Helen Gwynne-Vaughan

Dame Helen Charlotte Isabella Gwynne-Vaughan, (née Fraser; 21 January 1879 – 26 August 1967) was a prominent English botanist and mycologist. During the First World War, she served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and then as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) from 1918 to 1919. During the Second World War, from 1939 to 1941, she served as Chief Controller of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS).

Early life and education Helen Charlotte Isabella Fraser was born on 21 January 1879 in Westminster, London, England. She was the elder daughter of Army Captain the Honourable Arthur Hay David Fraser (1852–1884; son of Alexander Fraser, 18th Lord Saltoun), and Lucy Jane (died 1939), daughter of Major Robert Duncan Fergusson, of the Rifle Brigade and the Royal Ayrshire and Wigton Rifle militia. Lucy Fraser was a novelist and extra lady-in-waiting to HRH Princess Beatrice; in 1887, having been widowed, she remarried, to diplomat Francis Hay-Newton. She was awarded the Carter Medal in 1902, and graduated from the University of London with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in 1904. She was awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) degree in 1907. For her service, she was the first woman to be awarded a military Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in January 1918.

Gwynne-Vaughan was first made Chief Controller of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in 1939. Gwynne-Vaughan held the role to 1941.

Other work Gwynne-Vaughan was interested in politics. While she was at Royal Holloway College she and Louisa Garrett Anderson co-founded the University of London Suffrage Society.

She stood in the 1922 London County Council election as a Municipal Reform Party councillor for Camberwell North; she was not elected.

Honours and distinctions In the 1919 King's Birthday Honours, Gwynne-Vaughan was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) "in recognition of distinguished services rendered during the War", and was therefore granted the title Dame. In the 1929 King's Birthday Honours, she was promoted to Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) "for public and scientific services".

She was elected to the Linnean Society in 1905 and awarded its Trail Medal in 1920.

She was the president of the British Mycological Society in 1928.

Fungal species named in her honour include Palaeoendogone gwynne-vaughaniae and Pleurage gwynne-vaughaniae.

English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque in Gwynne-Vaughan's honour in March 2020, placed on the house on Bedford Avenue in Bloomsbury London, where she lived for nearly 50 years.