DONALD BRAMLEY B.Sc., C.Chem., MRSC., LTI
22.11.1919 to 26.8.1998

YNU Administrative Officer (1971-1994)

It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of our good friend Donald Bramley who was known, and whose company was enjoyed by numerous Yorkshire naturalists through his role as administrative officer of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, a position he occupied from 1971 to 1994.

A Bradford lad, Don was educated at the celebrated Salt’s Grammar School for boys, Saltaire, where he excelled in the sciences. Amongst his teachers there, the one he regarded as a seminal influence in his interest in the sciences, was the noted Yorkshire naturalist, geologist, ecological botanist, cecidologist and arachnologist W.P. (Nick) Winter (1867-1950). On retiring as maths and science master, Winter passed his geological collection to the young Bramley, fostering his lifelong interest in mineralogy.

Don went on to study for an external London University degree at Bradford Technical
College obtaining a first class honours degree in chemistry at the precocious age of nineteen and a half. This was followed by a year of research (1939-40) at Leeds University into the molecular structure of fibres. Initially, and ignominiously as Don viewed it, the practical application of his research formed the basis of what, during the 1940s and 50s, was to become the hugely popular ‘Toni’ Home Perm preparation, thus changing the face, or at least the heads, of the nation.

During the 2nd World War Don’s talents as a research chemist were placed at the service of the Admiralty, working in explosives establishments at Poole in Dorset and Caerwent in Monmouthshire. 1944 saw his marriage to Dorothy whom he had known since Grammar school days.

With his experience of fibres (both hair and cordite), Don was recruited in 1945 by the artificial fibres giant ‘British Nylon Spinners’, working first in Coventry, then in Pontypool, South Wales. The Bramley’s moved up to Doncaster in September 1955, Don joining the research and development staff of BNS (later to become ICI Fibres) developing the processes of blending nylon staple with natural fibres for use in the manufacture of such products as hard-wearing carpets and knitting yarn. Significantly in an economically stringent and environmentally conscious world, Don’s invention made lucrative use of what would otherwise have been an industrial waste product. He was held in high esteem within his industry, serving for a period as secretary of the Textile Institute.

After early retirement in 1971, Don volunteered his services to Doncaster Museum as an amateur geologist. The offer was one of those astonishing godsends, both in filling a significant gap in the museums coverage of the natural science and in giving Don a totally new direction in life.

Through his personal qualities and enthusiasm for his subject Don became greatly appreciated by his new colleagues, his skills and expertise being employed to excellent purpose in naming, cataloguing, re-organising and indeed adding to the geological collections, a legacy the museum still enjoys.

Don developed interests in glacial erratics, the local brick industry and the lives of significant local geologists of the past such as William Sawney Bisat, Henry Culpin and Prof. T.H. Easterfield. He also helped to document several of the local geological sites particularly the celebrated boulder clay pits at Balby (South Yorkshire Studies in Archaeology and Natural History, (1973) 1: 19-23).

In 1971 the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union was seeking a new Administrative Officer and knowing of Don’s fascination for meeting interesting people, the museum staff suggested he consider taking over this honorary post. With considerable trepidation he tentatively agreed, a move which was to shape life in the Bramley household for the next 27 years. He served as YNU Administrative Officer till 1994, then as Conservation Liaison Officer until his incapacitating illness earlier this year.

His most gentlemanly and subtly humorous manner has been a pleasure to YNU officers and members alike throughout this period. Don, with the staunch assistance of Dorothy his wife, has been a devoted supporter of the YNU, attending and minuting council and business meetings in fog, snow and shine, sickness and health for some 23 years. Indeed, both he and Dorothy have also been some of the most regular attenders at YNU field meetings and botanical section meetings for over two decades.

In 1968 his interests in minerals led him to assist in founding the ‘Danum Lapidary Society’, becoming its first chairman, a post he held till 1979, the society conferring on him honorary life membership in 1984. ‘Rock Hounding’ and hill walking exploits formed the basis of many a family holiday, and ultimately of many a talk to a range of local natural history and other organisations. In the 1980s, to keep up to date with his science, Don even registered for a crystallography course at Sheffield University. Amongst his many other interests were boat building and sailing, and latterly the propagation of Fuchsias.

Through Dorothy, he had become deeply involved in family history studies, including investigations into the lives of Yorkshire naturalists. After years of arduous searches at series of archives and records offices, he declared that the Bramley’s merely came from a long line of Nidderdale “Ag. habs”. Perhaps for this reason he had maintained a strong affection for this valley, and for some years they would spend weekends at their caravan above Pateley Bridge. We recall one occasion when they invited us to spend a day with them in that area. Whilst Don was showing us the geological features, Dorothy was pointing out interesting wild flowers including Frog Orchid.

In 1977 Don and Dorothy, joined the Doncaster Naturalists’ Society. From that year, Don served as geological recorder, the first Bramley allusion in the society minutes referring to a collection of Triassic Sherwood sandstone pebbles collected on a DNS outing to the Sandbeck Estate being polished and sent as a gift to Lord Scarborough. From 1980 to 1985 Don fitted snugly into the role of president and chairman, his amicable and humorous nature becoming the hallmark of a long and enjoyable era in the societies history. From 1986 to 1989, making good use of his YNU connections, he operated as programme secretary, inviting a succession of YNU presidents and other officers to lecture to the Doncaster group.

Don had a remarkably agile mind and great enthusiasm for anything which took his interest. The violent weather which struck Yorkshire early in 1984, damaging the Bramley greenhouse and other local landmarks, stimulated him to collect and catalogue evidence of storms and tempests which had ravaged the Doncaster district as far back as the early 1600s. This resulted in his fascinating paper, ‘Bad weather from old records’ (The Doncaster Naturalist, (1984) 1(4): 78-79). His administrative role with the YNU made Don all too aware of the numerous environmental, conservation and government organisations only ever referred to by their initial letters, ITE, NERC, FWAG, RSNC, CoCo etc. Thus, he wrote an amusing but highly instructive explanatory article, ‘Abbreviations for Amateurs’, unravelling these baffling acronyms for the enlightenment of the bemused naturalist (The Doncaster Naturalist, (1985) 1(6) : 133-136). His geological expertise contributed to various Doncaster Naturalists’ Society site surveys, writing the geological background to the society’s publication ‘A survey of Wadworth Wood, Doncaster’ (1993) p. 7.

Don has been a major, if often unsung, influence in Yorkshire natural history. A quietly spoken, genial, good-humoured and very likeable man, Don had a wonderful sense of irony and a wry and impish wit which could be put to very good effect in serious meetings or in the pub afterwards. He is greatly missed by all who had the pleasure and honour of knowing him.

C. A. Howes and P. Skidmore