Alfred James Ewart, 1872 - 1937

Alfred James Ewart was born in Liverpool on the 12 February 1872, his father, Edmund Brown Ewart, B.A., being Lecturer in Chemistry and Director of the chemical laboratory of the Liverpool Institute where Ewart himself received much of his earlier education. Ewart matriculated at the University of London in 1888, obtaining a first class, and in the next year passed the Intermediate Science examination of the same University. In 1890 he obtained honours in Physics in that examination, and in the same year entered as a student at University College, Liverpool. Three years later he took the degree of B.Sc. of the University of London as an external student with first-class honours in Botany. About this time he acted as demonstrator in Botany in University College, Liverpool, at the same time carrying out his first original investigations in plant physiology. The results of these researches appeared as two papers in Transactions of the Liverpool Biological Society in 1894 and 1895 respectively, under the titles of “Observations on the Vitality and Germination of Seeds” and “Observations on the Growth and Germination of the Pollen-tube”.