Corley, Hugh Vanner

• Hugh V. Corley

• H.V. Corley

An amateur botanist from Pucketty Farm, Faringdon, England.

Born in South India in 1914. He left India at age 4 to attend school in England. Eventually attended Marlborough College and Oriel College, Oxford, with a degree in zoology.

After a brief period in the army, he took up farming, working as a pupil on a farm near Kelmscott. In 1938, Hugh bought Pucketty Farm in Faringdon. He became an organic farmer and eventually published a book on the subject. Many people would come to his farm to learn about organic farming.

During WWII, Hugh was told by the Gloucester Regiment that they did not need him, so he resigned his commission and continued farming. He joined the Home Guard.

In 1950, Hugh became interested in ferns when he happened upon a very rare fern by chance. For the next 50 years, he dedicated himself to the study of ferns. He joined the British Pteridological Society in 1962 and began to specialise in Dryopteris. He was the first to suggest formulae (e.g. AB, AAB) for the possible combinations of genomes in what later became the subspecies of Dryopteris affinis, work that is still being continued today. President of BPS, Stanley Walker, lent him an old microscope so he could check spores.

Hugh would carry out fieldwork in Southern England and Wales on the weekends when the farming calendar would allow. In 1982, while fern hunting in Kintyre, he made the first discovery of Dryopteris x sarvelae outside Finland.

Hugh built up a living fern collection at Pucketty. Care of his ferns was his top priority, and they were well taken care of. Many of his plants were later studied in depth by Stanley Walker and Mary Gibby at the BM. Under Walker's tutelage, Hugh quickly learned to detect the exact stage when developing spores could be stained to show their chromosomes.

Hugh was a kind and generous person who was always willing to help anyone who showed an interest in ferns. One such person was a young student from Radley College, Christopher Fraser-Jenkins. They developed a long-lasting friendship, and Christopher would go on to name a species of Dryopteris after Hugh: D. corleyi.

In his 70s, Hugh trained as a chiropractor, being one of the first students of John McTimoney. Hugh built on McTimoney's work and founded the Oxford College of Chiropractic.

Pucketty Farm, Faringdon, England

Created: April 2026, C.Kemnitz

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AC Jermy (2002) 'Obituary: Hugh Vanner Corley' in British Pteridological Society, The Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 1, p.79-81. Available at: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40595332

The Times (2002). Lives in Brief. [online] Available at: https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/lives-in-brief-hz885x9gsld

Image: British Pteridological Society (2002) The Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 1, p.79-81. Available at: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40595332 Copyright AC Jermy