REPORTS

Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on the title of the Professorship of Botany

The COUNCIL and the GENERAL BOARD beg leave to report to the University as follows:

1. In this Joint Report the Council and the General Board propose that the University seek the assent of Her Majesty The Queen that the Professorship of Botany be re-titled the Regius Professorship of Botany, to commemorate the forthcoming visit by Her Majesty to the University on 19 November 2009 (see the Vice-Chancellor's Notice on p. 58) and the University's 800th anniversary year.

2. The University currently has six Regius Professorships: of Civil Law, Divinity, Greek, Hebrew, and Physic, all established in 1540; and of Modern History, established in 1724. Regius Professorships also exist at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, St Andrews, and Trinity College Dublin.

3. The Professorship of Botany, established in 1724, is one of the University's oldest unnamed Professorships in a fundamental scientific discipline. Although it was not established as a Regius Professorship, its early royal connections are clear: the third Professor, Thomas Martyn, received a patent from His Majesty King George III, and was styled by the Crown as 'our Public Professor or Reader of Botany'. His successor John Henslow, Professor of Botany, 1824-61, held the office of King's Reader by patent from the Crown while his appointment to the Professorship was under consideration.

4. As well as being an enduring memorial to Her Majesty's visit to the University, the Council and the General Board consider that renaming the Professorship would be particularly timely, given the University's leading role in the current international celebrations to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, whose scientific mentor was Professor Henslow. The historical context of Darwin's scientific legacy is mirrored by the importance of the modern field of plant sciences in areas as diverse as food security, biodiversity, conservation, and medicine. Within the University a new Laboratory for fundamental research in plant sciences, generously funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation is currently under construction (Reporter, 2007-08, p. 293).

5. The current holder of the Professorship, Professor Sir David Baulcombe, FRS, has been consulted about the proposal which also has the support of the Head of the School of the Biological Sciences. The change of title would have no implications for the procedure for electing the Professor which would continue to be conducted in accordance with Statute D, XV (as is the case for the Regius Professorships of Divinity, Greek, and Hebrew).

6. The Council and the General Board recommend:

I. That permission be sought from Her Majesty The Queen to re-title the Professorship of Botany as the Regius Professorship of Botany.

II. That, subject to the approval of Her Majesty The Queen in Council, the Statutes of the University be amended as follows:

Statute D

THE UNIVERSITY OFFICERS

Chapter XIV

THE PROFESSORS

Section 1.

By amending the first clause so as to read:

There shall be in the University the Regius Professorships of Divinity, Civil Law, Physic, Hebrew, Greek, Modern History, and Botany;

Cambridge University Reporter 14 October 2009
Copyright © 2009 The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge.