Nationality English Alma mater Truro School of Art | Name Elsie Sexton Fields Marine biology | |
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Institutions Marine Biological Association Known for Research on the taxonomy and genetic traits of Gammarus genus. Died February 18, 1959, Alfriston, United Kingdom Institution Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom | ||
Elsie Wilkins Sexton (née Wing, 27 April 1868 – 18 February 1959) was an English zoologist and biological illustrator.
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Early life and Education
Sexton was born Alice Wilkins Wing at Truro, Cornwall on 27 April 1868. She studied at the Truro School of Art. In 1885 she and her family moved to Plymouth. Not long after moving, she met and married Louis Edwin Sexton.
Career
Louis was a friend of Dr Edgar J Allen, the director of the Marine Biological Association and its laboratory. In 1900 Sexton began providing Dr Allen with scientific illustrations for his publications on polychaete worms and other invertebrates. Her illustrations were first published in 1902, when Sexton provided 12 plates to the British Museum's Report on the collections made during the voyage of the Southern Cross.
Although Sexton never formally trained as a zoologist in 1906 she undertook to identify and study amphipod specimens Dr Allen had collected on a field trip to the Bay of Biscay. She published her first scientific paper in 1908. She would continue to publish over 30 scientific papers until 1951. Her research into Gammarids helped clarify the complicated taxonomy of those species. Sexton's discovery of a red-eyed mutation in the species Gammarus chevreuxi led to her starting a series of genetic experiments. Her work with this species also resulted in a collaboration with Julian Huxley in 1920.
Death
Sexton's daughter Mary A. F. Sexton had died in 1951, so in 1957 Sexton moved to Sussex to be with her son Colonel F. B. W. Sexton. She died on 18 February 1959 at Alfriston, Sussex, aged 91.