Dorothea Bate honored with second blue plaque

Pioneering Welsh palaeontologist Dorothea Bate is being honored with a second national blue plaque. The new plaque is being installed at the Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, where Bate served as the officer-in-charge starting in 1948.

Bate, who was born in Carmarthen in 1878, was one of the first women employed by the Natural History Museum. Despite having little formal education, she largely taught herself and maintained a professional association with the institution for over 50 years. Her research, which included more than 80 published scientific papers, significantly advanced the field of archaeozoology.

Throughout her career, Bate conducted expeditions across the Mediterranean, often traveling alone to remote caves. Her notable discoveries include a previously unknown species of dwarf elephant in Cyprus and the Myotragus, an extinct goat-like antelope, in the Balearic Islands in 1909. Historic England noted that her work “transformed our understanding of prehistoric animals and ancient environments.”