Margaret Constance Helen Blackler was a British phycologist, botanical collector and museum curator.
Career
Blackler was Assistant Keeper of Botany at Liverpool Museum between 1933 to 1945. She also had some temporary teaching posts at colleges and the universities of Liverpool and Sheffield. In 1947 she moved to an academic post at University of St Andrews. She was a Lecturer in Botany until 1961 and then promoted to Senior Lecturer until her retirement in 1968. She continued active laboratory research at the University's Gatty Marine Laboratory until the day before her death. At Liverpool Museum she curated historic plant specimens that had been added to the herbarium. These included ones from Liverpool Botanical Garden and ferns from India and Ceylon. She was also able to work on some collections of marine algae. Her research at St Andrews was about marine algae, especially brown algae. She focused on taxonomy and ecology, especially in the genera Colpomenia, Pylaiella and Desmarestia. She spent 1959 in the USA visiting marine biology laboratories and the University of California, Berkeley with funding from the American Association of University Women. She was a member of the founding committee of the British Phycological Society and was made an Honorary Life Member in 1977.
Publications and specimens identified
Blackler's over 39 scientific publications and books include:
Burrows, E. M., P. S. Dixon, H. Blackler, K. M. Drew-Baker, H. T. Powell, and H. G. Powell. List of Marine Algae Collected in the District around Dale Fort, Pembrokeshire, September 19–26, 1956. British Phycological Bulletin5 21–31.
Blackler, H., and G. Russell The Autecology and Life-History of Pylaiella littoralis Kjellm. Proceedings IX International Botanical Congress
Blackler, H. Desmarestia dudresnayi Lamouroux in Britain. British Phycological Bulletin2 87.
Blackler, H.. Phaeophyta. British Phycological Bulletin2 239–241.
Blackler, H. Harvey's Australian Algae in the Herbarium of Mrs Margaret Gatty in the Department of Botany of the University of St. Andrew's, Scotland. Taxon26 495–496
Blackler, H. Some algal problems with special reference to Colpomenia peregrina and other members of the Scytosiphonaceae. Br. phycol. J16 133.
She identified at least 38 specimens of marine algae, particularly of the Scytosiphonaceae species Colpomenia peregrina Sauv. that are now held in the Natural History Museum, UK
Personal life
Margaret Constance Helen Blackler was born in Arnside, Lake District, UK on 29 August 1902. She attended Merchant Taylors' Girls' School in Crosby, Liverpool and then the University of Liverpool, graduating in 1926 with a B. Sc. degree. She carried out her doctoral research under the supervision of Margery Knight, thus becoming involved with marine algae, and her Ph. D. was awarded in 1928 for her thesis A morphological and cytological study of certain species of Asperococcus. The following year she took a diploma in education. She died unexpectedly of a heart-attack at St Andrews on 5 November 1981.
