Margaret Blackwood
(1909-1986) botanist and geneticist
Dame Margaret Blackwood (26 April 1909 – 1 June 1986) was an Australian botanist and geneticist. She attended the University of Melbourne and lectured there for the majority of her career, becoming deputy chancellor after her academic retirement. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1981 and was inducted posthumously into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001.
Early life
Margaret Blackwood was born in 1909 in South Yarra, a suburb of Melbourne. Her parents were Robert Leslie Blackwood and Muriel Pearl (née Henry), both teachers, and her older brother was the engineer Sir Robert Blackwood. She attended Melbourne Girls Grammar School and, after qualifying as a teacher, taught at Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School and Korowa Anglican Girls' School. She enrolled at the University of Melbourne in 1934 and studied part-time, continuing to teach to support herself. She completed a Bachelor of Science in 1938 and a Master of Science in botany in 1939. Her postgraduate research focused on dieback in the pine species Pinus radiata. From 1939 until 1941, she was a research scholar and demonstrator at the university in the field of plant cytology and genetics.
“Margaret Blackwood” enters the record as (1909-1986) botanist and geneticist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Margaret, Blackwood and 1909-1986 can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21536632. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1986, 1981 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Margaret Blackwood” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.