Brian Whitton obituary

Yahoo

27-05-2025

My former PhD supervisor and colleague Brian Whitton, who has died aged 89, was an academic expert on the blue-green algae known as cyanobacteria.
He spent his entire career at the University of Durham, latterly leading a laboratory that performed much innovative research. Current methods for assessing plants and algae in UK rivers had their origins in his laboratory, and he was widely consulted by biologists in the water industry when algae-related problems arose.
Brian was born in London to Arthur, a banker, and Florence (nee Ferrier), a telephonist. He went to King's College school in Wimbledon, did his national service in Cyprus with the Royal Corps of Signals, and then studied at Wadham College, Oxford, where in 1959 he gained a first-class degree in botany. A PhD followed at University College London, where he narrowed his interests down to algae – and cyanobacteria in particular.
He joined Durham in 1962 as a temporary lecturer while he finished writing his PhD thesis, then became a full lecturer in the department of botany in 1963, rising to be a senior lecturer (1972-80), a reader (1980-99) and then a professor of botany in the last two years before his retirement in 2000, when he became professor emeritus. We first met in 1983, when I began studying for a PhD with him, and we later became work colleagues.
In the early 1960s at the university, David Bellamy, a fellow botany lecturer, introduced him to the limestone habitats of northern England, and the cyanobacteria Brian found in those places subsequently became his primary focus.
His research took him to various parts of the world, including the Aldabra atoll in Seychelles and the deepwater rice fields of Bangladesh, as well as to highly polluted habitats where these ancient but tenacious organisms thrive even though all other life has withered. He studied them in the field and in the laboratory, and in later years worked with molecular biologists to understand the genetic basis of their adaptations.
For many years Brian also ran an annual course at Durham University in algal identification that became the standard introduction to freshwater algae for biologists from government agencies, as well as for many overseas students. His work on that course led him to become a co-editor of the Freshwater Algal Flora of the British Isles (2002), a guide to identifying the algae of Britain and Ireland. He was also an editor of several journals, and the founding editor of Journal of Applied Phycology.
Drawing on his many contacts across Europe, from 1990 onwards Brian organised workshops on the use of algae to monitor the health of rivers, bringing scientists together from across Europe to share their knowledge and laying the foundations for methods that are now widely used to evaluate riverine ecological status.
Outside his work, Brian was a collector of the paintings of the British surrealist John Tunnard. He also grew many examples of the alpine plant genus Corydalis in his garden, hosting annual open days for the public and heading off on collecting trips to China until curtailed by the Covid pandemic and an awareness of his growing frailty.
Without an immediate family, Brian nonetheless nurtured friendships with a wide group of former research students and associates.