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Olga Stewart

Scottish botanist and botanical artist (1920-1998)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ91265984
Source-derived summary

Olga Margaret Stewart née Mounsey (1 July 1920 – 6 August 1998) was a prolific Scottish botanist and botanical artist.

Biography

Early life

Olga Margaret Mounsey was born in Edinburgh to Marjory Brookfield and James Mounsey, a lawyer. She went to schools in Edinburgh and Kent before studying at the Edinburgh College of Art between 1938 and 1939.

World War II

Between 1939 and 1940 Stewart studied engineering for a year at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. She then went on to work as a draughtswoman at Halifax naval dockyard for the National Research Council of Canada between 1940 and 1943. For the remainder of the war she worked for the Royal Navy in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Post-war & work as botanist

On 28 November 1946, she married Frank Stewart, a lawyer who later served as Scottish consul for the Principality of Monaco. In 1947, she began drawing flowers in 1947 and joined the Wildflower Society. Stewart joined the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) in 1967. She quickly became an expert field botanist and in 1975 was appointed botanical recorder for Kirkcudbrightshire.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Olga Stewart” as scottish botanist and botanical artist (1920-1998). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Olga, Stewart and Scottish.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1920, 1998, 1938, 1939—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1920-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Olga, Stewart and Scottish providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Olga Stewart”, the useful work is to connect “scottish botanist and botanical artist (1920-1998)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q91265984. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 1998, 1938 and 1939.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Olga Stewart”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Olga Stewart primary sources, Olga Stewart archive and Olga research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Olga Stewart”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Olga Stewart” 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.