David Mabberley - Biography

Biography

Born in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England, Mabberley won a scholarship to Rendcomb College, Cirencester, then an open scholarship to St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1970 and M.A. in 1974. Although he intended to work for a doctorate under the cytologist C.D. Darlington he was inspired to move to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge under the supervision of E.J.H. Corner, leading to a Ph.D. in 1973 and D.Phil.(Oxon) in 1975. Mabberley became a post-doctorate at St John's College, Oxford before being appointed to a fellowship at Wadham College (linked to a university lectureship in the Department of Botany, later Plant Sciences, where he set up the "Mablab" with graduate students and post-doctoral research workers from around the world). He served as Dean of Wadham College for many years and was senior proctor at Oxford 1988–1989, later becoming Curator of the Oxford University Herbaria. He has also served in various capacities at numerous universities around the world, including University of Paris (France), University of Leiden (the Netherlands), University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka), and the University of Western Sydney (New South Wales, Australia).

Mabberley moved to Australia late in 1996 and ran his own business there, one contract being as CEO of Greening Australia (NSW). In 2004 he was appointed to the Orin and Althea Soest Chair in Horticultural Science at the University of Washington, Seattle, US. During his tenure there, he oversaw the union of the Washington Park Arboretum, Center for Urban Horticulture, Union Bay Natural Area, Elisabeth C. Miller Library and Otis Douglas Hyde Herbarium as the University of Washington Botanic Gardens, of which he was the founding director. In March 2008 he took up the newly-created position of Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Mabberley is known as a world traveller, having performed fieldwork in many countries over several decades: Kenya (1969, 1970–71), Uganda (1970–71), Tanzania (1971–72), Madagascar (1971), Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia (1974, 1981), Papua New Guinea (1974, 1989), Seychelles (1978), Panamá (1978–79), Portugal (1984–96), New Caledonia (1984), New Zealand (1990), Sri Lanka (1991), Hawai’i (1998), Cape York, Australia (Royal Geographical Society of Queensland expedition, 2002), Malaysia (2003, 2007), Vietnam (2005), China (2006, 2008).

During research for his Ph.D. dissertation, he travelled widely and collected plants throughout eastern Africa and Madagascar (1970-2), making particularly significant pioneering collections in the Ukaguru Mountains (Tanzania), where he discovered at least twelve new species of plants (and one new snail species) restricted to that range. These include a species of coffee, a giant lobelia (Lobelia sancta (Campanulaceae)), a (hairy) balsam (Impatiens ukagurensis (Balsaminaceae)), and Senecio mabberleyi (Compositae), named after him (he is also commemorated in Homalomena davidiana (Araceae) and Harpullia mabberleyana (Sapindaceae), both from New Guinea).

In August 2011 Mabberley became Executive Director of the New South Wales Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Australia. In this capacity he is responsible for the management of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden and Domain, The National Herbarium of New South Wales, The Australian Botanic Garden at Mount Annan near Camden and The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mount Tomah. His archive, especially that relating to The Plant-book is housed at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, of which he was a Trustee 2008-2011.