place envisaged by Patricia, and they later permitted the case to be included in a television documentary about Patricia’s work. Eva and her collaborators had provided yet another example of the value of research for its own sake. Theory and applications often come later, drawing their evidence from large volumes of systematic scientific observations.
The Award in 1991 of an Honorary Doctor of Science (DSc) of the University of Hull was a fitting tribute to Eva’s expert knowledge of the region, resulting from a life time of field work in this area. This honour recognises the contributions of her collaborators and provides encouragement to other independent researchers in the local and wider community.
Nature conservation Following the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, Eva was involved in identifying the botanical importance of potential Sites of Special Scientific Interest. As a leading authority on the flora of East Yorkshire, she represented the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust at two public enquiries and provided information pertinent to conservation to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the Nature Conservancy Council. In recognition of her services to conservation, Eva was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in 1992.
Legacy With her life’s mission accomplished, Eva moved into a care home when she was no longer able to look after herself. When we last visited her, I told her about the use of her Flora in finding the missing body, and she asked “Did I write that?” She was unable to remember her contributions but we shall not forget that exceptional person who left a legacy which all those associated with Hull and the East Riding can be proud of. Her bequests to the University of Hull and to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust express the value she placed on education and conservation.
The Eva Crackles Collection is lodged in the Brynmor Jones Library of the University of Hull. More details to be provided here in due course.
Sources of information:
My nomination of Ms Crackles for a DSc (Hull)
Professor Bill Armstrong’s citation for award of DSc (Hull)
Peter Cook’s obituary for Watsonia, still awaiting publication
Private communications provided by Ann Braithwaite (executor of Eva’s will), Professor John Flenley (expert in botanical geography), Patricia Wiltshire (forensic ecologist).