Professor William Gilbert Chaloner FRS (born 22 Nov 1928) is a distinguished British paleobotanist. He is Emeritus Professor of Botany in the Earth Sciences Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Visiting Professor in Earth Sciences at University College, London.
Chaloner was born in Chelsea, the son of Ernest J and Lenore (née Maude) Chaloner and was educated at Kingston Grammar School. He attended evening classes in Geology at Chelsea Polytechnic.[1]
In 1947 he went up Reading University to study Botany, Geology and Chemistry and gained his B.Sc. in 1950 and a Ph.D in 1953. After a year at the University of Michigan he returned home to serve two years National Service in the army before joining the faculty of the Department of Botany at University College, London in 1956. In 1972 he became Professor of Botany at Birkbeck College. In 1979 he was appointed to the Hildred Carlyle Chair of Botany at Bedford College. He has held visiting professorships at Pennsylvania State University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the University of Massachusetts.[2]
William is a Fellow of the Royal Society,[3] and the Linnean Society and the recipient of several awards, including the Linnean Medal and the Palaeontological Association's Lapworth Medal.[4] He was elected as a Trustee for the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in 1983. He was president of the Linnean Society from 1985 to 1988.
He married his American wife Judith; they have two daughters and a son.