Ronald Bamford was born on November 1, 1901, in Rochdale, Lancashire, England. In 1924, he received his B. S. from Connecticut Agricultural College, which is now the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He was a graduate student and assistant in botany at the University of Vermont at Burlington, where he received his M. S. in 1926. Between 1926 and 1929, Bamford was an instructor of botany at the University of Vermont. In September 1929, he began a fellowship in botany at Columbia University and became an assistant in botany in July 1930. He received his Ph. D. in botany from Columbia University the following year.
Dr. Bamford joined the faculty of the University of Maryland in 1931 as an assistant professor of botany, rising to associate professor in 1933 and full professor in 1939. Dr. Bamford chaired the Department of Botany from 1944 to 1963 and served as Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture for the 1949-1950 academic year. Dr. Bamford was the Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Maryland from 1950 to 1966. He returned to the Department of Botany as a professor after resigning his deanship. June 1, 1966, Governor J. Millard Tawes appointed Dr. Bamford to the Maryland Board of Natural Resources. During his tenure at the University of Maryland, Dr. Bamford taught general botany, plant anatomy, history and philosophy of botany, cytology, and plant morphology. He served as president of Sigma Xi, the Washington Botanical Society, and the American Genetic Association, and was a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Botanical Society of America. Dr. Bamford retired from the University of Maryland in the late 1960s and died in January 1981.
From the guide to the Ronald Bamford papers, 1921-1967, 1927-1946, (University of Maryland)
