William Homan Thorpe FRS (1 April 1902 – 7 April 1986) was Professor of Animal Ethology at the

University of Cambridge , 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 ...

, and a significant

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

ethologist Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objectiv ...

and

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

.Alan Costall, ‘Thorpe, William Homan (1902–1986)’ Together with

Nikolaas Tinbergen Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen (; ; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the ...

Patrick Bateson Sir Paul Patrick Gordon Bateson, (31 March 1938 – 1 August 2017) was an English biologist with interests in ethology and phenotypic plasticity. Bateson was a professor at the University of Cambridge and served as president of the Zoologic ...

and

Robert Hinde Robert Aubrey Hinde (26 October 1923 – 23 December 2016) was a British zoologist, ethologist and psychologist.Bateson, P., Stevenson-Hinde, J., & Clutton-Brock, T. (2018). Robert Aubrey Hinde CBE. 26 October 1923—23 December 2016. 65, ...

, Thorpe contributed to the growth and acceptance of behavioural biology in Great Britain.

Career

Thorpe grew up at Hastings and Weston-super-Mare. His father Francis Homan was a borough accountant who also worked with the London Missionary Society while his mother took part in the women's suffrage movement and was involved in Christian pacifism. He was taken care of by a nurse Ellen Clara Birt while his parents travelled in the United States. He studied for a while at Clarence School, Weston-super-Mare and was sent at fourteen to

Mill Hill School Mill Hill School is a 13–18 mixed independent, day and boarding school in Mill Hill, London, England that was established in 1807. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. History A committee of Nonconformis ...

after which he entered

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes ...

in 1921 to obtain a degree in Agriculture. He had been influenced by a talk by Maxwell Lefroy that there was a growing need for entomologists. In 1925 he began to work in the Department of Agriculture on insect pests. He continued on this line during two years at the University of California as a Rockefeller Fellow. Awarded the PhD from Cambridge in 1929, he then moved to the Imperial Institute of Entomology, returning to Cambridge three years later as a lecturer in Entomology and Fellow of Jesus College. A religious conscientious objector, during World War II he studied insects that preyed on stored food. In 1943 he published an extensive review on insect learning, following it with a similar work on birds in 1951. He closely followed the burgeoning ethological research of

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarde ...

and Niko Tinbergen, introducing their work to English readers. In 1951-52 he was the Prather Lecturer at Harvard University, and in 1956 published his book ''Learning and Instinct in Animals''. In 1950 he became the first director of the Cambridge Ornithological Field Station; he was appointed Reader in Zoology in 1959 and awarded a personal chair in 1966.

Bird song

When the sound spectrograph was launched he saw that recording sound frequencies and intensities over time made it possible to quantitatively analyze bird song. He obtained the first of these devices in the UK, fathering a group of talented investigators of song. He also led a rigorously controlled study of imprinting learning.

Other

He was a member of the advisory committee to the

Anti-Concorde Project The Anti-Concorde Project, founded by environmental activist Richard Wiggs, challenged the idea of supersonic passenger transport, and curtailed Concorde's commercial prospects. When Concorde entered service in 1976, of the 74 options (non-bindin ...

and as a vocal conservationist led in saving

Wicken Fen Wicken Fen is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Wicken in Cambridgeshire. It is also a National Nature Reserve, and a Nature Conservation Review site. It is protected by international designations as a Ramsar wetland si ...

from draining and development. Thorpe was a critic of mechanistic

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...

. He authored the book ''Purpose in a World of Chance'' (1978); in opposition to

Jacques Monod Jacques Lucien Monod (February 9, 1910 – May 31, 1976) was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of e ...

, he argued for purpose and mind in nature.Watson, Walter. (1979). ''Reviewed Work: Purpose in a World of Chance. A Biologist's View by W. H. Thorpe''. ''

The Quarterly Review of Biology ''The Quarterly Review of Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of biology. It was established in 1926 by Raymond Pearl. In the 1960s it was purchased by the Stony Brook Foundation when the editor H. Bentley Glass be ...

'' 54 (1): 67. Thorpe was a

theist Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with ''deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred to ...

and argued for the compatibility of religious belief with the practice of science.Meynell, Hugo. (1979). ''Reviewed Works: Purpose in a World of Chance by W. H. Thorpe; Science, Chance and Providence by Donald M. MacKay; The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination by Jacob Bronowski''. ''

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

'' 54 (209): 425-427. He identified as a philosophical dualist.

Honours

He was elected to 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 1951 and speaker at the

Gifford lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in o ...

from 1969 to 1971. He was president of the

British Ornithologists' Union The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) aims to encourage the study of birds ("ornithology") and around the world, in order to understand their biology and to aid their conservation. The BOU was founded in 1858 by Professor Alfred Newton, Henr ...

from 1955 to 1960.

References

Bibliography

*''Learning and Instinct in Animals'' (1956) Methuen, London *''Biology, Psychology and Belief (Arthur Stanley Eddington memorial lectures)'' (1960) * ''Bird-Song. The biology of vocal communication and expression in birds'', University Press, Cambridge 1961, (Cambridge monographs in experimental biology; Vol. 12) *'' Biology and Nature of Man (Riddell Memorial Lecture)'' (1962) * ''Duetting and antiphonal song in birds. Its extent and significance'', Brill, Leiden 1972, (Behaviour / Supplements; Vol. 18) *''Quakers and Humanists (

Swarthmore Lecture Swarthmore Lecture is one of a series of lectures, started in 1908, addressed to Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The preface to the very first lecture explains the purpose of the series. “This book is t ...

s)'' (1968) *''Animal Nature and Human Nature'' (1975) * ''Science, Man and Morals. Based upon the Freemantle lectures, delivered in Balliol College, Oxford, Trinity term 1963'', Greenwood, Westport, Conn. 1976, *''Purpose in a World of Chance: A Biologist's View'' (1978) * ''The Origins and Rise of Ethology. The Science of the Natural Behaviour of Animals'', Heinemann, London 1979,

External links

* Metzmacher, M. 2016. L'apprentissage du chant chez le Pinson des arbres (''Fringilla coelebs'') : une réévaluation des conclusions de Thorp
''Alauda'', 84 : 237-239
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorpe, William Homan Ethologists Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge 1902 births 1986 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society 20th-century British zoologists