| AdminHistory | Edward Bagnall Poulton (1856-1943) was born on 27 January 1856 in Reading, Berkshire. He was the son of Georgina Sabrina Bagnall and architect William Ford Poulton. Before the age of 10, he had already attended two boarding schools and in 1865 became enrolled at his third school Oakley House School in Reading. Poulton was awarded a scholarship at Jesus College, Oxford in 1873 studying under John Obadiah Westwood and George Rolleston. He graduated with a first-class honours degree in Zoology in 1876.
In 1881 he married Emily Palmer, eldest daughter of George Palmer, M.P. of Reading and owner of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit company. They lived in North Oxford with their five children, in a large Gothic Victorian house. However, Poulton’s family life was plagued by sadness, with four of his children dying within his lifetime.
Poulton was a Darwinist, believing natural selection as the principal theory in evolution. In 1890, he published his book The Colours of Animals which pioneered concepts such as mimicry, aposematic coloration and frequency-dependent selection. In 1893, Poulton was appointed Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford which he chaired for fifty years until his death.
He called the Origin of Species "incomparably the greatest work" seen in biological science and published his work 'Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection' in 1896 in order to show why and how natural selection was the best explanation for evolution.
Poulton is known for inventing the terms "aposematism"on the concept of warning coloration and "sympatric" for species occupying the same geographical range.
In 1935 he was knighted by King George V. He was also made a Foreign Member of the Swedish Academy of Science and Commander (Class II) of the Swedish order of the Pole Star.
Poulton died on 20th November 1943 in his hometown of Oxford. |
George Washington Sleeper (1826-1903) was an American tea merchant.
Sleeper was born on October 15 1826 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Georgianna Sleeper (née Clarke) and Jonathan Sleeper who served in the First Baltimore Hussars. He was home educated in Baltimore where he lived until the death of his father, causing the family to break apart. Sleeper moved to Boston and became a successful businessman, owning tea stores in Boston and Providence. However, after the Civil War, his businesses declined and Sleeper fell into financial ruin. In 1858 he married Lizzie A. Sleeper and in 1864 his son John Fremont Sleeper was born.
Sleeper was an atheist and a Freethought lecturer, who was against slavery and advocated for free speech. Not afraid to vocalise his religious and political opinions, he would often get into disagreements with those around him which gained him many enemies throughout his lifetime.
His brother was the famous actor and comedian John Sleeper Clarke. The brothers grew up next to the ten children from the Booth family, including John Wilkes Booth, who infamously assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
Sleeper died on 13 September 1903 at his home in Jersey City. |