George Rolleston

George Rolleston MA MD FRCP FRS (30 July 1829 – 16 June 1881) was an English physician and zoologist. He was the first Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology to be appointed at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1860 until his death in 1881. Rolleston, a friend and protégé of Thomas Henry Huxley, was an evolutionary biologist.

Rolleston was born at Maltby Hall, near Rotherham, Yorkshire, England. He was a direct descendant of Sir Michael Stanhope, the Groom of the Stool of King Henry VIII, and 21st in direct line from King Edward I (and thus 28th from William the Conqueror). His parents were Rev. George Rolleston (rector and squire of Maltby) and Anne Nettleship; his brother, William Rolleston, became a prominent politician in New Zealand.

Rolleston was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Gainsborough;Sheffield Collegiate School; Pembroke College, Oxford and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He qualified with the degrees of BA (1850, 1st Class), MA and MD. The same year he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, and took a First Class in Classics. After qualifying as a physician, Rolleston became a Fellow of Pembroke College in 1851, holding posts at the British Civil Hospital, Smyrna (during Crimean War), and Assistant Physician, Children's Hospital, London (1857). Gradually he became more interested in zoology, and spent the rest of his career as a zoologist, and on the human sciences. His research included comparative anatomy, physiology, zoology, archaeology and anthropology. In 1860, he was elected to the newly founded Linacre Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology, which he held to the time of his death. He became FRCP in 1859, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society on 5 June 1862, and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1872. He was a member of the Council of the Oxford University, its representative in the General Medical Council, and also an active member of the Oxford Local Board.

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