Dr Pamela Marjorie Gough passed away on 17 December 2019, aged 95. Her Wiltshire research papers including her thesis, notes, maps and books on Wiltshire arrived in the museum in March 2020, the week before Covid-19 Lockdown. She left a generous legacy to the Society. In recognition of her interest in our Library, part of her legacy was used to purchase new display cases in our Library Long Room.

Having attended Horsham High School for Girls (1935-1942) Pamela went on to University College, Southampton and obtained a BSc in Geography in 1945 followed by a Cambridge Teachers certificate in 1946. Her first teaching job was at South Wilts Grammar School for Girls where she taught Geography, Biology and General Science (1946-1962). She continued to teach in schools until she joined the staff of Shenstone College in 1967 and remained there until the teacher training work ended. In 1971, she took a year off teaching for study leave in South Wiltshire that led to her being awarded a PhD from Birmingham University in 1979.

Whilst based in Salisbury and teaching at South Wilts Grammar School she was a founding member of The Salisbury and District Natural History Society in 1959 and as a member gave two lectures to the Society – ‘Crofting in the Hebrides’ (11 December 1958) and ‘Ancient Woodlands’ (21 April 1983). She also became a recorder for the Wiltshire Flora Committee where she got to know Dick Sandell (WANHS librarian 1955-1978) and had her first flora record published in 1959 (WANHM volume 57, page 448). Later during the early 1960s, she undertook the New Land Use Survey of Britain.

Having left Wiltshire behind in the mid-1960s Pamela became a great supporter of Worcestershire Wildlife Trust as well as Sussex Wildlife Trust and Wildlife Trusts Wales. She served on Worcestershire Wildlife Trust Council in the 1970s and 1980s where her background in education was useful. As a trustee Pamela regarded it as her duty to visit all the Trust nature reserves and went on to investigate the history of several of them. She led many geography field courses all over the country and abroad and shared her interest by running a Landscape History Group for the Bromsgrove U3A.

She was a life-long member of the Geographical Society (later the Royal Geographical Society), and supported many other societies including the Worcestershire Naturalists and the Flower Society, undertaking flower surveys in Worcestershire for the latter.

Her funeral took place at Westall Park Natural Burial Ground on 14 January 2020, and as requested, the congregation sang “All things bright and beautiful”. She was as a person who loved the countryside and was passionate about understanding and sharing how the current landscape developed.

For more information read her obituary on Worcestershire Wildlife Trust website by Tessa Carrick. Unfortunatley, we have not yet been able to locate a photograph of Dr Gough. Please let us know if you can help.