Miriam Rothschild became one of Britain’s leading naturalists and a world authority not only on fleas and butterflies, but also research into parasites and their hosts.   Without any formal academic status, Dame Miriam became an expert in so many fields that, in her lifetime, she was awarded eight honorary doctorates and a fellowship of the Royal Society. Rothschild was brought up surrounded by great wealth, being a descendant of the renowned Rothschild banking family, who owned one of the largest private fortunes in the world.
Ahead of the curve, Rothschild later became a wildflower gardening pioneer ecologist, championing the return of weeds and natural plants to the gardens; and as if that wasn’t enough she was fluent in several European languages and spent much of the war at Bletchley Park decoding German wireless messages for the Enigma project. Find out more about this pioneering and fascinating figure.

Ann Pulsford