Sir John Graham Kerr (18 September 1869 – 21 April 1957), known to his friends as Graham Kerr, was a British

embryologist Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos and ...

and Unionist Member of Parliament (MP). He is best known for his studies of the embryology of

lungfish Lungfish are freshwater vertebrates belonging to the class Dipnoi. Lungfish are best known for retaining ancestral characteristics within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and ancestral structures within Sarcopterygii, inc ...

es. He was involved in

ship camouflage Ship camouflage is a form of military deception in which a ship is painted in one or more colors in order to obscure or confuse an enemy's visual observation. Several types of marine camouflage have been used or prototyped: blending or crypsis, ...

in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, and through his pupil Hugh B. Cott influenced

military camouflage Military camouflage is the use of camouflage by an Military, armed force to protect personnel and equipment from observation by enemy forces. In practice, this means applying colour and materials to military equipment of all kinds, including ...

thinking in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

also.

Early life

He was born at Rowley Lodge, in

Arkley Arkley is a village in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Barnet. It is located north-northwest of Charing Cross. It consists of a long village strung out between Barnet and Stirling Corner, and composed of the ancient ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, to Scottish parents: James Kerr, former Principal of Hooghly College in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

, and his wife, Sybella Graham. Kerr was educated at the

Royal High School, Edinburgh The Royal High School (RHS) of Edinburgh is a co-educational school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland. It serves around 1,400 pupils drawn from four feeder pr ...

, and then studied medicine at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

Zoology

Kerr interrupted his medical studies to join an Argentinian expedition to study the natural history of the

Pilcomayo River Pilcomayo (in Hispanicized spelling) ( Quechua Pillkumayu or Pillku Mayu, ''pillku'' red, ''mayu'' river, "red river", Guarani Ysyry Araguay ) is a river in central South America. At long, it is the longest western tributary of the Paraguay Riv ...

. On his return, he studied

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 250 graduate students. The c ...

, graduating with first class honours in 1896. The Argentinian expedition had ended with the loss of most of the collections, but after graduating he mounted an expedition to the

Gran Chaco The Gran Chaco or simply Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland tropical dry broadleaf forest natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion o ...

, bringing home a large collection of material related to the

South American lungfish The South American lungfish (''Lepidosiren paradoxa''), also known as the American mud-fish and scaly salamanderfish, is the single species of lungfish found in swamps and slow-moving waters of the Amazon Basin, Amazon, Paraguay River, Paraguay, ...

, ''Lepidosiren paradoxa''.Who's Who in Glasgow 1909
/ref> Kerr was accompanied by John Samuel Budgett, who studied the

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

s of the area and discovered a new genus. After a period acting as Demonstrator in the Animal Morphology lectures at

(1898 to 1902), he was appointed in August 1902 as Regius Professor of Natural History in 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 ...

replacing John Young. Kerr stayed until 1935 when he was succeeded by Prof Edward Hindle. Kerr was particularly interested in teaching medical students, and published widely. In 1903, 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 Sir

Isaac Bayley Balfour Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, KBE, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE (31 March 1853 – 30 November 1922) was a Scottish botanist. He was Regius Prof ...

James Cossar Ewart James Cossar Ewart Royal Society, FRS FRSE (26 November 1851 – 31 December 1933) was a Scottish zoologist. He performed breeding experiments with horses and zebras which disproved earlier theories of heredity. Life Ewart was born in Pe ...

Frederick Orpen Bower Frederick Orpen Bower FRSE FRS (4 November 1855 – 11 April 1948) was an English botanist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1891. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Linnean Society in 1909 and the Darwin Medal of the Ro ...

, and

James Geikie James Murdoch Geikie PRSE FRS LLD (23 August 1839 – 1 March 1915) was a Scottish geologist. He was professor of geology at the University of Edinburgh from 1882 to 1914. Early life He was born in Edinburgh, the son of James Stuart Geiki ...

. He won the Society's Neill Prize in 1904. He served as the Society's vice president from 1928 to 1931. He was President of the

Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh The Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh was a learned society based in Edinburgh, Scotland "for the cultivation of the physical sciences". The society was founded in 1771 as the Physico-Chirurgical Society but soon after changed its name to the ...

from 1906 to 1909, and elected a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of 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 ...

in 1909. He received LLDs from the

in 1935 and the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

in 1950.

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

: Kerr, Sir (John) Graham (1869–1957)

Camouflage

Kerr made early contributions to ship

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

in the

. He wrote to

First Lord of the Admiralty First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the title of the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible f ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

on 24 September 1914, advocating camouflage by

disruptive coloration Disruptive coloration (also known as disruptive camouflage or disruptive patterning) is a form of camouflage that works by breaking up the outlines of an animal, soldier or military hardware with a strongly contrasting pattern. It is often com ...

— breaking up outlines with patches of strongly contrasting tone — and

countershading Countershading, or Thayer's law, is a method of camouflage in which animal coloration, an animal's coloration is darker on the top or upper side and lighter on the underside of the body. This pattern is found in many species of mammals, reptile ...

— shading guns into invisibility with lighter paint below, darker paint above. Kerr openly supported the controversial camouflage claims of American artist

Abbott Handerson Thayer Abbott Handerson Thayer (August 12, 1849May 29, 1921) was an American painter, naturalist, and teacher. As a painter of portraits, figures, animals, and landscapes, he enjoyed a certain prominence during his lifetime, and his paintings are repres ...

. Kerr's aim was to make ships difficult to spot and fool range finders by disrupting their outlines, or in his own words "to destroy completely the continuity of outlines by splashes of white", to make ships harder to hit with gunfire at long range. Kerr's principle was applied to ships in various ways, but Kerr found it difficult to promote or control the use of his camouflage ideas, and they fell out of favour after Churchill's departure from the Admiralty. The Royal Navy reverted to plain grey. A rival proposal for

disruptive camouflage Disruptive coloration (also known as disruptive camouflage or disruptive patterning) is a form of camouflage that works by breaking up the outlines of an animal, soldier or military hardware with a strongly contrasting pattern. It is often com ...

emerged in 1917 from the marine artist Norman Wilkinson. Wilkinson, unlike Kerr, had little difficulty fitting in with the naval establishment, and was put in charge of a large-scale program of painting ships in disruptive patterns that became known as "

Dazzle camouflage Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle (in the U.S.) or dazzle painting, is a type of ship camouflage that was used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to the British marine art ...

". After the war, Kerr engaged in an unsuccessful legal dispute over the credit for creating dazzle camouflage. Wilkinson successfully promoted the false idea that Kerr's camouflage sought invisibility rather than image disruption.Forbes, Peter (2009) ''Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage''. Yale. . pp. 85–92 and 97–100. Kerr again influenced British camouflage in the

, this time through his pupil Hugh B. Cott.Forbes, Peter (2009) '' Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage''. Yale. . pp. 139–142.

Politics and late life

Kerr was elected as Unionist MP for the

Combined Scottish Universities The Combined Scottish Universities was a three-member university constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until 1950. It was created by merging the single-member constituencies of Glasgow and Aberd ...

at a by-election in 1935 after the MP and novelist

John Buchan John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, British Army officer, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. As a ...

resigned his seat when he was appointed as

Governor General of Canada The governor general of Canada () is the federal representative of the . The monarch of Canada is also sovereign and head of state of 14 other Commonwealth realms and resides in the United Kingdom. The monarch, on the Advice (constitutional la ...

. After his election to

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, Kerr resigned his professorship, and moved to Hertfordshire. He held the seat until the

university constituencies A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...

were abolished for the 1950 general election, serving for a time as Chairman of the

Parliamentary and Scientific Committee The UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee (P&SC) is a United Kingdom parliamentary organization established in 1939. It is an all-party parliamentary group. Overview The P&SC provides a forum for scientific and technological issues in the UK. ...

. He was

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

ed in the

King's Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours, in some Commonwealth realms, mark the reigning monarch's official birthday in each realm by granting various individuals appointment into national or dynastic orders or the award of decorations and medals. The honours are ...

in 1939. The

awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD) in 1950. He died on 21 April 1957 at Barley House in

Royston, Hertfordshire Royston is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Hertfordshire, District of North Hertfordshire and county of Hertfordshire in England. It is situated on the Prime meridian (Greenwich), Greenwich Meridian, which brush ...

Family

He married twice. First, in 1903, to Elizabeth Mary Kerr. She died in 1934. He remarried in 1936 to Isabella Dunn Clapperton (née Macindoe), a widow.

Legacy

The Zoology Building of the University of Glasgow was renamed the Graham Kerr Building in his name.

Publications

''Textbook of Embryology with the Exception of Mammals''
(1919)

(1921)
''Evolution''
(1926) *''An Introduction to Zoology'' (1929)

References

External links

*
Papers of Sir John Graham Kerr
at the

Biography of Sir John Graham Kerr
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerr, John Graham 1869 births 1957 deaths People from Hertfordshire People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge British embryologists 20th-century British zoologists Fellows of Christ's College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Glasgow Fellows of the Royal Society Unionist Party (Scotland) MPs Knights Bachelor Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the Combined Scottish Universities UK MPs 1931–1935 UK MPs 1935–1945 UK MPs 1945–1950 Camoufleurs Camouflage researchers 19th-century British zoologists