{"id":6824,"date":"2026-06-12T14:35:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/?p=6824"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:35:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:35:01","slug":"more-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/more-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"More Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We continue our review of our recent exhibition featuring art and creative writing inspired by individuals connected to the University. This post features a pioneering botanist, the founder of Life Sciences, the first University Archivist and the driving force behind the Ninewells Cancer Campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edith\u00a0Philip\u00a0Smith\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edith was one of the first female graduates to receive a degree at the University of Oxford and was appointed lecturer in\u00a0Botany at University College Dundee in 1926. She published widely including an ecological report of a 1933 expedition to South Rona, later playing down her role describing herself as \u2018official photographer and cook\u2019. She was also an accomplished artist. In 1955 she became head of the Botany Department.\u00a0Jackie Ritchie saw her as a Renaissance woman and created a mixed artwork reflecting an imagined page of her notes, capturing her thoughts, scientific\u00a0work\u00a0and artwork.\u00a0Emilia Ferraro’s stitched map ‘cartography in stiches’ of Rona honoured her pioneering and subversive spirit, defiance of gender-assigned work and her care for women, manifested in her involvement in the British soroptimist club. The diorama by Susan Mains and the beautiful notebook by Christine Kingsley and Julie Cumming speak to Edith’s attention to detail, sense of wonder, innovative thinking and cheeky sense of humour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Robert Percival\u00a0Cook\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\u00a0member of Dundee staff from 1940,\u00a0Cook\u00a0was\u00a0an expert in nutrition\u00a0and\u00a0built an\u00a0international\u00a0reputation\u00a0for his\u00a0research into cholesterol metabolism\u00a0and\u00a0animal\u00a0colouration.\u00a0Such was\u00a0his\u00a0commitment\u00a0that\u00a0he\u00a0often experimented on\u00a0himself.\u00a0His work paved the way for Dundee to become a major centre for life sciences because he successfully campaigned for a separate department of Biochemistry.\u00a0It was\u00a0established\u00a0in 1966\u00a0and the first Chair, Peter Garland, appointed in 1970;\u00a0Cook\u00a0refused the post as he felt he was too old.\u00a0\u00a0He inspired Iman Cinjarevic to create this digital portrait with \u00a0traced snippets of\u00a0Cook\u2019s handwritten notes from his nutritional research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of Cook’s experimental diets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Joan Auld<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joan worked at\u00a0the\u00a0University\u00a0from 1976 and through her tireless energy, optimism and commitment created the University\u00a0Archives from scratch. The collections are of national and international importance. She also helped organise the University\u2019s large fine art collection and was active in the setting up of the Conservation Unit. She died in a climbing accident in the Canadian Rockies.\u00a0\u00a0Anna Robb’s artist’s book contains a set of miniature collages waiting to be captured and documented by the Archivist. Pins and paper clips, the bane of an archivist\u2019s life, ineffectively try to keep order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jacqui Wood\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr\u00a0Jacqui Wood was a campaigner for\u00a0the\u00a0Ninewells Cancer Campaign. She led\u00a0a \u00a31\u00a0million appeal to\u00a0establish\u00a0the Biomedical Research Centre\u00a0at\u00a0the University\u00a0and\u00a0subsequently\u00a0raised\u00a0around\u00a0\u00a318 million\u00a0to\u00a0support cancer research, drug\u00a0development\u00a0and innovative treatments. Her commitment\u00a0directly improved the outcome of an untold number of patients, locally and globally. Sadly,\u00a0Jacqui died of cancer in 2011. The\u00a0Jacqui Wood Cancer Centre was opened on the Ninewells Hospital campus in 2013, bringing research scientists and clinicians together to continue the fight against cancer.\u00a0Gail Low and Kirsty Gunn created an homage to the Centre where the solidity of the building opens out as a series of fragments, paper, files and archival boxes that suggests Jacqui\u00a0Wood\u00a0rather than delivers her, reflecting the fragmentary nature of archives as evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We continue our review of our recent exhibition featuring art and creative writing inspired by individuals connected to the University. This post features a pioneering botanist, the founder of Life Sciences, the first University Archivist and the driving force behind the Ninewells Cancer Campaign. Edith\u00a0Philip\u00a0Smith\u00a0 Edith was one of the first female graduates to receive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":6842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6824"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6850,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824\/revisions\/6850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}