Leonard Doncaster
{{Short description|English geneticist (1877–1920)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Leonard Doncaster
| image = Leonard Doncaster.jpg
| image_size = 220px
| caption = Doncaster in 1920
| birth_date = {{birth-date|31 December 1877}}
| birth_place = Sheffield, England
| death_date = {{death-date and age|28 May 1920|31 December 1877}}
| death_place =
| field = Genetics, lepidopterology, animal breeding
| work_institutions = King's College, Birmingham University, University of Liverpool
| alma_mater = University of Cambridge
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Discovery of sex linkage
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo =
| prizes =
| awards = Elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 1915
}}
Leonard Doncaster (31 December 1877 – 28 May 1920) was an English geneticist and a lecturer on zoology at both Birmingham University and the University of Liverpool whose research work was largely based on insects.{{acad|id=DNCR896L|name=Doncaster, Leonard}}{{cite magazine|title=DONCASTER, Leonard|magazine=The International Who's Who in the World|year=1912|page=390|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-wRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA390}}{{cite book|title=Entomological News|date=November 1920|publisher=Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia & The American Entomological Society|page=240|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SL0yAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA240|access-date=20 June 2016|language=en}}
Early life
Doncaster was born on 31 December 1877 in Abbeydale, Sheffield. His father was Samuel Doncaster, an iron merchant, of Abbeydale, Sheffield, Yorkshire.
Career
After education at Leighton Park School in Reading South England he studied at King's College, Cambridge, from 1896 onward. He was Scholar of natural sciences in 1898, and Walsingham Medallist in 1902.
In June 1902 he was appointed assistant to the Superintendent of the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology,{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=University intelligence |date=6 June 1902 |page=11 |issue=36787}}
From 1906-10 he was a Lecturer in Zoology at Birmingham University.
He was an early Mendelian geneticist who discovered sex linkage, while writing up breeding experiment results of the Reverend G.H. Raynor on the magpie moth Abraxas grossulariata published in 1906.{{cite journal | author = Doncaster L., Raynor G.H. | year = 1906 | title = Breeding experiments with Lepidoptera | journal = Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London | volume = 1 | issue = 1–2 | pages = 125–133 | doi = 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1906.tb08425.x }} He wrote a number of books on Mendelian genetics and on sex determination. His book Heredity in the Light of Recent Research (1910), is notable for explicitly dismissing Lamarckian inheritance.Jones, Andrew F. (2011). Developmental Fairy Tales: Evolutionary Thinking and Modern Chinese Culture. Harvard University Press. p. 92. {{ISBN|978-0-674-04795-2}}
In 1909 he returned to Cambridge University and acted as Superintendent of the Museum of Zoology from 1909 to 1914.{{cite web|title=Cambridge University Museum of Zoology: Archives & Histories|url=http://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/collections.archives/histories.archives/|access-date=2013-03-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119055339/http://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/collections.archives/histories.archives/|archive-date=2010-11-19|url-status=dead}} He became University Lecturer in Zoology in 1914 and won the Trail Medal of Linneaean Society in 1915. In 1915, he was also elected to the Royal Society of London.
During the First World War he served as a bacteriologist to the First Eastern General Hospital, Cambridge, and later in the Friends' Ambulance Unit at Dunkirk, as he was a Quaker.Dictionary of Quaker Biography, Library of Society of Friends
After WWI he was Professor of Zoology at Liverpool University from 1919 until his death in 1920. He died at age 42 of sarcoma in Liverpool.
William Bateson wrote his obituary in Nature.{{cite journal|author=Bateson, W|title=Prof. L. Doncaster, F.R.S.|journal=Nature|volume=105|issue=2641|pages=461–462|date=10 June 1920|doi=10.1038/105461a0|bibcode=1920Natur.105..461B|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1429638|doi-access=free}}
Publications
- [https://archive.org/details/heredityinlighto00donc Heredity in the Light of Recent Research] (1910)
- [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2986984/ A review of Heredity and Memory] by James Ward (1912)
- [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.100781 The Determination of Sex] (1914)
- [http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/13652427?q&versionId=16175284 Some Scientific Difficulties in the Way of Religious Belief] (1916)
- [https://archive.org/stream/introductiontost00donc#page/n5/mode/2up An Introduction to the Study of Cytology] (1920)
See also
{{Portal| Biography }}
References
{{Reflist}}
Some publications
- {{cite journal | author = Doncaster L., Raynor G.H. | year = 1906 | title = Breeding experiments with Lepidoptera | journal = Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London | volume = 1 | issue = 1–2 | pages = 125–133 | doi = 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1906.tb08425.x }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Doncaster, Leonard}}
Category:People educated at Leighton Park School
Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Category:British evolutionary biologists
Category:British entomologists