Mark Gillachrist Marlborough Pryor (25 February 1915 – 19 October 1970) was a British biologist, who was Senior Tutor and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Pryor was the middle son of Lt. Col.

Walter Marlborough Pryor Lieutenant Colonel Walter Marlborough Pryor, DSO & Bar, DL, JP (18 November 1880 – 28 May 1962) was a British soldier. Early life Pryor was the only son of Marlborough Robert Pryor, DL, JP, Weston Park, Hitchin, Hertfordshire and his wife. ...

and his wife Ethne Philippa (née Moore), the daughter of

Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet, FRCP (8 January 1847 – 30 November 1922) was a British doctor and historian, best known for his work with the Royal College of Physicians and his writings on history of medicine. Born in Higher Broughton, Salfo ...

. His paternal grandfather was

Marlborough Robert Pryor Marlborough Robert Pryor DL JP (16 October 1848 – 24 April 1920) was an English businessman, described in his '' Times'' obituary as a " savant, business expert and scholar" who was "a many sided man who devoted to business capacities which ...

, who was an amateur naturalist "well known in Cambridge scientific circles". He was educated, per family tradition, at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

and Trinity College, Cambridge. He worked as a research student under A.D. Imms. Pryor married Sophie Raverat, daughter of the late French artist

Jacques Raverat Jacques Pierre Paul Raverat (pronounced Rav-er-ah) (20 March 1885– 6 March 1925) was a French painter; Raverat was the son of Georges Pierre Raverat and Helena Lorena Raverat, née Caron; he was born in Paris, France, in 1885. Raverat s ...

and his wife Gwendolen Mary (née Darwin) (a granddaughter of Charles Darwin), in 1940. They had four children: Emily Pryor (1942–2008), William Marlborough Pryor (born 1945), Lucy (known professionally as "

Lucy Raverat Lucy Raverat (née Pryor; born 1948) is the professional name used by Lucy Ethne Rawlinson, a British painter. Life Born in Cambridge, Lucy Raverat is the daughter of Mark Pryor and Sophie Gurney (née Raverat), and granddaughter of the artists ...

", born 1948) and Amy Eleanor (born 1952, known as Nelly; she married her 3rd cousin, the film and television director Philip Trevelyan). Pryor was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1939. Before the war, he published with P.F. Holmes a paper on barnacles in Horsey Mere in '' Nature''. He also published a double paper on the hardening of oothecae and

cuticle A cuticle (), or cuticula, is any of a variety of tough but flexible, non-mineral outer coverings of an organism, or parts of an organism, that provide protection. Various types of "cuticle" are non- homologous, differing in their origin, structu ...

s in insects. During the Second World War, Pryor worked at the Timber and Adhesives Division of the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

, RAE Farnborough, where he applied his entomological knowledge to the development of aircraft glue, alongside

Norman de Bruyne Norman Adrian de Bruyne FRS was born in Punta Arenas Chile on 8 November 1904, and baptised on 19 March 1905 at the Anglican St. James Church, by the Rev. Edwin Aspinall. His father was Dutch and his mother English. He grew up in England, studi ...

. After the war, de Bruyne continued commercial production of glues, but Pryor returned to Cambridge, where he continued his research. He collaborated on papers with, amongst others, John Tileston Edsall, Laurence Picken and

Michael Swann Michael Meredith Swann, Baron Swann, FRS, FRSE (1 March 1920 – 22 September 1990) was a British molecular and cell biologist. He was appointed chairman of the BBC, awarded a knighthood and subsequently a life peerage. Early life Swann was b ...

and A.R. Todd, although for the slight majority of his papers he was the only author. Pryor became a tutor at Trinity in 1955, and was later senior tutor until 1964. In 1967 Mark and Sophie Pryor were involved in a road traffic accident, in which she was relatively unharmed but which left him with brain damage in a persistent vegetative state for almost three years until his death, aged 51. There is a memorial brass to Pryor in Trinity College Chapel

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pryor, Mark Gillachrist Marlborough 1915 births 1970 deaths People educated at Eton College Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge British entomologists