Stockmans, François Léopold Henri (1904-1986)

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Pharmacist and paleobotanist, born in Elsene (Ixelles) on 13 September 1904 and died in Ukkel (Uccle) (Brussels) on 7 April 1986. Husband of Yvonne Willière.

Biography

François Stockmans was born in Ixelles (Brussels) on 13 September 1904. He was already interested in botany during his humanities studies at the Royal Atheneum of Saint-Gilles. He followed the lessons of Professor Walter Conrad at the Royal Atheneum of Saint-Gilles and participated in internships in the Limburg Campine (Kempen) during the school holidays. He assisted in the public courses of the City of Brussels taught by Auguste Lameere. He also followed excursions in the Brussels region, which were led by Jean Massart. At the end of his humanities studies, he stayed at the biological station of Overmere, which was led by Auguste Lameere.
In 1929 he graduated as a pharmacist at the ULB. In 1930 he became a doctor of natural sciences, section botany. In the same year, he was recruited at the Royal Museum of Natural History as assistant naturalist for the paleobotany section. At that time, Victor Van Straelen was the director of this museum. Stockmans enriched the Museum's collection with special and unusual fossils. The year of his appointment at the Museum, he married the lecturer in natural sciences and palaeobotanist Yvonne Willière. They worked closely together from 1934 onwards, which led to a whole series of publications.
In 1959 he was appointed lecturer at the ULB. He taught paleobotany until 1974.
At the Royal Museum of Natural History he was promoted to work manager in 1965. In 1969, he became director of the Palaeobotany Section. In the same year, he retired from the Museum.
He became a corresponding member of the Académie royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Bruxelles on 2 June 1962 and an effective member on 3 June 1972. At the Academy, from 3 May 1966 on, he was secretary of the Commission de la Biographie Nationale. In 1969, he became a member of the Academy's Commission de la Bibliothèque.
He also won several prizes. In 1939, he and Suzanne Leclercq (ARB laureate) won several prizes with the work: Végétaux éodévoniens de Belgique. In 1959 he won the Henri Buttgenbach Prize with the publication: Végétaux du Dévonien supérieur de la Belgique.
He died in Ukkel (Brussels) on 7 April 1986.

Works

He wrote more than 100 articles and books on various aspects of palaeobotany, botany and pollen analysis.
In 1938 he collaborated with Armand Renier on a publication on the seed ferns in the Belgian coal basins. At the Natural History Museum, he devoted himself, together with Yvonne Willière (1905-1979), to palaeobotanical research on the flora of the Devonian, Carboniferous and Cenozoic periods.

History of science

After 1957, he wrote some fifty biographical notes of scientists.
In 1979, at the Académie royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Bruxelles, he accepted the chairmanship of the commission charged with the publication of a Florilège des Sciences en Belgique (vol. II), in honour of the 150th anniversary of Belgium. Stockmans wrote both the introduction and the biographical note of Victor Van Straelen. Stockmans had already contributed to the first volume of this Florilège des Sciences en Belgique. In it, he wrote the contribution on Jean Massart. His extensive oeuvre of biographies was awarded the Stassart Prize by the Class of Letters for the period 1979 to 1985.

Vulgarisation of Science

He wrote a whole series of publications to promote botany. One example is the publication: Initiation à la Paléobotanique stratigraphique de la Belgique et notions connexes.

Publications

• A list with his publications can be found in: Delmer, André & Fairon-Demaret, Muriel & Streel, Maurice, "François Stockmans", In: Annuaire ARB, vol. 1963, jaargang 1997, p. 20-28.
  

Bibliography

• Delmer, André & Fairon-Demaret, Muriel & Streel, Maurice, "François Stockmans", In: Annuaire ARB, vol. 1963, jaargang 1997, p.15-20.
• Delmer, André & Fairon-Demaret, "François Stockmans", In: Nouvelle Biographie Nationale, vol. 6, 2001, p. 327-329.
  
• GROESSENS, Éric, GROESSENS-VAN DYCK, Marie-Claire, "Les sciences de la terre", in Robert Halleux, Geert Vanpaemel, Jan Vandersmissen en Andrée Despy-Meyer (red.), Geschiedenis van de wetenschappen in België 1815-2000, Brussel: Dexia, 2001, vol. 2, p. 232.