Mary Gillham

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Dr Mary Eleanor Gillham (born 1921) is a British naturalist, university lecturer, and writer, currently resident in the village of Gwaelod-y-garth, in Wales.

Although born in a London suburb, and serving five wartime years in the Women's Land Army in Berkshire, Mary Gillham has spent much of her time in Wales. As a post-war student in the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and Bangor, she gained a degree in agriculture, a first-class honours in botany, and a doctorate in island ecology. She has lectured in the universities of Exeter (Devon), Massey (New Zealand), Melbourne (Australia), Kano (Nigeria), and worked in the Adult Education Department at University College Cardiff from 1961 until her retirement in 1988.

As a teacher of adult amateur naturalists, she saw her role as an interpreter of scientific data for the layman, and has taken to writing books and popular articles. Spray-washed seabird colonies are her main love, and research on these has taken her to remote islands in many parts of the world, where she has lived in tents, huts, lighthouses, etc. Her major research projects have been around the coasts of West Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and she was one of the first women to join an Antarctic expedition (in 1959/60).

In 1970, she undertook a research project on Aldabra in the Indian Ocean, and has since taken naturalists to the Seychelles. In 1979, she was visiting scientist on an American expedition (by sailing ship) to an uninhabited island in the Bahamas, and has taken parties to Jamaica, New England, and the Rocky Mountains. Other expeditions have been to North, West, East, and Central Africa, and Florida, and she has led groups to various parts of Britain and Europe. Active in various natural history and conservation bodies over several decades, Gillham is a sometime president of the Glamorgan Naturalists` Trust.

[edit] Bibliography

Books authored by Gillham include:

1963 - Sea-Birds. (Instructions to Young Ornithologists IV). Museum Press: London.
1966 - A Naturalist in New Zealand. Museum Press: London.
1967 - Sub-Antarctic Sanctuary. Summertime On Macquarie Island. Victor Gollancz: London.
1977 - The Natural History of Gower. D. Brown and Sons Ltd: Cowbridge.
1982 - The Historic Taf Valleys, Volume 2: In the Brecon Beacons National Park. Geology, Social History, Natural History. Merthyr Tydfil and District Naturalists' Society. (With John Perkins and Jack Evans). ISBN 0905928210
1982 - Swansea Bay's Green Mantle. Wildlife on an Industrial Coast. D. Brown & Sons: Cowbridge. ISBN 0905928180
1987 - Sand Dunes. (Glamorgan Heritage Coast Wildlife Series Volume 1). Glamorgan Wildlife Trust: Bridgend.
1991 - Limestone Downs: Commons, Farms and Woods. Glamorgan Wildlife Trust: Bridgend.
1994 - Sea Cliffs Cwm Mawr to Gileston. (Glamorgan Heritage Coast Wildlife Series Volume 5). Glamorgan Wildlife Trust: Bridgend.
1998 - Town Bred - Country Nurtured: A Naturalist Looks Back Fifty Years. ISBN 0953407403
2000 - Island Hopping in Tasmania's Roaring Forties. A.H. Stockwell Ltd: Devon. ISBN 0722332963
2000 - Islands of the Trade Winds: An Indian Ocean Odyssey. Minerva Press. ISBN 0754108570
2004 - A Natural History of Cardiff: Exploring along the Rivers Rhymney and Roath. Dinefwr Publishers Ltd: Wales. ISBN 1904323111
2004 - Memories of Welsh Islands. Dinefwr Publishers Ltd: Wales. ISBN 1904323081
2007 - A Naturalist on Lundy: The Island Wildlife Over 50 Years. Halsgrove: UK. ISBN 18411-4589-0
2007 - Island Life. Discovering Britain's Offshore Gems. Halsgrove: UK. ISBN 18411-4619-6