Nigel Morritt Wace

{{Short description|British Royal Marine, botanist and subantarctic guide}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Nigel Morritt Wace

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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1929|01|10|df=y}}

| birth_place = India

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2005|02|04|1929|01|10|df=y}}{{cite web|url=http://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/wace-nigel-morritt.html|title=Wace, Nigel Morritt - biography|publisher=Australian National Herbarium|accessdate=19 May 2012|quote=He was the only son of Sir Blyth Wace, Commissioner and Secretary to the Government of the Punjab. The family claims descent from Wace, the 12th-century Jerseyman and chronicler of the House of Normandy. Young Nigel attended Brambletye School in Sussex before going to Sheikh Bagh preparatory school in Kashmir, where a strong emphasis on outdoor activities left him, he said, with "a continuing delight and inquisitive interest indifferent sorts of landscape and people"}}

| death_place = Canberra, Australia

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| alma_mater = Brasenose College, Oxford, Queen's University, Belfast

| thesis_title = Gough Island's vegetation

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| known_for = authority on the plant life of the four Tristan da Cunha Islands; knowledge of the Australian flora; guide and lecturer in cruise ships to the Antarctic

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Nigel Morritt Wace (10 January 1929 India – 4 February 2005 Canberra, Australia) was an authority on the plant life of the four Tristan da Cunha Islands, islands he first visited in 1955 when he visited Gough Island. He was educated at Brambletye School, then Sheikh Bagh Preparatory School in Kashmir, then school in Cheltenham, followed by a period as a commissioned officer in the Royal Marines from where he was invalided out in 1947, progressing to Brasenose College, Oxford.

At Brasenose Wace read Agricultural Economics, switching to Botany. His later work on Tristan da Cunha led to his PhD thesis on the vegetation of Gough Island, received from Queen's University, Belfast.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1495522/Nigel-Wace.html|title=Nigel Wace - Telegraph|date=5 August 2005|work=The Daily Telegraph|accessdate=19 May 2012|quote=Wace produced the first detailed description of the Gough Island's vegetation, and this later earned him a PhD from the Queen's University, Belfast. After the volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha in 1961, he collaborated with Jim Dickson to prepare what is still the most authoritative overview of the flora of the Tristan islands' group.

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Wace's periods in Tristan da Cunha started with his membership as botanist of the Gough Island Scientific Survey from 1955–56.{{cite journal|last=Holdgate|first=Martin|year=2005|title=Obituary (Nigel Wace)|journal=Polar Record|volume=41|issue=3|pages=265–266|issn=0032-2474|doi=10.1017/S0032247405004444|quote=[Wace] was the leading authority on the plant life of the Tristan da Cunha–Gough group of islands. His five periods of field work there spanned 40 years, commencing in 1955–56 when he was the botanist of the Gough Island Scientific Survey (GISS), planned and led by John Heaney.|doi-access=free}}

In Australia Wace made a substantial contribution to knowledge of the Australian flora, both in settled parts and in the outback.

Wace married Margaret White with whom he had a son and two daughters. Wace's family claims descent from Wace, the 12th-century Jerseyman and chronicler of the House of Normandy.

He was employed by the Geography department of the University of Adelaide, moving later to the Australian National University at Canberra where he was initially a lecturer subsequently head of the university's department of Biogeography and Geomorphology.