Kate Bertram

Bertram's 1942 report included the cichlids of Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi). This collection is in Toronto Zoo.

Cicely Kate Bertam (née Ricardo) (8 July 1912 – 6 July 1999) was a British academic specialising in fish. Part of the 1930s "Cambridge school" of biologists, she contributed to two seminal reports on freshwater fish in eastern Africa.

Lucy Cavendish College

In 1970 Bertram became the second ever President of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, a position she held until 1979. Bertram served as a Justice of the Peace in Cambridgeshire, eastern England, for twenty years.

As President, she worked to create a corporate sense; college officers met regularly for coffee (whenever teaching and research commitments permitted) and Bertram invited visitors to talk in an informal way. One such was Joyce Grenfell, who became an honorary Fellow, and the college now has a valuable archive of her papers.^[1]

Personal Life

In 1939 she married Colin Bertram, of St John's College, and returned to Cambridge after the war, where she taught and examined for Newnham and Girton Colleges and had four sons. She suffered Alzheimer's disease during her last years.^[2]

Publications

• Ricardo, C.K. n.d. (1939). Report on the Fish and Fisheries of Lake Rukwa in Tanganyika Territory and the Bangweulu Region in Northern Rhodesia. London: Crown Agents for the Colonies.
• Bertram, C.K., Borley, H.J.H. & Trewavas, E. (1942). Report on the Fish and Fisheries of Lake Nyasa. London: Crown Agents for the Colonies. Known as the 1939 Survey.
• C. Kate Bertram (1989). Lucy Cavendish College: A history of the early years.
• Bertram, C. Kate & Janet Trant (1991). Ion Trant. (Ed). Letters from the Swamps. Graffham, Sussex: Dr C.K. Bertram.

• C.K. Ricardo Bertram (1944). "Abridged Report on The Fish and Fishery of Lake Tiberias" Haifa: Palestine Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

See also

• Lake Malawi

References

• Peter N B Jackson. "Obituary: Kate Bertram" Ichthos 62, December 1999. ISSN 1011-7490. Retrieved 9 May 2006.
• "Death Reported: Cicely Kate Ricardo Bertram" Sirenews 33, April 2000. Retrieved 9 May 2000.