Eleanor Mary Ord Laurie Isserlis (14 January 1919 - 17 March 2009)[1] was a British mammalogist.
Laurie was born in 1919[1] to parents Elinor Beatrice Ord and Robert Douglas Laurie. Her father was head of the Zoology Department at Aberystwyth University from 1918 until his retirement in 1940.[2]
Laurie was the head of the Mammal Department at the British Museum of Natural History.[1] She graduated from St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1942 with a Master of Science degree. In its 1949–1950 issue, the St Hugh's College Chronicle noted that she was appointed Senior Scientific Officer at the British Museum in its Zoology Department.[3] She became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1950;[4] she withdrew from the Society in 1958.[5]
Laurie described a number of new mammal species, including:
On 29 December 1949,[3] she married Alexander Reginald Isserlis, who would become Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1970. Together, they had two daughters.[10]
In 2009, Helgen and Helgen named a new species of mouse after Laurie, Pseudohydromys eleanorae, recommending the common name of Laurie's moss mouse.[1]