E. B. Ford

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E. B. Ford bigraphy, stories - English ecological geneticist

E. B. Ford : biography

23 April 1901 – 2 January 1988

Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford FRS Hon. FRCP (23 April 1901 – 21 January 1988) was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths. He went on to study the genetics of natural populations, and invented the field of ecological genetics. Ford was awarded the Royal Society’s Darwin Medal in 1954. Later, in 1968, he was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science.

Ford was born in Papcastle, near Cockermouth, in Cumberland, England, in 1901. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford University, graduating in zoology in 1924.

Life

Ford never married, had no children, and was considered decidedly eccentric. Non-academic information on his life is hard to come by, mostly consisting of scattered remarks made by colleagues. He campaigned strenuously against the admission of female Fellows to All Souls College. Miriam Rothschild, an outstanding zoologist, was one of the few women with whom Ford was on good terms. Rothschild and Ford campaigned for the legalisation of male homosexuality in Britain. Ford was on good terms with Theodosius Dobzhansky, who did ground-breaking work on ecological genetics with Drosophila species: they exchanged letters and visits.

Ford has a Royal Society biographical memoir, but there are few other sources on his life.Marren P. 1995. The New Naturalists. HarperCollins, London.

Works by Ford

  • Ford E.B. (1931, 8th ed 1965). Mendelism and evolution. Methuen, London.
  • Carpenter, G.D. Hale and E.B. Ford (1933) Mimicry. Methuen, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1938, 2nd ed 1950). The study of heredity. Butterworth, London. 2nd edn: Oxford University Press.
  • Ford E.B. (1940). Polymorphism and taxonomy. In Huxley J. The new systematics. Oxford.
  • Ford E.B. (1942, 7th edn 1973). Genetics for medical students Chapman and Hall, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1945, 3rd edn 1977). Butterflies. New Naturalist #1 Collins, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1951). British butterflies. Penguin Books, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1954, 3rd edn 1972). Moths. New Naturalist #30 HarperCollins, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1964, 4th edn 1975). Ecological genetics. Chapman and Hall, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1965). Genetic polymorphism. All Souls Studies, Faber & Faber, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1976). Genetics and adaptation. Institute of Biology studies, Edward Arnold, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1979). Understanding genetics. Faber and Faber, London.
  • Ford E.B. (1980). Some recollections pertaining to the evolutionary synthesis. In Mayr E. and Provine W.B. (eds) The evolutionary synthesis: perspectives on the unification of biology. Harvard 1980; 1998. [effectively, this is an intellectual autobiography]
  • Ford E.B. (1981). Taking genetics into the countryside. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
  • Ford E.B. and J.S. Haywood (1984). Church treasures of the Oxford district. Alan Sutton, Gloucester.

Career

Ford’s career was based entirely at Oxford University. A.J. Cain said he took a degree in classics before turning to zoology.Cain A.J. and Provine W.B. 1992. In Berry R.J. et al. (eds) Genes in ecology. Blackwell, Oxford. Ford read zoology at Oxford, and was taught genetics by Julian Huxley. "The lecturer whose interests most closely reflected mine was Julian Huxley. I owe him a great debt, especially for inspiration… Even though Huxley was… only at Oxford from 1919 to 1925, he was the most powerful voice in developing the selectionist attitude there… I met Ray Lankester through E.B. Poulton. He was already an old man… but talked to me a good deal of Charles Darwin and Pasteur, both of whom he knew." Ford E.B. 1980. Some recollections pertaining to the evolutionary synthesis. In Mayr E. and Provine W.B. (eds) The evolutionary synthesis: perspectives on the unification of biology. Harvard 1980; 2nd ed 1998, p336-8. [effectively, this is an intellectual autobiography]