1. Early life and education

2. Research

3. Personal life

4. References

Henderina Victoria Scott pioneered time-lapse photography of plants.

Early life and education

She was born Henderina Victoria Klaassen in Brixton in the Surrey outskirts of London in 1862. Her father, Hendericus M. Klaassen, had emigrated from Hanover, Germany and was a successful businessman. In later life he became enthusiastic about science, especially geology, and his daughters Henderina and Helen became interested in science from childhood.^[1]

While studying botany at the Royal College of Science in 1886 she got to know one of the lecturing staff, Dukinfield Henry Scott who gave advanced classes in botany at the Jodrell Laboratory, Kew. They married in 1887 and she began to assist him as well as conducting her own botanical research. She did not hold an academic post.^[1]

Research

Scott assisted her husband with his research. For example, she catalogued and indexed his collections of fossil slides and provided illustrations for his textbooks. However, she also undertook her own independent research in botany and paleobotany.^[2]

Her most innovative work was applying cinematography to record plant growth. She published her application of time-lapse photography to capture the movement of flowers of 'Sparmannia africana'.^[3] She had been in communication with Harry Bolus for information on the natural history of this species. Movement of the stamens had already been recorded by botanists but the petals, sepals and entire flower bud are also capable of comparatively rapid movement. Individual flowers lived much longer in greenhouses in the UK than in its warmer natural habitat in South Africa. In addition to recording flower circumnutation and opening through drawings, she also applied cinematography. After reviewing available and affordable systems she used a Kammatograph,^[4] a filmless system available from 1900 where photographs are taken on a glass disc and could be projected using a magic lantern system. Kamm and Co. provided assistance in optimising the Kammatograph for her time-lapse studies. Some of these photographs were included in her scientific publications.^[3]

Her further slow motion time-lapse photography showed plant activity such as the opening of buds, pollination by a bee and the opening of a shoot, among others. This was substantially before the better-known early time-lapse photographs of flowers by F. Percy Smith.^[2]

Her time-lapse films were shown at several scientific meetings. These included a Royal Society conversazione in June 1904,^[2] the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in August 1904, Holmesdale Natural History Club in Reigate in December the same year, the Linnean Society in London in March 1905 (after she had been admitted as a Fellow), and a Royal Horticultural Society meeting in 1906. She is also recorded as showing her animated photographs at the Linnean Society again in 1907.^[1][5]

She continued to research and publish after the family moved from London to near Basingstoke.

Personal life

She bore 7 children, one of whom died in infancy and four survived to adulthood. In 1907 she and her husband retired to East Oakley House near Basingstoke in Hampshire where she became involved in school and local politics, as well as hosting visits from many international botanists. She died at home, unexpectedly, after a short illness on January 18, 1929.^[2]

References

• Bob Hatton
• Bob Hattoy
• Bob Haugen
• Bob Havens
• Bob Hawkesworth
• Bob Hayward
• Bob Hazell
• Bob Hazle
• Bob Heathcote
• Bob Heatlie
• Bob Hedlund
• Bob Heffernan
• Bob Heffner
• Bob Heffron
• Bob Height
• Bob Heintz
• Bob Heinz
• Bob Heise
• Bob Helm
• Bob Hendren
• Bob Henrit
• Bob Herbert
• Bob herceg
• Bob Herceg
• Bob Herman