Fields botany and mycology | Died 17 March 1927 | |
Bella Dytes MacIntosh MacCallum (née Cross, 1886 – 17 March 1927) was a New Zealand and British botanist and mycologist and was New Zealand's first female doctor of science.
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Early life and education
MacCallum was born in Timaru, New Zealand, the daughter of George and Rebecca Cross. She attended Timaru Girls' High School, then Canterbury College, earning a bachelor's degree in 1908 and a master's degree in 1909 with First Class Honours in botany. She earned her doctorate from the University of New Zealand in 1917 with a thesis on Phormium (N.Z. flax), a work whose origins in 1909 were inspired by the work and advice of Dr Leonard Cockayne. In 1915, she married Lance (Lancelot) Shadwell Jennings, and she was known as Bella Jennings. Both were tennis champions and researchers. Captain Jennings was killed on 15 September 1916 at the Western Front, aged 23. In 1919, she married Peter MacCallum at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. She had three daughters from her second marriage.
Career and research
In 1919, MacCallum moved to England, where she studied bacteriology at Cambridge Medical School, then moved to the University of Edinburgh, where she researched fungi. She was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1921. Less is known about her life after this point; she moved to Australia with her pathologist husband and died on 17 March 1927, giving birth to their third daughter, Bella.