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= Rose Helen Haig-Thomas = Rose Helen Haig-Thomas, née Haig, (1853-1942), was natural science researcher, poet and children’s author.

Rose Helen Haig was born on 11th December 1853 in Hampstead, London. Her parents were Anne Elizabeth Fell (1822-1894) and George Augustus Haig (1820-1906),a Dublin born wine merchant .She was one of one of ten children (five girls, five boys) and both her and her younger sister Sybil married into the Thomas coal mining family. She married John Howard Thomas On 10th November 1880, her sister married his younger brother D.A. Thomas who was to become 1st Viscount Rhondda. She and John had a son, Peter Haig-Thomas who was a well-known rower and rowing coach.

Rose was a woman of diverse interests and sufficient money to indulge them, including poetry, children’s books, and natural history. It should be noted that female amateur scientists such as were not uncommon in the UK right up into the 20th century due to the significant resistance to women’s education by degree granting bodies, and barriers to membership of the various learned bodies which restricted women's opportunities for study and employment.

Rose died on 31st August 1942 at the age of 89.

Natural History Research
Rose was a regular contributor to the journal Nature in the period 1882-1902 responding to various articles relating to the wildlife of the British Isles,  on subjects ranging from leaf dispersion to a frog surviving after being swallowed by a snake. On 19th February 1903 Rose was one of the first women to attend a meeting of the Zoological Society, where she was an active member, getting involved not only in in its work but also in the management and operation of the society. As a member of the Zoological society she published a number of papers on Mendelism (an early version of genetic science) looking at pheasant markings. These papers on Mendelism arose from her activities supporting George Mudge who worked with William Bateson, (Bateson was the leading proponents of Mendelism in Britain at the turn of the 20th Century). Rose initially provided funds and raised pheasants for Mudge’s studies but she then went on to found the Mendel Society,  a body dedicated to research in this field. .The initial meeting was a gathering at the Ritz for “people interested in hereditary problems” however it transpired that Bateson had his own plans in that area and so the nascent society never progressed beyond that first volume of papers to which Rose contributed a piece on parthenogenesis in nicotiana plants. Subsequently she published a number of papers in the Journal of Genetics   and in March 1913 she was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society. Her last contribution was a paper she published jointly with Julian Huxley in 1927.

Poetry and Children’s Books
In July 1895 Rose’s poem Mars, A Medley, was published in The Yellow Book and she subsequently published two volumes of poetry, Pan: A Collection of Lyrical Poems in 1897 and in 1902 Some Ballads. Her poetry generally seems to have been ignored or regarded as immature, e.g. a review in Academy and Literature in 1902 describes her work as "frank and sincere but undisciplined."

In 1898 she published via the Chiswick Press, a natural history book for children, Spiderland for which she had also produced her own illustrations. Although privately published it seems to have made some headway, being republished in an expanded edition with an additional 12 chapters in 1902. This edition was favourably reviewed in Nature and by the poet Edward Thomas in 1902 in the The Daily Chronicle. In 1909 she published another children’s book The Doll’s Diary with illustrations by John Hassall who also produced many iconic advertisements and poster designs.

Gardens
Rose was also interested in gardens, producing in 1905 the book Stone Gardens However it was not very well received; Nature’s reviewer thought it “counter to all our notions of the amenity and purpose of a garden" and a Guardian reviewer of her book noted it was “a style of a garden not common in England. In 1921 she advised her cousin Field Marshall Douglas Haig when he designed his new garden based on the gardens at Hampton Court.