E. B. Ford
| Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
23 April 1901 Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire |
| Died | 2 January 1988 (aged 86) Oxford, Oxfordshire |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Ecological genetics |
| Alma mater | Wadham College, Oxford University |
| Doctoral students | P.M. Sheppard, E.R. Creed, J.R.G. Turner, P.M. Brakefield |
| Notable awards | Royal Society's Darwin Medal |
Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford FRSHon. FRCP (23 April 1901 – 2 January 1988) was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths. He went on to study the genetics of natural populations, and invented the field of ecological genetics. Ford was awarded the Royal Society's Darwin Medal in 1954.
Ford was born in Dalton-in-Furness, near Ulverston, in Lancashire, England, in 1901. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford University, graduating in zoology in 1924.
Ford was born in Dalton-in-Furness (near Ulverston in what is now Cumbria), the only child of Harold Dodsworth Ford (1864-1943), a classics teacher turned Anglican clergyman, and his wife (and second cousin) Gertrude Emma Bennett. The family was middle class, and the men tended to be Oxbridge educated; EB Ford's paternal grandfather Henry E Ford was the organist of Carlisle Cathedral.
Ford never married, had no children, and was considered decidedly eccentric, although his eccentricity was said to be more prominent when he knew he had an audience; he was also fond of slightly surrealist practical joking >.
Non-academic information on his life is hard to come by, mostly consisting of scattered remarks made by colleagues. He campaigned strenuously against the admission of female Fellows to All Souls College. Miriam Rothschild, an outstanding zoologist, was one of the few women with whom Ford was on good terms. Rothschild and Ford campaigned for the legalisation of male homosexuality in Britain. Ford was on good terms with Theodosius Dobzhansky, who did ground-breaking work on ecological genetics with Drosophila species: they exchanged letters and visits.
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