William Broadhurst Brierley

Brierley had a deprived background, and was brought up in a poor district of Manchester. At 14 he became a pupil-teacher in his elementary school. He went into teacher training at Victoria University of Manchester, and then moved to the botany course.{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Philip Jeremy |title=Susan Isaacs: A Life Freeing the Minds of Children |date=2009 |publisher=Karnac |isbn=978-1-85575-691-5 |page=57 |language=en}} There he studied under Frederick Ernest Weiss atH. Hamshaw Thomas, Frederick Ernest Weiss. 1865-1953, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 8, No. 22 (Nov., 1953), pp. 601–608, at p. 603. Published by: Royal Society. {{JSTOR|769232}} At this period he taught evening classes to support himself. With an honours degree of 1911 in botany, he went on at Manchester to complete an M.Sc. He married in July 1914: he knew Susan Fairhurst through the undergraduate Sociological Society. They lived in Levenshulme.{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Philip Jeremy |title=Susan Isaacs: A Life Freeing the Minds of Children |date=2009 |publisher=Karnac |isbn=978-1-85575-691-5 |page=58 |language=en}} He was then an assistant lecturer in economic botany and demonstrator at Manchester.{{cite book |last1=Manchester |first1=University of |title=Calendar |date=1914 |page=68 |language=en}}

During World War I, Brierley took up in 1915 a post as assistant in plant pathology at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the couple moved to Richmond, London. He then served in the Artists' Rifles, being invalided out in 1916. He returned to a post at Kew, studying fungal disease in vegetables.{{cite book |last1=Webster |first1=John |last2=Moore |first2=David |title=Brief Biographies of British Mycologists |date=1996 |publisher=British Mycological Society |isbn=978-0-9527704-0-4 |pages=24–25 |url=http://www.davidmoore.org.uk/Assets/Printed_documents/my_reprints/1996_WebsterMoore_Ainsworths-Brief-Biographies-British-Mycologists.pdf |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Philip Jeremy |title=Susan Isaacs: A Life Freeing the Minds of Children |date=2009 |publisher=Karnac |isbn=978-1-85575-691-5 |page=60 |language=en}} In 1918 he moved, and founded a mycology department at Rothamsted Experimental Station.{{cite book |last1=Russell |first1=Sir Edward John |title=A History of Agricultural Science in Great Britain, 1620-1954 |date=1966 |publisher=Allen & Unwin |page=320 |language=en}}

In 1934 Brierley became professor of agricultural botany at the University of Reading, as successor to John Percival.{{cite book |last1=London |first1=Linnean Society of |title=The Linnean: Newsletter and Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London |date=2001 |publisher=The Society |page=11 |language=en}} He retired in 1954. In later life, he and his second wife Marjorie Brierley resided in the Newlands Valley.{{cite web |title=Women Psychoanalysts in Great Britain, Marjorie Brierley |url=https://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/greatbritain_biographies.html#Brierley |website=www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de}}

In 1916 Brierley showed that shab, a disease of lavender plants, was fungal, caused by a fungus that attacked parts of the plant above ground. The disease was further investigated by Charles Russell Metcalfe (1904–1991).{{cite book |last1=Upson |first1=Tim |last2=Andrews |first2=Susyn |title=The Genus Lavandula |date=2004 |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew |page=61 |language=en}} His work in 1918 clarified the life cycle of Botrytis cinerea, the "grey mould" fungus.{{cite book |title=Journal of Agricultural Research |date=1926 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=613 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zsxFAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA613 |language=en}} In the 1920s, he with colleagues made standard a dilution plate technique for studying soil fungi.{{cite book |last1=Ainsworth |first1=G. C. |title=Introduction to the History of Mycology |date=1976 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-21013-3 |page=232 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3R09AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA232 |language=en}}

For 25 years, Brierley edited the Annals of Applied Biology. He translated the Pflanzliche Infektionslehre (1946) of Ernst Albert Gäumann as Principles of Plant Infection (1950).Bentley Glass, Reviewed Work: Principles of Plant Infection. A Text-Book of General Plant Pathology for Biologists, Agriculturists, Foresters and Plant Breeders. by Ernst Gaumann, The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 1951), p. 297. Published by: The University of Chicago Press {{JSTOR|2809911}}

Brierley married, firstly, in 1914 Susan Sutherland Fairhurst. They were divorced, after a separation that began around 1918; and in 1922 she married Nathan Isaacs.{{cite book |last1=Haines |first1=Catharine M. C. |last2=Stevens |first2=Helen M. |title=International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950 |date=2001 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-090-1 |page=145 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HftdjMNDvwIC&pg=PA145 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Philip Jeremy |title=Susan Isaacs: A Life Freeing the Minds of Children |date=2009 |publisher=Karnac |isbn=978-1-85575-691-5 |page=68 |language=en}} Brierley's second wife was Marjorie Brierley.{{cite book |last1=Graham |first1=Philip Jeremy |title=Susan Isaacs: A Life Freeing the Minds of Children |date=2009 |publisher=Karnac |isbn=978-1-85575-691-5 |page=289 |language=en}}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.cybertruffle.org.uk/cgi-bin/bibquery.pl?author=brierley,%20w.b. List of publications, cybertruffle.org.uk]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brierley, William Broadhurst}}

Category:1889 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:British mycologists

Category:Scientists from Manchester