Alan Gemmell

Alan Robertson Gemmell (10 May 1913 – 5 July 1986 ) was Professor of Biology at Keele University and a regular member of the panel on the BBC Radio Home Service (later BBC Radio 4) programme Gardeners' Question Time from 1950 for some 30 years. Disagreements on the programme between Gemmell and fellow panel member Bill Sowerbutts became legendary.

Life Gemmell was born in Glasgow, the son of Alexander Nicol Gemmell, a cashier, and his wife Mary Robertson. He was brought up in Troon and educated at Ayr Academy followed by Glasgow University where he gained a first class BSc in Botany and later, on a Commonwealth Scholarship, the University of Minnesota

He was instrumental in establishing the course in biology at Keele University, which was not then offered in the UK. His career also took him to Tehran, Iran (then Persia) and Africa to establish similar courses.

On BBC Desert Island Discs he estimated he had appeared on over 1,200 Gardeners Question Time programmes.

Family

In 1942 he married Janet Ada Boyd Duncanson.

Publications Gardener's Question Time (1964) Developmental Plant Anatomy (1966) Hodder & Stoughton Penguin Book of Basic Gardening (1975) Sunday Gardener Fontana (1973) Practical Gardener's Encyclopaedia (1977) Collins,