Arthur Harry Church (1865–1937), botanist, was born on 28 March 1865 in Plymouth. He was educated locally at Ashburton grammar school where, aged sixteen, he became a pupil teacher. In 1887 his mother died and his inheritance of £100 enabled him to enter university.

He went up to University College, Aberystwyth, then offering external London degrees, in 1887. At Aberystwyth he met Emma Palmer Pratt and they were married in 1898. Church won a scholarship offered to mature students by Oxford’s Queen’s and Jesus Colleges and he went up to Jesus in 1891. He graduated with first-class honours in Botany in 1894 and was appointed demonstrator in the Department of Botany.

In 1904 he took the London degree of DSc. He lectured at Jesus from 1910 until 1930 and was a research fellow from 1908 until 1912. In 1921 Church was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Church retired early in 1930.

Church taught all aspects of botany bar the directly physiological and wrote extensively. In 1919 he published his most influential work Thalassiophyta. Church illustrated his own works and many of his striking and bold drawings are preserved in the British Museum (Natural History). He was also an outstanding photographer and took his heavy plate camera on field trips.

Church died at his home in Oxford, on 24 April 1937.

For more information see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.