Yearbook 2016 Obituaries for Website
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BSBI Yearbook 2016: 91-95 Oliver Rackham, OBE, MA, PhD, FBA (1939-2015) Professor Oliver Rackham died on 12th Febru- a Thursday afternoon or not. … An interest in ary 2015. In his lifetime he had produced a fungi or medieval Latin no longer had to be series of books which were outstanding for cultivated secretly and alone.” (Rackham in their combination of scholarship and readabil- Bury & Winter, 2003: 186–191). In Corpus he ity, and which changed the way in which we found “the perfect home” where he was to interpret familiar landscapes in Britain, remain for the rest of his life. Mediterranean Europe and elsewhere. As Oliver arrived at Cambridge intending to news of his sudden death spread on the inter- study physics, and it was only because it was net, it became clear that the sense of loss felt suggested that he broaden his studies in his by British naturalists was shared by a wide first year that he took a botanical course. community overseas, including many who had However, he went on to specialise in botany. personal memories of this most accessible and An undergraduate study of hybridisation engaging of men. between Rumex conglomeratus and Oliver was born in Bungay, Suffolk, on 17th R. sanguineus (Rackham, 1961) investigated a October 1939, the son of Geoffrey Rackham problem which still requires detailed study. In and his wife, Norah (née Wilson). He attended 1964 he was elected a fellow of Corpus King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich Christi. His PhD thesis, Transpiration, assim- (now Norwich School), which lies within the ilation and the aerial environment (1965) was cathedral close and traces its origins to a based on physiological studies of Impatiens school founded in 1096 by Herbert de parviflora, then the Cambridge botanists’ Losinga, first Bishop of Norwich, although it favourite experimental subject. After his PhD was re-founded in 1547. While he was a he worked initially as a University demonstra- schoolboy Oliver’s interest in natural history tor in the Department of Botany but in 1968 he was stimulated by the Norfolk naturalist Ted became co-leader of a Nuffield Foundation Ellis and he would spend some weekends with Applied Plant Physiology Project, which Ted and his wife Phyllis at their home at brought together the University’s Departments Wheatfen Broad, a house with no ‘mod cons’ of Agriculture and Botany, the Meteorological but surrounded by wildlife and now the centre Office and the Plant Breeding Institute in a of a nature reserve. He was already outstand- study of the impact of drought on barley ingly able, and the Ellises were astonished by (Rackham, 1972). With two Cambridge his ability to win the games they played in the colleagues he edited an influential British evening without cheating. When he left Ecological Society symposium volume Light school in 1958 Oliver entered the University as an ecological factor (Bainbridge et al., of Cambridge as a scholar at Corpus Christi 1966) and its successor Light as an ecological College. Here again he encountered an insti- factor: II (Evans et al., 1975). tution (founded in 1352) with a rich medieval By 1975, however, Oliver’s research inter- heritage, not only of buildings but even more ests had changed decisively to a study of notably of books in the College’s Parker ancient woodland. The Cambridge ecologist Library. However, the culture of the two David Coombe had introduced him to the places could not have been more different. To ancient woods of west Cambridgeshire and to his astonishment Oliver found that on arrival the discipline of historical ecology. A pivotal in Cambridge he had left the “oppressive” life moment came when Oliver consulted the Ely of the schoolboy and “entered the free world. Coucher Book, the great survey of his dioce- Nobody noticed, still less cared, whether I san estates commissioned in 1251 by Hugh de went through the motions of playing rugby on Northwold, Bishop of Ely. Here, under the parish of ‘Grantesden’ [Little Gransden], is amounted almost to genius. As a botanist first the entry “De Bosco. Est ibi vnus boscus qui and foremost, he appreciated the biology of vocatur heyle qui continet quat’uiginti acras trees and herbs, their physiology and repro- ...” [“The Wood. There is there one wood duction and above all the variation within and which is called Heyle which contains between species. His accounts of British elms fourscore acres ...”] (Rackham, 1975). An (Ulmus) are outstanding in explaining the earlier generation of landscape ecologists, led variation and ecology in a genus for which by W.G. Hoskins, had envisaged an almost there is no agreed taxonomic treatment and unbroken expanse of woodland covering which has therefore been neglected in recent medieval England. Here by contrast in Hayley decades by other ecologists and by most Wood was a small wood which had persisted county flora writers. He had been taught at with the same name and much the same area Cambridge by several mycologists, including since the 13th century. The world of Norwich the tree pathologist John Rishbeth, and by the Cathedral and the Parker Library came bryologist Harold Whitehouse. He was a together with that of Wheatfen Broad and the knowledgeable mycologist and, if not an boulder-clay woods. It might not be too fanci- expert bryologist, he was certainly bryo- ful to suggest that the intellectual energy friendly. Another departmental and university generated by this fusion was to fuel Oliver’s research interest was the interpretation of subsequent career. aerial photographs, and this too he absorbed Oliver left the Nuffield Project in 1972 and into his portfolio of skills. As far as I know, worked as an independent scholar thereafter, none of his botanical mentors were at home in sustained initially by a grant from the Natural the archives, but Oliver certainly was. He Environment Research Council to support his tracked down relevant documents and, as a woodland studies. His first book, Hayley gifted linguist, he could read the medieval Wood (1975), which Max Walters encouraged Latin, complete with numerous scribal abbre- him to write, was a detailed description of a viations, in which so many of them were site which had been acquired as a noted Oxlip written. Another skill he developed was the wood by the county Naturalists’ Trust in 1962. identification of wood and the examination of This was followed shortly afterwards by Trees wood and timber in ancient buildings, reading and woodland in the British landscape (1976) back from these timbers to the woodland and his magnum opus, Ancient woodland management and carpentry skills which had (1980). Trees and woodland was frequently shaped them. He was himself a keen reprinted but Ancient woodland is perhaps less woodworker (he converted one of the rooms well-known than some of his other works, as in his house in Cambridge into a carpenter’s it cost £50 on publication (equivalent to £225 workshop) and an enthusiastic member of the today). The ancient woodland of England: the Conservation Corps/BTCV work parties woods of south-east Essex (1986) was a which undertook coppicing at Hayley Wood detailed regional study and The last forest after a coppice cycle was re-introduced there (1989) described Hatfield Forest in Essex, in 1964. which he had come to realise was “the only In building a historical picture from the place where one can step back into the Middle varied lines of evidence which he assembled, Ages to see, with only a small effort of the Oliver relied on numerous detailed studies of imagination, what a Forest looked like in use”. particular places, and he stressed the individu- His final books on woodland ecology were ality of ancient woods. He had a great gift for Woodlands (2006), the 100th volume in looking at evidence afresh, and for debunking Collins’ New Naturalist series, and The ash the facile generalisations which had all too tree (2014). frequently become the accepted facts of In writing these books, and numerous papers woodland and forest history. He took a on allied topics, Oliver drew on an extensive delight, too, in the foibles of human beings range of skills which, taken together, and he had the academic’s characteristic distrust for the pronouncements of bureau- Mediterranean Europe (Grove & Rackham, crats, past and present. Above all, he had an 2001). intense historical imagination. I vividly Two of Oliver’s later books did not cover remember an excursion to Gamlingay Wood, natural history. Treasures of silver at Corpus where he gathered us together on the bank of Christi College, Cambridge (2002) is a a muddy ditch which ran through the wood. detailed and remarkably readable account of His discourse then began with the words “This the college silver. Oliver’s love of his college great ditch ....” and it was suddenly clear that and its traditions shines through the work and to Oliver this was indeed a Great Ditch; he had thus his claim that Corpus possesses “the in his mind’s eye the impressive construction world’s most beautiful knob” was perhaps not it must have been when new and the immense entirely objective. It is a great pity that his labour needed to dig it, rather than the rather death has deprived us of the study of the less impressive 20th century survival. Trinity College silver which he had recently In 1986, with the publication of The history agreed to undertake. Transitus Beati Fursei of the countryside, Oliver extended his range (2007) was a translation from Latin of the life to take on the history of the British country- of an Irish missionary to East Anglia. He side as a whole.