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John Hurrell Crook (27 November 1930 – 15 July 2011) was a British ethologist who filled a pivotal role in British

primatology Primatology is the scientific study of non-human primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychol ...

.John Hurrell Crook, 1930–2011
obituary. University of Bristol. 20 July 2011. As Reader in Ethology (animal behaviour) in the Psychology Department of

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

, he led a research group studying social and reproductive behaviour in birds and primates throughout the 1970s–80s, turning to the socio-psychological anthropology of Himalayan peoples in the 1990s. In his later years he was the Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship.

Early life

He was educated at Oakmount School,

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

and

Sherborne School Sherborne School is a full-boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18 located beside Sherborne Abbey in the Dorset town of Sherborne. The school has been in continuous operation on the same site for over 1,300 years. It was founded in 705 AD by Ald ...

, Dorset. He completed his

national service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

in Hong Kong, where he first encountered

Chan Buddhism Chan (; of ), from Sanskrit '' dhyāna'' (meaning " meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and Song ...

Academic career

Crook was a pioneer in the early development of socio-ecology, adding this dimension to ethology which was then dominated by the ideas of "Niko" Tinbergen and

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (Austrian ; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoology, zoologist, ethology, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von ...

. His student paper on the gulls of Southampton Water while at

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

, led to his doctoral study at

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

of the weaver birds (''

Ploceidae Ploceidae is a family of small passerine birds, many of which are called weavers, weaverbirds, weaver finches, or bishops. These names come from the nests of intricately woven vegetation created by birds in this family. In most recent classificat ...

'') of West Africa, supervised by

William Homan Thorpe William Homan Thorpe Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (1 April 1902 – 7 April 1986) was Professor of Animal Ethology at the University of Cambridge, and a significant United Kingdom, British zoologist, ethologist and ornithologist.Alan Costall, ...

and

Robert Hinde Robert Aubrey Hinde (26 October 1923 – 23 December 2016) was a British zoologist, ethologist and psychologist.Bateson, P., Stevenson-Hinde, J., & Clutton-Brock, T. (2018). Robert Aubrey Hinde CBE. 26 October 1923—23 December 2016. 65 ...

. This was followed by further research in India, the Seychelles Islands and East Africa. His theoretical interpretation subsequently contributed to David Lack's discussion of the behavioural component in avian population research. His fieldwork was further supported by laboratory experimentation on the endocrinal basis for the behaviour observed in the field. After moving to Bristol University, he collaborated with Professor K.R.L. Hall in establishing a centre for primate studies, extending socio-ecological principles to primates, supervising doctoral projects and leading field research in Ethiopia on geladas and in Morocco on the

Barbary macaque The Barbary macaque (''Macaca sylvanus''), also known as Barbary ape, is a macaque species native to the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, along with a small introduced population in Gibraltar. It is the type species of the genus ' ...

, subsequently developed by

Robin Dunbar Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar (born 28 June 1947) is a British biological anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist, and specialist in primate behaviour. Dunbar is professor emeritus of evolutionary psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuros ...

and John Deag respectively. His year as Fellow at the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research institution at Stanford University designed to advance the frontiers of knowledge about human behavior and society, and contribute to the resoluti ...

at Stanford University in California introduced him to the new techniques of humanistic psychotherapy. On return to Bristol, his students requested him to demonstrate these methods, leading to the creation of the Bristol Encounter Centre and to his teaching of the subject widely in the UK, especially based on workshops run at his retreat centre in mid Wales. In 1977, Crook led an expedition to

Zanskar Zanskar, Zahar (locally) or Zangskar, is the southwestern region of Kargil district in the Indian union territory of Ladakh. The administrative centre of Zanskar is Padum. Zanskar, together with the rest of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kin ...

in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory and constitutes an eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a Kashmir#Kashmir dispute, dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and India an ...

, a pilot study focussing on

polyandry Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives ...

. For several years, he and colleagues led further expeditions studying the geology, agriculture, social and family life and monastic practices in this remote, high-altitude region. He later returned with James Low, a Tibetologist fluent in the texts and language, to study the lives of Buddhist hermits in the mountains. Retiring early, he began practising Zen Buddhism in intensive retreats taught at Dharma Drum Retreat Center in New York by Chan Master Sheng-yen of Dharma Drum Mountain, Taiwan, who in 1993 transmitted to him the authority to teach Chan Buddhism. Forming the Western Chan Fellowship with colleagues, Crook developed a programme of retreats adapted to Western Zen practitioners. Crook published around a hundred scientific papers in

ornithology Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

, ethology and

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...

, and several books focussing on

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

and Zen practice.Crook, J.H. 2002. ''Illuminating Silence''. Watkins. London. Crook, J.H. 2009. ''The Koans of Layman John''. Lulu. His last work was ''World Crisis and Buddhist Humanism'' (New Age Books, Delhi 2009). He died on 15 July 2011, shortly after a gathering of many former students and colleagues in Somerset to celebrate his life. Dr Innes Cuthill, Professor of Behavioural Ecology at Bristol University, described him as "a pivotal figure in the rise of British primatology and socio-ecology".

Honours

*Osman Hill Medal. Primate Society of Great Britain. 1992. *Fellow.

, Stanford University. 1968–69. *Honour plaque. Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages. 2003.

Publications

*John H. Crook (Editor), ''Social behaviour in Birds and Mammals: Essays on the Social Ethology of Animals and Man''. Academic. 1970. *R. P. Michael and John H. Crook (Editors), ''Comparative Ecology and Behaviour of Primates''. Academic Press Inc, 1973. *John H. Crook, ''The Evolution of Human Consciousness''. Oxford University Press, 1980. *John H. Crook, ''Catching a Feather on a Fan: Zen Retreat with Master Sheng Yen''. Element Books, 1991. *John H. Crook and David Fontana, ''Space in Mind: East-West Psychology & Contemporary Buddhism''. Thorsons/Element, 1993. *John H. Crook and Henry Osmaston, ''Himalayan Buddhist Villages: Environment, Resources, Society and Religious Life in Zangskar, Ladakh''. Bristol Classical Press, 1994. *John H. Crook and James Low, ''The Yogins of Ladakh: A Pilgrimage Among the Hermits of the Buddhist Himalayas''. Motilal Banarsidass, 1997. *John H. Crook, ''Hilltops of the Hong Kong Moon''. Minerva. 1997. *John H. Crook, ''Illuminating Silence''. Watkins. London. 2002. *John H. Crook, Simon Child, Zarko Andricevic, Max Kalin, and Master Sheng-yen. ''Chan Comes West''. North Atlantic Books, 2005. *John H. Crook, ''The Koans of Layman John''. Lulu. 2009. *John H. Crook, ''World Crisis and Buddhist Humanism. End Games: Collapse or Renewal of Civilisation''. New Age Books, 2009.

References

External links

Dr. John Hurrell Crook, 1930 to 2011
SweepingZen.com
John Crook obituary
theguardian.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Crook, John Ethologists 1930 births 2011 deaths People educated at Sherborne School Alumni of the University of Southampton Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Bristol Dharma Drum Mountain English Chan Buddhists Zen Buddhism writers Military personnel from Hampshire Zen Buddhist spiritual teachers Spiritual retreats Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teachers British Army personnel of the Korean War Converts to Buddhism