Professor Charles Gimingham
Botanist who applied his expertise in heather to the management of heath and moorland habitats
PROFESSOR CHARLES GIMINGHAM, who has died aged 95, was a botanist and ecologist whose name, according to a reviewer in the 1990 Yearbook of the Heather Society, was synonymous with Calluna vulgaris – the common heather or “ling” that carpets Britain’s heathlands and moorlands.
Gimingham spent the major part of his career at Aberdeen University, where he was Regius Professor of Botany from 1981 to 1988, promoting the practical application of ecological knowledge to the management of heath and moorland habitats, which play an important part in the economy of the uplands.
He worked out the biology of heather, including its extraordinary regenerative capacity, to provide a scientifically sound rationale for sustainable management. Unlike some ecologists whose approach to conservation cloaks a poorly disguised political agenda, he believed in working with custodians of landscapes which are largely semi-natural or man-made. One Scottish farmer and naturalist has described him as a “thoughtful conservationist”, one who took an all-encompassing approach to nature and wildlife and the small communities who live in some of the wilder parts of Britain.
Gimingham published an early leaflet on heather-burning, traditionally used for the management of red grouse habitat, from which the so-called Muirburn Code, which sets out the law and good practice relating to the controlled burning of heather moorland in Scotland (and equivalent codes in England) are derived. The codes aim to help grouse moor managers avoid damage to sensitive habitats and prevent wildfires.
Elsewhere, his 1972 book, The Ecology of Heathlands, became a standard text for students of botany and ecology while his Lowland Heathland Management Handbook (1993) was an invaluable guide to the practical management of such habitats.
Gimingham also played an important role in the designation in 2003 of the Cairngorms National Park, having edited The Ecology, Land Use and Conservation of the Cairngorms (2002), which provided the scientific basis for the new park’s research and management programme.
A prolific writer and reviewer of research papers and editor of journals – notably the Journal of Ecology
– Gimingham served on boards and technical advisory groups including the Countryside Commission for Scotland (1980-91). He was President of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh (1982-84), and in 1986 was elected President of the British Ecological Society. He was also a long-standing patron of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.
Charles Henry Gimingham was born on April 28 1923 at Harpenden, Hertfordshire, the son of Conrad Gimingham, an eminent entomologist, and his wife Muriel, née Blake. From Gresham’s School, Holt, Gimingham won an open scholarship to read Natural Sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from where he graduated with a First in 1944.
Following a year as a research assistant at Imperial College, London, he moved to Aberdeen University, where he took a PHD in 1948. He remained there for the rest of his career, becoming a lecturer in the Botany department before being awarded a personal chair in Botany in 1969. He became head of department and Regius Professor of Botany in 1981.
From his base at Aberdeen, Gimingham applied his ecological expertise to landscapes and habitats around the world. In addition to numerous papers on European moorland and heathland habitats, he published papers on the ecology of a North African oasis and several on desert and coastal sand dune formation and ecology.
A modest, quiet man who listed his hobbies in Who’s Who as “hill walking, photography, foreign travel, history and culture of Japan,” Gimingham inspired students with his teaching, advice and practical help and his refusal to be swayed by the latest fashionable theories.
On field trips he was never afraid to get his hands dirty, plunging into bogs or throwing himself on to the ground, magnifying glass in hand, to inspect a rare flower. He always mucked in to help with the washing-up and enjoyed a chat over a beer at a local hostelry at the end of the day. In the late 1970s his research students and departmental staff donned T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Prof Gim Rules OK”. Many went on to achieve eminence as ecologists in their own right.
Among many public appointments, Gimingham was a member, in 1994, of the UK Biodiversity Steering Group, from which Biodiversity Action Plans (designed to protect threatened species and habitats) have evolved. He also served on the North East Regional Board of Scottish Natural Heritage and on its Scientific Advisory Committee from 1996 to 1999. He was president of the Heather Trust in 2004.
Gimingham was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1961 and a Fellow of the Institute of Biology in 1969. He was appointed OBE in 1990. In 2004 he was made an Honorary Member of the British Ecological Society – its highest honour.
In 1948 he married Elizabeth Caroline Baird, the daughter of a Church of Scotland minister. She survives him with their three daughters.