C. D. Darlington

Cyril Dean Darlington FRS (19 December 1903 – 26 March 1981) was an English biologist, geneticist and eugenicist, who discovered the mechanics of chromosomal crossover, its role in inheritance, and therefore its importance to evolution. He was Sherardian Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford from 1953 to 1971.

Cyril Darlington was born in Chorley, a small cotton town in Lancashire, England in 1903. His father, William was a teacher at a small school. He had one brother six years older. When he was eight, the family moved to London. His childhood was an unhappy one, characterised by a stern, bitter and frustrated father, who struggled mightily against poverty. He enjoyed neither sports, nor studies. He began to cultivate a disdain for authority. He decided to become a farmer in Australia, so he applied to the South Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, known later as Wye College. He was a rather indifferent student, but his social life took a decided turn for the better when he took up boxing, with some success. He was now six feet three inches tall, and an imposing figure. One subject that captured his imagination, however, was Mendelian genetics, taught by a Mr. Brade-Birks. He discovered Thomas Hunt Morgan's The Physical Basis of Heredity. He graduated with a London University Ordinary degree in 1923.

After being turned down for a scholarship to go to Trinidad as a farmer, Cyril was induced in 1923 by one of his professors to apply for a scholarship at the John Innes Horticultural Institution in Merton. He wrote at once to its director, William Bateson, famous for having introduced the word "genetics" into biology. His application was unsuccessful, but he wrangled a temporary post as an unpaid technician. It was an interesting time for the Innes. Bateson had spent the last two decades fighting against the notion that chromosomes were the seat of what he had been calling "heredity factors" and had only very recently capitulated. He had just hired a cytologist, Frank Newton, who now began to take Cyril under his wing. Darlington published his first scientific paper, on the tetraploidy of the sour cherry, and he was hired as a permanent employee.

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