Edwin Stephen Goodrich

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This article is about the English zoologist. For the American general, see Edwin Goodrich.

Edwin Stephen Goodrich

Linacre Chair of Zoology in the University of Oxford from 1921 to 1946. He served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science from 1920 until his death.[2]

Life

Goodrich's father died when he was only two weeks old, and his mother took her children to live with her mother at

E. Ray Lankester, who interested him in zoology.[1]

On coming to Oxford from London, Goodrich entered Merton College, Oxford as an undergraduate in 1891 and, while acting as assistant to Lankester, read for the final honour school in Zoology; he was awarded the Rolleston Memorial Prize in 1894 and graduated with first-class honours the following year.[2][3]

In 1913 Goodrich married

Leningrad sent a message through Julian Huxley: "Please tell [Goodrich] that... we all regard ourselves as his pupils." A small, dapper, thin man with a dry sense of humor, he always complained that, when travelling by air, he was not weighed with his luggage, since his own weight was only half that of an average passenger.[1]

Career

Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Merton College
, he made Goodrich his assistant in 1892; this marked the start of the researches which during half a century made Goodrich the greatest comparative anatomist of his day. In 1921 Goodrich was appointed to his mentor's old post, which he held until 1945.

From the start of his researches, many of which were devoted to marine organisms, Goodrich made himself acquainted at first hand with the marine fauna of

genitourinary
system. Before Goodrich's analysis, the whole subject was in chaos.

Goodrich established that a

segments of the body. For example, the fins and limbs of vertebrates; and the occipital arch
(the back of the skull), which varies in vertebrates from the fifth to the ninth segment.

He distinguished between the scale structures of fishes, living and fossil, by which they are classified and recognised. This is important because different strata may identified by fossil fish scales. Goodrich's attention was always focused on evolution, to which he made notable contributions, firmly adhering to Darwin's theory of natural selection.[1]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1905.[4]

On his seventieth birthday, in 1938, his colleagues and pupils published a festschrift[5] edited by Gavin de Beer: Evolution: essays on aspects of evolutionary biology.

Selected works

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 202574587
    .
  2. ^
    PMID 20286258
    .
  3. ^ Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900–1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 18.
  4. ^ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660–2007" (PDF). London: The Royal Society. Retrieved 17 July 2010.
  5. ^ a volume of essays in his honour

Further reading

External links

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