Franklyn Hugh Perring PhD, OBE was a British naturalist, regarded as "one of the most influential botanists and nature conservationists of the 20th century".
22 Facts About Franklyn Perring
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Franklyn Perring was head of the national Biological Records Centre based at Monks Wood from 1964 to 1978.
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Franklyn Perring played a key role in the development of the modern Wildlife Trust movement.
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Franklyn Perring was born in Forest Gate, East London and was the son of an antiques dealer.
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Franklyn Perring grew up at Woodford Green, close to the Epping Forest, and spent time at weekends on the Blackwater estuary.
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Franklyn Perring remained there to study for a PhD on the ecology and biogeography of plants of chalk grassland.
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Franklyn Perring managed the inputting of data onto punched cards, and coordinated the then quite innovative application of a tabulator to print maps mechanically from punched cards.
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Franklyn Perring subsequently became the director of the BSBI recording scheme in 1959.
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In 1964, Franklyn Perring moved to the recently established Nature Conservancy Experimental Station at Monks Wood near Huntingdon, whose role included studying the effects of pollution on wildlife.
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Franklyn Perring worked with other naturalists there to extend the recording methodology into non-botanical fields.
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In 1979, Franklyn Perring left the Biological Records Centre at Monks Wood to take up the post of general secretary of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, a national body acting as a coordinating organisation for the country's fifty local naturalists' trusts.
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Franklyn Perring remained in this position until he retired in 1987.
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Franklyn Perring was a founder member of the Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust.
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Franklyn Perring was president of the Botanical Society of the British Isles from 1993 to 1995 - an organisation to which he is regarded as having made his greatest contribution.
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Franklyn Perring was an earlier protagonist for the establishment of Local Biological Records Centres, and in the late 1970s led a conference which effectively kick-started the movement within local museums.
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Franklyn Perring helped to establish the European mapping project, based in Helsinki, and which is still working on compiling the 'Atlas Florae Europaeae' - mapping all the species listed in Flora Europaea.
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Franklyn Perring was an active Fellow of the Linnean Society of London for 39 years and was its Botanical Secretary between 1973 and 1978.
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Franklyn Perring took a great interest in encouraging the next generations of botanists, and working closely with the University of Birmingham to support this.
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Franklyn Perring lived on the edge of Oundle and was secretary to the nearby church council of St Rumbald's, Stoke Doyle, where he successfully influenced the churchyard's management regime so that became a flower-rich meadow.
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Franklyn Perring escorted his final tour in the year he died.
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Franklyn Perring was survived by his wife Margaret and daughter Emma, as well as by Neil, a son from a previous marriage to the late Yvonne Matthews.
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Franklyn Perring was editor of The Flora of a Changing Britain and co-edited many other publications, including:.