Grace Hickling MBE (née Watt, 10 August 1908 – 30 December 1986) was an English ornithologist and naturalist known for studying wildlife on the Farne Islands, in the North Sea off Northumberland.[1]

Early life and education

Hickling was born in 1908, as Grace Watt. She attended Harrogate Ladies' College and Armstrong College in Newcastle upon Tyne, before attending Newnham College, Cambridge from 1928 to 1931.[1]

Career

Hickling began working as a teacher, but was called for war service during World War II. She was originally offered the intelligence officer salary of £400 until it was discovered that she was a woman and her pay was cut to £300. While working as an intelligence officer, Hickling met Russell Goddard, the curator of the Hancock Museum, who first interested her in the Farne Islands. For the next thirty-eight years she worked as the honorary secretary of the Natural History Society of Northumbria. When Goddard died in 1948, Hickling began transcribing his notes on Farne Island birds, adding in her own notes. She produced twenty-two volumes which have been photocopied for future study. She also spent every spring leading bird tagging in the Farne Islands, where she tagged 187,600 birds.[1] Hickling was also an authority on grey seals, and published several scientific papers on their breeding and life-cycles.[2][3] In the early 1960's, Hickling was heavily involved in dicussions around the trial culling of grey seals on Farne and along the coast of Northumberland.[4]

Family

In 1954, Watt married George Hickling, a retired professor from Newcastle University.[5]

Achievements and awards

Hickling published two books, The Farne Islands: Their History and Wildlife[6] and Grey Seals and the Farne Islands[7] in 1951 and 1962. She served as the naturalists' representative for the Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve at its beginning in 1964, and was on the local committee of the National Trust for the Farne Islands from 1949. In June 1974 she was recognized for her work with the Northumberland natural history society by being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.[8] Following her death in 1986, her ashes were scattered in St. Cuthbert's Cove, Inner Farne.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Stevens, Catherine M. C. Haines with Helen M. (2001). International women in science : a biographical dictionary to 1950. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.]: ABC-CLIO. pp. 131–132. ISBN 1576070905.
  2. ^ Watt, Grace (22 May 1952). "An Experiment in Marking the Grey Seal Halichœrus grypus". Nature. 169 (4308): 883–883. doi:10.1038/169883a0 – via www.nature.com.
  3. ^ Coulson, J. C.; Hickling, Grace (22 April 1961). "Variation in the Secondary Sex-Ratio of the Grey Seal Halichoerus grypus (Fab.) during the Breeding Season". Nature. 190 (4772): 281–281. doi:10.1038/190281a0 – via www.nature.com.
  4. ^ Hickling, Grace (22 April 1964). "Fisheries and the Farne Islands Grey Seals". Oryx. 7 (4): 172–176. doi:10.1017/S0030605300002830 – via Cambridge University Press.
  5. ^ Watson, D. M. S. (1956). "Henry George Albert Hickling. 1883-1954". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 2: 149–156 – via JSTOR.
  6. ^ Watt, Grace (1951). The Farne Islands: their history and wildlife. Country Life. p. 236.
  7. ^ Hickling, Grace (1962). Grey seals and the Farne Islands. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 180.
  8. ^ "Page 6806 | Supplement 46310, 7 June 1974 | London Gazette | The Gazette". www.thegazette.co.uk.
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