George Lawson obituary

My father, George Lawson, who has died aged 88, rose from a humble background to become an ecologist and a leading authority on the biogeography of west African seaweeds.

He spent most of his working life in Africa, 10 years of which involved surveying the whole of the west African coast from the western Sahara in the north to Namibia in the south. He was never discouraged from visiting countries considered war zones: on one occasion he and his colleague Dave John were captured by Polisario guerrillas, but he was able to persuade their captors to allow them to carry on collecting seaweeds on the shore under armed guard.