| Activity | Seward led a pretty typical life--that is, for an individual who had excelled to the extent of reaching the top of his profession. By all accounts he was the consummate academician: not only did his early work on fossil plants earn him admittance to the Royal Society at the young age of thirty-five, but he was also much involved in the process of education, both as a personal advisor and college and departmental administrator, and as a writer of educational materials and professional society member and advocate. He is best known scientifically for his work in paleobotany (mostly on Mesozoic period units), in which he displayed a greater interest in communicating the broad picture than on dwelling on minutia.
1887 Voluntary worker at BM(NH). 1890 - 1906 lecturer in Botany, University of Cambridge. Admitted to the Royal Society of London 1898. Became professor of Botany at Cambridge 1906 - 1936. Becomes master of downing college, Cambridge 1915 - 1936. From 1922 - 1924 he served as president of the Geological Society of London. From 1924 - 1926 he was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. In 1925 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. 1930 he was president of the 5th International Botanical Congress and awarded the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society. 1931 he was president of the International Union of Biological Sciences. In 1934 he was awarded the Darwin Medal by the Royal Society and in 1936 he was knighted. 1939 he became president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. |