George Copley Varley (1910–1983) was a British entomologist and a pioneer in the studies of insect population dynamics and was the author of ''Insect Population Ecology'', an influential text. He was

Hope Professor of Entomology The Hope Professor of Zoology (Entomology) is a professorship at Oxford University. The first Hope Professor was John Obadiah Westwood. The current holder is Geraldine Wright. The position is associated with a professorial fellowship at Jes ...

at Oxford from 1948. A colleague of

David Lack David Lambert Lack FRS (16 July 1910 – 12 March 1973) was a British evolutionary biologist who made contributions to ornithology, ecology, and ethology. His 1947 book, ''Darwin's Finches'', on the finches of the Galapagos Islands was a land ...

during the war years, he conducted studies on insect population dynamics in

Wytham Woods Wytham Woods are a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north-west of Oxford in Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its la ...

. He was married to ichthyologist

Margaret Brown Margaret Brown (née Tobin; July 18, 1867 – October 26, 1932), posthumously known as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", was an American socialite and philanthropist. She unsuccessfully encouraged the crew in Lifeboat No. 6 to return to the debris ...

. Varley studied at

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a free grammar school next to Manchester Parish Church, it moved in 1931 to its present site at ...

before joining

Sidney Sussex College Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife ...

, Cambridge in 1929 with a scholarship. He won the Frank Smart Prize for zoology in 1933 and became a researcher at the Entomological Field Station. He received a Ph.D. for his studies on "''The Natural Control of the Knap-weed Gallfly''" conducted from 1935 to 1938. During World War II, he worked on radar installations on the coast where he was a colleague of David Lack. He introduced Lack to ideas on density dependent population regulation and was a close friend, being best man at Lack's wedding. In 1945, Varley became a reader in entomology at King's College, Newcastle-on-Tyne and in 1948 he was appointed Hope Professor at Oxford.

References

British entomologists 1910 births 1983 deaths Hope Professors of Zoology Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford 20th-century British zoologists {{UK-entomologist-stub