Ducker, Sophie Charlotte (1909 - 2004)

Summary

Sophie Ducker was a renowned botanist and Australian botanical historian. Born in Germany, Ducker fled many war zones to eventually settle in Australia around 1941. She joined the University of Melbourne's Botany Department as a Technical Assistant in 1944, retiring as a senior lecturer in Botany in 1974. She was particularly interested in phycology - the study of seaweed, and studying the many 18th and 19th century explorers, botanists and artists who first described Australia. Ducker has an annual postgraduate scholarship endowed in her name.

Details

Ducker began her botanical studies at the Universities of Geneva and Stuttgart, but stopped in 1931 when she married Dr Johann Friedrich Ducker, executive officer of Germany's Chamber of Commerce. Soon afterwards she had her only child, a son. Due to the out-beak of war, Ducker and her family were forced to leave Germany and in 1938 they settled in Tehran, Persia (now Iran). She became trapped in Rhodesia for a year in 1939 as a result of World War II and with much grit and determination, eventually made her way back to Tehran to meet up with her family. Then in 1941, war once again forced the Duckers to flee their home and they ended up in Australia.

Now aged 35, Ducker was still determined to work in the field of botany. In 1944 she worked as a research assistant for Dr Ethel McLennan at The University of Melbourne's botany school, studying the relatively new field of the anti-biotic properties of fungi and soil microorganisms. Ducker also completed (part-time) her BSc and Masters degrees during this time. She went on to specialize in marine botany, especially algae, and initiated the 1969 and 1973 studies of Port Phillip Bay. Ducker also became a competent lecturer, supervisor and historian. After her 'official' retirement in 1974, Sophie Ducker continued her research which expanded to include the study of flowering marine plants, and researching the histories of the earliest recorders of Australia's flora, especially the seaweeds. Sophie Ducker donated around 1200 books on botany, including one written by St Augustine in 1466, to the University of Melbourne's Baillieu Library.

Chronology

1920s

Education - Completed junior schooling at Cheltenham Ladies College. Location: England

1931 -

Life event - Married Dr Johann Friedrich Ducker. Location: Hamburg

1938

Life event - Moved to Persia (Iran) with her husband and son. Location: Tehran

1945 - 1957

Career position - Research Assistant at the University of Melbourne

1952

Education - Bachelor of Science (BSc) completed at the University of Melbourne

1957 - 1961

Career position - Lecturer in Botany at the University of Melbourne

1961 - 1972

Career position - Senior Lecturer in botany, University of Melbourne

1973

Career position - Reader in botany, University of Melbourne

1974 -

Career position - Senior Research Associate, University of Melbourne

1978

Education - Doctor of Science (DSc), University of Melbourne

1986 - 2004

Career position - Member of the Melbourne University Committee of Convocation

1988

Career event - The Contented Botanist published

1993

Award - Doctor of Laws (LLD), honoris causa, University of Melbourne

1996

Award - Mueller Medal, Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science

Related entries

Archival resources

The University of Melbourne Archives

• Sophie Charlotte Ducker - Records, 1960 - 1988; The University of Melbourne Archives. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Books

• Hannaford, Samuel; with an introduction by Sophie C. Ducker, Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria (Warrnambool: Warrnambool Institute Press, 1981), 119 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Ducker, Sophic C., 'Lucas, Arthur Henry Shakespeare (1853-1936), School Master and Biologist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds, vol. 10 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986), pp. 163-164. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lucas-arthur-henry-7256. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'Harvey, William Henry (1811-1866), botanist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Douglas Pike, ed., vol. 4 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1972), pp. 357-358. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A040406b.htm. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'Australian phycology: the German influence' in People and plants in Australia, Carr, D. J. and Carr, S. G. M., eds (Sydney: Academic Press, 1981), pp. 116-38. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'History of Australian phycology: early German collectors and botanists' in History in the service of systematics: papers from the conference to celebrate the centenary of the British Museum (Natural History) 13-16 April 1981, Wheeler, Alwynne and Price, James H, eds (London: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1981), pp. 43-51. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'Ethel McLennan (1891-1983) botanist' in 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Heather Radi, ed. (Sydney: Women's Redress Press Inc, 1988). Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'History of Australian marine phycology' in Biology of marine plants, Clayton, M. N. and King, R. J., eds (Melbourne: Longman, Cheshire, 1990), pp. 415-30. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'Ronald Campbell Gunn's visit to Port Phillip in 1836' in Aspects of Tasmanian botany : a tribute to Winifred Curtis, Banks, M. R., ed. (Hobart: Royal Society of Tasmania, 1991), pp. 201-12. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'McLennan, Ethel Irene (1891-1983), Botanist and Educator' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 18 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2012), pp. 94-5. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mclennan-ethel-irene-15527. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C.; and Jenkin, John, 'Wood, Edward James Ferguson (1904-1972), Marine Microbiologist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, John Ritchie and Diane Langmore, eds, vol. 16 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002), p. 577. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160688b.htm. Details

Conference Papers

• Allen, Nessy, 'Cross-National Careers: the Interchange of Women Scientists to and From Australia', in Australia in the world: perceptions and possibilities: papers from the Outside Images of Australia Conference, Perth, 1992 edited by Don Grant and Graham Seal (Perth: Black Swan Press, 1992).. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'Early Austrian Influence on Australian Botany', in History of Systematic Botany in Australasia: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the University of Melbourne, 25-27 May 1988 edited by Short, P.S. (Melbourne: Australian Systematic Botany Society, 1990), pp. 297-304.. Details

Edited Books

• Clifford, Harold T. ed., Cambridge - Castlemaine: a Tribute to John Stewart Turner on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday (St Lucia: Botany Department, University of Queensland, 1988), 71 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Anon, 'Dr Sophie C. Ducker', Botanica Marina, 33 (1) (1990), 102. https://doi.org/10.1515/botm.1990.33.1.1. Details
• Ashton, D. H.; Ducker, S. C., 'John Stewart Turner 1908-1991', Historical Records of Australian Science, 9 (3) (1993), 278-290. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9930930278. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'History of Australian Phycology: the significance of early French exploration', Brunonia, 2 (1) (1980), 19-42. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'Port Phillip Heads: a phycological saga', Phycologia, 22 (1983), 431-443. https://doi.org/10.2216/i0031-8884-22-4-4. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'An Austrian Gentleman Gardener in the Swan River Colony', Australian Garden Journal, 3 (1984), 94-96. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'James Fleming: the First Gardener on the River Yarra, Victoria', Archives of Natural History, 13 (1986), 123-140. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'W. H. Harvey in New South Wales: Letters by the Phycologist W. H. Harvey, Written in New South Wales in 1855', Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 115 (1995), 213-223. Details
• Ducker, Sophie C., 'An early overland expedition to Wilsons Promontory', The Victorian naturalist, 115 (1998), 292-5. Details
• Maroske, Sara, 'Sophie Ducker's Contribution to the History of Botany', Australian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter, 120 (2004), 20-25. Details
• Maroske, Sara; and May, Tom, 'The publications of Sophie Ducker', Australian Systematic Botany Society newsletter, 120 (2004), 22-5. Details
• May, Tom W., 'Sophie Charlotte Ducker: a Mycological Appreciation', Australasian Mycologist, 23 (2004), 108-9. Details
• Rowan, K. S., 'A tribute to Dr Sophie C. Ducker', Phycologia, 23 (1) (1984), 1-2, https://doi.org/10.2216/i0031-8884-23-1-1.1. Details

Resources

• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/74100811. Details
• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q21510988. Details
• 'Ducker, S C (1909-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-461634. Details
• 'Awarded honorary LLD, 1993', Honorary degree holders, University of Melbourne, 2023, https://about.unimelb.edu.au/notable-alumni-staff/honorary-degree-holders. Details

Reviews

• Desmond, Ray, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Traveller and Plant Collector (1999)
  Ducker, Sophie C., Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (3), (2001), 359-361. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0011330351. Details
• Moyal, Ann, Platypus: the Extraordinary Story of How a Curious Creature Baffled the World (2001)
  Ducker, Sophie C., Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (4), (2001), 532. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0011340521. Details
• Rice, Tony, Voyages of Discovery: Three Centuries of Natural History Exploration (2000)
  Ducker, Sophie C., Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (3), (2001), 363-364. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0011330351. Details
• Stearn, William T., John Lindley, 1799-1865, Gardener and Pioneer Orchidologist (1999)
  Ducker, Sophie C., Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (3), (2001), 359-361. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0011330351. Details

Theses

• Ducker, Sophie, 'Studies in Marine Botany: Collected Papers', DSc thesis, University of Melbourne, 1978. Details