Robert Broom

Robert Broom was a Scottish born palaeontologist and physician born November 30, 1866, in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, who died April 6, 1951, in Pretoria, South Africa, and who served as professor of zoology and geology at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, from 1903 to 1910, and later as keeper of vertebrate palaeontology at the South African Museum in Cape Town. He was renowned for his work on South African hominin fossils, including the australopithecine skull known as Mrs Ples, and for evidence supporting upright walking in australopithecines, alongside extensive research on therapsid mammal-like reptiles. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920, received the Royal Medal in 1928, the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal in 1946, and the Wollaston Medal in 1949.