Reginald Crundall Punnett FRS (; 20 June 1875 – 3 January 1967) was a British

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...

who co-founded, with

William Bateson William Bateson (8 August 1861 – 8 February 1926) was an English biologist who was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscove ...

, the ''

Journal of Genetics The ''Journal of Genetics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of genetics and evolution. It was established in 1910 by the British geneticists William Bateson and Reginald Punnett and is one of the oldest genetics journals. It was ...

'' in 1910. Punnett is probably best remembered today as the creator of the Punnett square, a tool still used by

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

s to predict the

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speakin ...

of possible genotypes of offspring. His ''Mendelism'' (1905) is sometimes said to have been the first textbook on genetics; it was probably the first popular science book to introduce genetics to the public.

Life and work

Reginald Punnett was born in 1875 in the town of Tonbridge in Kent, England. While recovering from a childhood bout of appendicitis, Punnett became acquainted with Jardine's Naturalist's Library and developed an interest in natural history. Punnett was educated at

Clifton College ''The spirit nourishes within'' , established = 160 years ago , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent boarding and day school , religion = Christian , president = , head_label = Head of College , hea ...

. Attending

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

, Punnett earned a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1898 and a master's degree in 1901. Between these degrees he worked as a demonstrator and part-time lecturer at the University of St. Andrews' Natural History Department. In October 1901, Punnett was back at Cambridge when he was elected to a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

ship at Gonville and Caius College, working in zoology, primarily the study of worms, specifically

nemertean Nemertea is a phylum of animals also known as ribbon worms or proboscis worms, consisting of 1300 known species. Most ribbon worms are very slim, usually only a few millimeters wide, although a few have relatively short but wide bodies. Many ...

s. It was during this time that he and

began a research collaboration, which lasted several years. A Punnett square When Punnett was an undergraduate, Gregor Mendel's work on inheritance was largely unknown and unappreciated by scientists. However, in 1900, Mendel's work was rediscovered by

Carl Correns Carl Erich Correns (19 September 1864 – 14 February 1933) was a German botanist and geneticist notable primarily for his independent discovery of the principles of heredity, which he achieved simultaneously but independently of the botanist ...

, Erich Tschermak von Seysenegg and

Hugo de Vries Hugo Marie de Vries () (16 February 1848 – 21 May 1935) was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists. He is known chiefly for suggesting the concept of genes, rediscovering the laws of heredity in the 1890s while apparently unaware o ...

. William Bateson became a proponent of

Mendelian genetics Mendelian inheritance (also known as Mendelism) is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later populari ...

and had Mendel's work translated into English. It was with Bateson that Reginald Punnett helped established the new science of genetics at Cambridge. He, Bateson and

Saunders Saunders is a surname of English and Scottish patronymic origin derived from Sander, a mediaeval form of Alexander.See also: Sander (name) People * Ab Saunders (1851–1883), American cowboy and gunman * Al Saunders (born 1947), American foot ...

co-discovered genetic linkage through experiments with chickens and sweet peas. In 1908, unable to explain how a dominant allele would not become fixed and ubiquitous in a population, Punnett introduced one of his problems to the mathematician

G. H. Hardy Godfrey Harold Hardy (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947) was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. In biology, he is known for the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of pop ...

, with whom he played

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

. Hardy went on to formulate the

Hardy–Weinberg principle In population genetics, the Hardy–Weinberg principle, also known as the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, model, theorem, or law, states that allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in t ...

, independently of the German

Wilhelm Weinberg Wilhelm Weinberg ( Stuttgart, 25 December 1862 – 27 November 1937, Tübingen) was a German obstetrician-gynecologist, practicing in Stuttgart, who in a 1908 paper, published in German in ''Jahresheft des Vereins für vaterländische Naturkun ...

. Punnett was Superintendent of the

Cambridge University Museum of Zoology The University Museum of Zoology is a museum of the University of Cambridge and part of the research community of the Department of Zoology. The public is welcome and admission is free (2018). The Museum of Zoology is in the David Attenborough ...

from 1908 to 1909. In 1909 he went to Sri Lanka to meet Arthur Willey, FRS, then Director of the Colombo Museum and R H Lock, then Scientific Assistant at the

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya are about 5.5 km to the west of the city of Kandy in the Central Province of Sri Lanka. In 2016, the garden was visited by 1.2 million locals and 400,000 foreign visitors. It is near the Mahaweli River (The ...

and to catch butterflies. The following year, he published a monograph, '"Mimicry" in Ceylon Butterflies, with a suggestion as to the nature of Polymorphism', in ''Spolia Zeylanica'', the journal of the Colombo Museum, in which he voiced his opposition to gradualistic accounts of the evolution of mimicry which he later expanded on, in his 1915 book ''Mimicry in Butterflies''. In 1910 Punnett became a professor of biology at Cambridge, and then the first

Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics The Arthur Balfour Professorship of Genetics is the senior List of Professorships at the University of Cambridge, professorship in genetics at the University of Cambridge, founded in 1912. It is thought to be the oldest Chair of Genetics in the Engl ...

when Bateson left in 1912. In the same year, Punnett was elected a

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 ...

. He received the society's

Darwin Medal The Darwin Medal is one of the medals awarded by the Royal Society for "distinction in evolution, biological diversity and developmental, population and organismal biology". In 1885, International Darwin Memorial Fund was transferred to the ...

in 1922. During World War I, Punnett successfully applied his expertise to the problem of the early determination of sex in

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

s. Since only females were used for egg-production, early identification of male chicks, which were destroyed or separated for fattening, meant that limited animal-feed and other resources could be used more efficiently. Punnett's work in this area was summarized in ''Heredity in Poultry'' (1923). With Michael Pease as his assistant, he created the first auto-sexing chicken breed, the Cambar, by transferring the barring gene of the Barred Rock to the Golden Campine.F.A.E. Crew (1967)
Reginald Crundall Punnett. 1875-1967
''Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society'' 13: 309–326. DF/ref> Reginald Punnett retired in 1940, and died at the age of 91 in 1967 in Bilbrook,

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

Selected writings

* * - A scanned copy of the second edition i
here
*

References

External links

A brief history of the University of Cambridge's Department of Genetics
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Punnett, Reginald Crundall 1875 births People educated at Clifton College 1967 deaths Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge English geneticists English eugenicists English statisticians Fellows of the Royal Society History of genetics People from Tonbridge Arthur Balfour Professors of Genetics Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Mutationism