Shropshire Botanical Society - Botanical Society of the British Isles

Elizabeth Mary Hignett (1912-2004)
Ruth Dawes
Mary Hignett was born in Oswestry, the second daughter of James Hignett. Mary and her older sister,
Ruth, inherited a love of nature from their parents who took time out from their busy working lives to
teach the two girls the names of flowers, birds and insects on country walks. Mary and Ruth lost their
mother at an early age and were brought up by their widower father with some help from close relatives.
James Hignett was an accomplished entomologist, who refurbished the butterfly collection in the
Oswestry Museum and supplied the British Museum (Natural History) with several beetles new to the
British Isles and one new to science, all found locally.
Mary attended the ‘Ragged School’ (Castlefields Infants' School), followed by the National School and
then secured a scholarship to attend Oswestry Girls’ High School. The scholarship replaced the required
fee of £10.00 per year. Mary proved to be an able student and later won one of only three university
scholarships to be awarded in the county for the grand sum of £50.00. She then obtained a place at
Birmingham University, the only one where geography could be taken as a science. Her father presented
her with £10.00 pocket money upon leaving home, which she placed into a newly acquired handbag and
then promptly lost this unnatural appendage. Fortunately, it was quickly returned by an honest bus
conductor who came running after her. Travelling by train was a novelty and she sometimes cycled home
to Oswestry in the holidays. Mary graduated with an honours degree in geography and geology.
In common with other graduates in the post war depression years of the 1930s, Mary found it difficult to
obtain suitable work. During a short period of unemployment after her graduation, she assisted at the
Orthopaedic Hospital as a volunteer in the days of the doughty Dame Agnes Hunt. After 200 unsuccessful
applications, she began her working life as a teacher in a poorly paid post at a private school, followed by
a spell in a modern school on a large housing estate in West Bromwich. She assured the Director of
Education that she would not move on quickly if something better turned up and remained true to her
word, staying in West Bromwich through many frightening experiences in the war years and emerging
unscathed and full of relief in 1945.
In late 1946 she applied for and obtained a post as Geography Mistress at Welshpool High School and
returned to her beloved Welsh Border. Mary taught at this High School for 27 years (1947 - 1974),
ultimately as Senior Mistress, and she became affectionately known as ‘Higgy.’ She was President of the
school Conservation Club which won the Prince of Wales Countryside Award in 1970 and the Coca-Cola
National Environment Competition in 1973. Her adolescent students took saving wetlands to their hearts
and their campaign saved ‘The Flash’ at Welshpool from development. When Prince Charles came to
present the award, Mary took him around the habitat and pointed out the differences between the two
species of hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna and C. laevigata) present on site.
Her love of natural history also led her to become a founder member of the Montgomeryshire Field
Society and the Border Field Club. She later became Chairman and then President of both organisations.
She also served on the steering committee to form the Shropshire Wildlife Trust in 1961 and on the
executive committee of the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales, plus the Oswestry and District
committee of the Civic Society.
Joining the local field clubs brought about friendships with other local naturalists such as Hilda Murrell,
Janet McNair, Doris Pugh, Margaret Asterley, Marjorie Wainwright and Bill Condry. Mary formed
lifelong warm friendships with all of them. Her friendship with Janet McNair brought motorised transport
into Mary's life and this helped her to plan geological trips further afield. In return Miss McNair was able
to achieve her aim of learning about geology.
Mary returned to her Oswestry home in Oak Street for her retirement, eventually leaving her old terraced
house behind and moving into a modern convenient bungalow built in the garden. She never married and
throughout her life had no enthusiasm for cooking or domestic duties. Fortunately, housekeeping was
ably taken care of by her widowed sister Ruth, who was an excellent cook.
During her active retirement Mary found time to write a popular nature column for the Border Counties
Advertizer for some twenty years and published a number of books, including Walks around Oswestry,
Green Walks from Oswestry, An Oswestry Childhood and School Days in Welshpool. The latter two
books published in 1997 and 1999 when Mary was in her late eighties were written and published after
much persuasion and encouragement from David (Dai) Lewis, former editor of the Border Counties
Advertizer. He had the foresight to see the value of recording the many interesting and accurate tales he
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