Theodora Lisle Prankerd
British botanist
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Through Gravitropism
Early life and education
Theodora Lisle Prankerd was born in Hackney, London, the daughter of general practitioner Orlando Reeves Prankerd and his second wife, Clementina Soares. She attended Brighton High School (now Brighton Girls). She then studied botany Royal Holloway, University of London, first supported by a Founders scholarship, and then a Driver Scholarship, graduating with 1st Class Honours in 1903, at the time headed by Margaret Jane Benson.
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Work and achievements
Prankerd worked as a school teacher from 1904 to 1911. She was appointed a part time lecturer in botany at Bedford College in 1912, before becoming a full time lecturer there until 1917. In 1912 she became a part-time Reader in Botany at Birkbeck College, London. In 1917 Plankerd was appointed a lecturer in botany at the University of Reading, where she lectured until her death. Colleagues included Tom Harris and Walter Styles, who wrote her obituary. She gained her Doctor of Sciences degree from the University of London in 1929. Between 1922 and 1936 she published a series of pioneering studies in the growth of ferns in response to gravity (geotropism). Although she was credited with all the research and authorship of the published papers, her work was presented at various scientific meetings by male colleagues.
Prankerd died in Reading in 1939 after being hit by a bus, and her mother endowed a research scholarship in her name to the University of Reading.