Herbert Graham Cannon 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 letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FLS FRMS (1897–1963) was a leading English zoologist and keen supporter of

Lamarckism Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

Life

He was born in

Wimbledon, London Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross; it is the main commercial centre of the London Borough of Merton. Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes ...

on 14 April 1897 to David William Cannon, a compositor with Eyre & Spottiswoode, the third of four children. The family moved to

Brixton Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...

when he was young. He won a scholarship and attended Wilson’s Grammar School in

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

. He won a place at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

studying Zoology, graduating in 1918. From 1920 to 1926 he lectured at

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

. In 1926 he received a professorship from

Sheffield University , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

. The bulk of his academic career however was spent as Beyer Professor of Zoology at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, 1931 to 1963. In 1927 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh 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 established i ...

his proposers including

James Hartley Ashworth James Hartley Ashworth FRS FRSE DSc SZS (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 Bu ...

. In 1935 he became a Fellow 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 ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Regarding his research, science historian

Peter J. Bowler Peter J. Bowler (born 8 October 1944) is a historian of biology who has written extensively on the history of evolutionary thought, the history of the environmental sciences, and on the history of genetics. His 1984 book, ''Evolution: The His ...

has written:

Cannon did extensive work on the functional morphology of arthropod feeding mechanisms in the 1920s, although his work was typical of the period in which phylogenetic considerations had dropped into the background even where the morphological tradition was continued. He did stress the role of habit in determining feeding structures, although his explicit support for Lamarckism came out only much later in his career.Bowler, Peter J. (1996). ''Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry, 1860-1940''. University of Chicago Press. pp. 138-139.

His student was the entomologist

Sidnie Manton Sidnie Milana Manton (4 May 1902 – 2 January 1979) was an influential British zoologist. She is known for making advances in the field of functional morphology. She is regarded as being one of the most outstanding zoologists of the twentieth ...

. Cannon's Lamarckian views were heavily criticized by biologist

Theodosius Dobzhansky Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky (russian: Феодо́сий Григо́рьевич Добржа́нский; uk, Теодо́сій Григо́рович Добржа́нський; January 25, 1900 – December 18, 1975) was a prominent ...

. He died in hospital in

on 6 January 1963.

Artistic recognition

Several bromide prints of Cannon, made by

Walter Stoneman Walter Ernest Stoneman (6 April 1876 – 14 May 1958) was an English portrait photographer who took many photographs for the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London. Career as a photographer Stoneman was born in Plymouth, Devon, on 6 ...

, are held by the National Gallery in London.

Family

He was married to Annie Helen Fyfe.

Publications

Articles *Cannon, Herbert Graham. (1957). ''What Lamarck Really Said''.

Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

168: 70-87. *Cannon, Herbert Graham. (1960)
''The Myth of the Inheritance of Acquired Characters''
''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

''. pp. 798–800. Books *''Nebaliacea'' (1931) *''On the Rock-Boring Barnacle'' (1935) *''A Method of Illustration for Scientific Papers'' (1936) *''The John Murray expedition to the Indian Ocean'' (1940) *''Ostracoda'' (1940) * ''The Evolution of Living Things'' (1958)Hawkins, T. H. (1958).
''Book Review''
''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'' 181: 1364-1365. *''Lamarck and Modern Genetics'' (1959)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cannon, Herbert Graham 1897 births 1963 deaths 20th-century British zoologists Academics of the Victoria University of Manchester Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Lamarckism Scientists from London