Edward Hindle FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FIB FRGS FRPSG (21 March 1886–22 January 1973) was a British biologist and entomologist who was Regius Professor of Zoology at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

from 1935 to 1943. He specialised in the study of parasites.

Early years

Edward Hindle was born in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

on 21 March 1886 the son of Sarah Elizabeth Dewar and Edward James Hindle. He was educated at home. From Bradford Technical College, now the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

, he obtained a scholarship in biology at the

Royal College of Science The Royal College of Science was a higher education institution located in South Kensington; it was a constituent college of Imperial College London from 1907 until it was wholly absorbed by Imperial in 2002. Still to this day, graduates from t ...

in 1903. He was further educated at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, and after research at the

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) is a post-graduate teaching and research institution based in Liverpool, England, established in 1898. It was the first institution in the world dedicated to the study of tropical medicine. LSTM ...

, he gained a Ph.D at Berkeley University of California in 1910. Returning to England, he entered

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

, becoming DSc in 1926.

First World War and following years

Already a member of the Territorial Army, in 1914 he became a Second Lieutenant in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

. He served in France and Palestine until he was demobilised in Egypt in 1919. In 1922, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were

James Hartley Ashworth James Hartley Ashworth (2 May 1874 – 4 February 1936) was a British marine zoologist. Life See He was born on 2, May 1874, in Accrington in Lancashire, the only son of James Ashworth. He spent most of his early life in Burnley, attending t ...

, John Stephenson, Francis Marshall and George Leslie Purser. He served as the Society's Vice President from 1943 to 1946. Appointed Professor of Biology at

Cairo University Cairo University () is Egypt's premier public university. Its main campus is in Giza, immediately across the Nile from Cairo. It was founded on 21 December 1908;"Brief history and development of Cairo University." Cairo University Faculty of En ...

School of Medicine, in 1924 he returned to research in England at the

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public university, public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a constituent college, member institution of the University of London that specialises in public hea ...

. From there in 1925 he joined and became leader of the expedition mounted by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

to China, returning in 1928 to research at the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research and then at the

National Institute for Medical Research The National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC); In 2016, the NIMR became part of the new F ...

Glasgow

Hindle was Regius Professor of Zoology at the

in succession to

John Graham Kerr Sir John Graham Kerr (18 September 1869 – 21 April 1957), known to his friends as Graham Kerr, was a British embryologist and Unionist Member of Parliament (MP). He is best known for his studies of the embryology of lungfishes. He was invol ...

, and was curator of the

Hunterian Museum The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology M ...

from 1935 to 1943. During his time at the university, he encouraged research in genetics and freshwater biology. Among the talented scientists he invited to work in his department was

Guido Pontecorvo Guido Pellegrino Arrigo Pontecorvo FRS FRSE (29 November 1907 – 25 September 1999) was an Italian-born Scottish geneticist. Life Guido Pontecorvo was born on 29 November 1907 in Pisa into a family of wealthy Italian industrialists. He was o ...

, who returned to the university from internment as an

enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any alien native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secur ...

in 1942. In 1938, Hindle had joined the university's

Officers' Training Corps The University Officers' Training Corps (UOTC), also known as the Officers' Training Corps (OTC), are British Army reserve units, under the command of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which recruit exclusively from universities and focus on ...

becoming a lieutenant colonel and its commanding officer. He also commanded a battalion of the Glasgow

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting ...

. He was a founder of the Zoological Society of Glasgow, which opened Calderpark Zoo after he had left the city. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1942

Regent's Park

In 1943, he was appointed the first Scientific Director of the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity and organization devoted to the worldwide animal conservation, conservation of animals and their habitat conservation, habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained London Zo ...

, a new post mainly concerned in organising all the scientific branches of the Society’s work as well as scientific problems concerning the animals at Regent’s Park Zoo and

Whipsnade Zoo Whipsnade Zoo, formerly known as ZSL Whipsnade Zoo and Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, is a zoo located in Whipsnade, near Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England. It is one of two zoos (the other being London Zoo in Regent's Park, London) that is owned b ...

Retirement and achievements

Hindle retired from Regent's Park Zoo in 1951, when he also gave up his post as General Secretary of the

British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a Charitable organization, charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...

. Among many interests, he continued his work for the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, being Honorary Secretary from 1951 to 1961 and Honorary Vice-President in 1962. The major achievements of his career were his work on

leishmaniasis Leishmaniasis is a wide array of clinical manifestations caused by protozoal parasites of the Trypanosomatida genus ''Leishmania''. It is generally spread through the bite of Phlebotominae, phlebotomine Sandfly, sandflies, ''Phlebotomus'' an ...

, on yellow fever and on spirochaetosis, all three arthropod-borne. A minor achievement was that every

golden hamster The golden hamster or Syrian hamster (''Mesocricetus auratus'') is a rodent belonging to the hamster subfamily, Cricetinae. Their natural geographical range is in an Arid, arid region of northern Syria and southern Turkey. Their numbers have be ...

in Europe and elsewhere descends from two pairs found in Syria that Saul Adler gave him in 1931.

Personal life

In 1919, he married Irene Margaret Twist (d.1933), first cousin of Sir

. In 1936, he married the former Ellen Mary Theodora Schroeder. They separated in 1951. There were no children by either marriage. Hindle died in a taxi in London on 22 January 1973.

Sources

* P. C. C. Garnham, ''Edward Hindle 1886-1973'', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 20 (Dec., 1974), pp. 217–234 https://www.jstor.org/stable/769639
Edward Hindle
at 175 Heroes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hindle, Edward 1886 births Scientists from Sheffield University of California, Berkeley alumni Alumni of King's College London Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge British Army personnel of World War I Royal Engineers officers Academic staff of Cairo University Academics of the University of Glasgow Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Zoological Society of London Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society English biologists 1973 deaths Scientists from Yorkshire 20th-century British biologists