37 Facts About Ray Lankester

Ray Lankester was the third Director of the Natural History Museum, London, and was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society.

Ray Lankester was born on 15 May 1847 on Burlington Street in London, the son of Edwin Lankester, a coroner and doctor-naturalist who helped eradicate cholera in London, and his wife, the botanist and author Phebe Lankester.

Ray Lankester was probably named after the naturalist John Ray: his father had just edited the memorials of John Ray for the Ray Society.

In 1855 Ray went to boarding school at Leatherhead, and in 1858 to St Paul's School.

Ray Lankester's education was rounded off by study visits to Vienna, Leipzig and Jena, and he did some work at the Stazione Zoologica at Naples.

Ray Lankester took the examination to become a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and studied under Thomas H Huxley before taking his MA.

Ray Lankester therefore had a far better education than most English biologists of the previous generation, such as Huxley, Wallace and Bates.

Huxley was a close friend of the family, and whilst still a child Ray Lankester met Hooker, Henfrey, Clifford, Gosse, Owen, Forbes, Carpenter, Lyell, Murchison, Henslow and Darwin.

Ray Lankester was a large man with a large presence, of warm human sympathies and in his childhood a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln.

Ray Lankester is the model for Sir Roderick Dover in H G Wells' Marriage, and in Robert Briffault's Europa, which contains a brilliant portrait of Lankester, including his friendship with Karl Marx.

Ray Lankester became a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1873.

Ray Lankester co-edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science which his father had founded.

Ray Lankester worked as one of Huxley's team at the new buildings in South Kensington, and after the death of Francis Balfour became Huxley's intended successor.

Ray Lankester was appointed Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy and curator of what is the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London from 1874 to 1890, Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Merton College, Oxford, from 1891 to 1898, and director of the Natural History Museum from 1898 to 1907.

Ray Lankester was a founder in 1884 of the Marine Biological Association and served as its second President between 1890 and 1929.

Influential as teacher and writer on biological theories, comparative anatomy, and evolution, Ray Lankester studied the protozoa, mollusca, and arthropoda.

Ray Lankester was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1902, and an International Member of both the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 1903.

Ray Lankester was knighted in 1907, awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1913, and the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal in 1908.

Ray Lankester was one of the first to see its importance: his full acceptance of selection came after reading Weismann's essays, some of which he translated into English.

Ray Lankester was a comparative anatomist of the Huxley school, working mostly on invertebrates.

Ray Lankester was a voluminous writer on biology for the general readership; in this he followed the example of his old mentor, Huxley.

Degeneration was well known in parasites, and Ray Lankester gave several examples.

Ray Lankester called this degenerative evolutionary process in parasites retrogressive metamorphosis.

Ray Lankester pointed out that retrograde metamorphosis could be seen in many species that were not, strictly speaking, degenerate.

Ray Lankester considered the axolotl, a mole salamander, which can breed whilst still in its gilled larval form without maturing into a terrestrial adult.

Ray Lankester noted that this process could take the subsequent evolution of the race into a totally different and otherwise improbable direction.

Ray Lankester extended the idea of degeneration to human societies, which carries little significance today, but it is a good example of a biological concept invading social science.

Finally Ray Lankester was appointed instead of Lazarus Fletcher.

Ray Lankester was appointed in 1898, and the outcome was inevitable.

Ray Lankester resigned in 1907, at the direction of Thompson, who had discovered a clause in the regulations which allowed him to call for the resignation of officials at the age of 60.

That Ray Lankester had some friends in high places was shown by the Archbishop of Canterbury offering him an enhanced pension, and the knighthood that was bestowed on him the next year.

Ray Lankester had close family connections with Suffolk, and was an active member of the Rationalist group associated with the circle of Thomas Huxley, Samuel Laing and others.

Ray Lankester was a friend of the Rationalist Edward Clodd of Aldeburgh.

Ray Lankester was a friend of Karl Marx in the latter's later years and was among the few persons present at his funeral.

Ray Lankester was active in attempting to expose the frauds of Spiritualist mediums during the 1920s.

Ray Lankester was an important writer of popular science, his weekly newspaper columns over many years being assembled and reprinted in a series of books entitled Science from an Easy Chair.

The Ray Lankester Pamphlets are held at the National Marine Biological Library at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth.