A biography and obituary of Svein B. Manum (1926–2015)

Svein Manum working at the microscope at the University of Oslo in 1952 when he was undertaking his Candidatus realium research. Photographer unknown. Svein Manum at the microscope in December 2014. The image was taken by Ronny Setsaa, and is used with permission. Professor Emeritus Svein B. Manum was a true pioneer in both national Norwegian and international palaeobotany and palynology. Specifically, he singlehandedly instigated pre-Quaternary palynology in Norway. He sadly passed away on September 30th 2015 when he was nearly 89 years old. Svein had a long career as a researcher in, and a teacher of, palaeobotany and palynology. This article on Svein Manum’s life and career is based on the collective memories of the authors, correspondence and unpublished notes by Svein (see also Mangerud 2015; Vigran 2016). Svein Bendik Manum was born on October 3rd 1926 to Ivar Rui Manum and Anna Walborg. He grew up in the town of Askim, in Ostfold, southeast Norway, where his parents ran a grocery shop. Svein graduated from Askim Senior High School in 1945 then became an undergraduate at the University of Oslo in 1946, shortly after the end of World War II. He was one of those students who were the first from their families to attend university. Svein had an advantage over many of his contemporaries because he was able to attend a senior high school in Askim, which prepared him well for applying for higher education. At this time, Norway was recovering from five years of German occupation which had severely affected science in the country. He completed his bachelor’s degree in botany, mathematics and physics in 1950, and aspired to become a secondary school teacher despite the very limited funding for postgraduate study during the post-war period. Svein married Randi Hafting in 1953, …