May, Valerie Margaret Beresford   (1916 - 2007)

Born on 8 May 1916 in Sydney; died on 27 June 2007 in Sydney, NSW.

She was the daughter of Herbert Walter and Beatrice Adele (née James) May.

She commenced a chemistry degree at University of Sydney but changed to botany after taking it as a subsidiary course.

She graduated with first class B. Sc. in 1936, having been awarded all the botany prizes during her studies.

She was awarded M.Sc. in 1939 for a primarily self-taught study of algae, that had become her main interest. The almost complete absence of phycology from academic study in Australia gave this work added significance.

She married Ern Jones and they had four children together.

She had decided to follow a career working with algae and she achieved this over 50 years. Initially, she continued to study at University of Sydney, supported by various scholarships. However, when she married in 1940 she was told that this funding would cease.

She therefore took up a post with CSIRO in the Fisheries Division at Cronulla in Sydney.

During World War II, CSIRO was tasked to develop industrial-level agar production and she worked on identifying and cataloguing large marine algae that could be used as a source. This involved extensive fieldwork in New South Wales and Queensland. The industry ended after the war.

From 1960 to 1986 she was the honorary custodian of cryptogams (later renamed honorary phycologist) at the National Herbarium of South Wales, although she had used its resources while studying and working at CSIRO.

A large collection of algal specimens had been bequeathed to the Commonwealth of Australia by Arthur Lucas and she arranged the transfer of the 5,000 specimens from CISRO offices in Canberra to the National Herbarium of New South Wales.

She focused on the marine Rhodophyta initially and later investigated freshwater algae.

In 1966, she was the first person to link cyanobacteria to production of toxins in freshwater that could kill farm animals, working with chemists to identify the toxins.

The red algal genus Valeriemaya was named in her honour.

Source: Extracted from:
https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P004926b.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_May
Portrait Photo: as Valerie Jones, unknown origin.

Collecting localities for 'May, V.' from AVH (2025)

Data from 1,313 specimens