Gavin de Beer

Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer FRS (1899–1972) was a British evolutionary embryologist. He was Director of the London Natural History Museum, President of the Linnean Society, and received the Royal Society's Darwin Medal for his studies on evolution.

In the First World War he served in the Grenadier Guards. Later, he taught at Oxford University zoology department. In 1938, he was made Reader in Embryology at University College London. During the Second World War de Beer again served with the Grenadier Guards reaching the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel.beer&atleast=&similar= London Gazette 1946 He worked in military intelligence, propaganda and psychological warfare. Also during the war, in 1940, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1945, de Beer became Professor of Zoology and was, from 1946 to 1949, President of the Linnean Society. Then he was Director of the British Museum (Natural History)as the Natural History Museum was called at the time: Gunther, Albert 1981. The founders of science at the British Museum, 1753-1900. from 1950 until his retirement in 1960. He was knighted in 1954, and awarded the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1957.

 Books 
de Beer wrote 25 books, of which these are still noteworthy:
An introduction to experimental embryology — 1926
Early travellers in the Alps — 1930
Embryology and evolution — 1930 (later editions bore the title Embryos and ancestors)
The elements of experimental embryology — 1934 (co-written with Julian Huxley)
The development of the vertebrate skull — 1937
Archaeopteryx lithographica – 1954
Darwin's journal: Darwin's notebooks on the transmutaion of species — 1959
Reflections of a Darwinian — 1962
Homology, an unsolved problem — 1971
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his world — 1972

References

Category:1899 births
Category:1972 deaths
Category:British Army officers
Category:British military personnel of World War I
Category:British military personnel of World War II
Category:Colonels
Category:English evolutionary biologists
Category:English science writers
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:Knights Bachelor
Category:Embryologists