3/4/2021 Julian Huxley - Wikipedia Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS[1] (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary Sir biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. He was secretary of the Zoological Society of Julian Huxley London (1935–1942), the first Director of UNESCO, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund FRS and the first President of the British Humanist Association. Huxley was well known for his presentation of science in books and articles, and on radio and television. He directed an Oscar-winning wildlife film. He was awarded UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science in 1953, the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1956,[1] and the Darwin–Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society in 1958. He was also knighted in that same year, 1958, a hundred years after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace announced the theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1959 he received a Special Award of the Lasker Foundation in the category Planned Parenthood – World Population. Huxley was a prominent member of the British Eugenics Society and was its president from 1959 to 1962. Contents Life Personal life Early career Mid career Julian Huxley as Fellow of New Later career College, Oxford 1922 Special themes Personal details Evolution Born Julian Sorell Huxley Personal influence 22 June 1887 Evolutionary synthesis London, England Evolutionary progress Died 14 February 1975 Secular humanism (aged 87) Religious naturalism London, England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxley 1/23 3/4/2021 Julian Huxley - Wikipedia Parapsychology Alma mater Balliol College, Eugenics and race Oxford Public life and popularisation Known for Modern synthesis · Terms coined humanism · Titles and phrases UNESCO · Works conservationism · eugenics Notes Awards Kalinga Prize (1953) References Darwin Medal (1956) Biographies Darwin–Wallace External links Medal (1958) Lasker Award (1959) Life Scientific career Fields Evolutionary biology Personal life Institutions Rice Institute New College, Oxford Huxley came from the Huxley family on his father's side and the Arnold family on his mother's.[2] Kings College, His great-grandfather was Thomas Arnold of Rugby School, his great-uncle Matthew Arnold, and his London aunt Mrs Humphry Ward. His grandfather was Thomas Henry Huxley, a friend and supporter of Charles Darwin and proponent of evolution, and his father was writer and editor Leonard Huxley. London Zoo UNESCO Huxley's mother was Julia Arnold (1862-1908), a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, who had gained a First in English Literature there in 1882.[2] Julia and Leonard married in 1885 and they had Influences T. H. Huxley four children: Margaret (1899-1981), the novelist Aldous, Trevenen and Julian.[2] Influenced E. B. Ford · Gavin de Beer · Aldous Huxley Huxley was born on 22 June 1887, at the London house of his aunt. His mother died in 1908, when he was 21. In 1912, his father married Rosalind Bruce, who was the same age as Julian, and he later Military career [2] acquired step-brothers Andrew Huxley and David Huxley. Service/ British Army branch In 1911, Huxley became informally engaged to Kathleen Fordham, whom he had met some years earlier when she was a pupil at Prior's Field, the school his mother had run. During 1913 the Years of 1917–1919 relationship broke down[2] and Huxley had a nervous breakdown which a biographer described as service [3] caused by 'conflict between desire and guilt'. In the first months of 1914 Huxley had severe Rank Second Lieutenant depression and lived for some weeks at The Hermitage, a small private nursing home.[2] In August 1914 while Huxley was in Scotland, his brother Trevenen also had a nervous breakdown and stayed Unit Royal Army Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxley 2/23 3/4/2021 Julian Huxley - Wikipedia in the same nursing home. Trevenen was worried about how he had treated one of his women friends Corps [2] and committed suicide whilst there. Intelligence Corps In 1919 Huxley married Juliette Baillot (1896–1994) a French Swiss woman whom he had met while Battles/wars First World War she was employed as a governess at Garsington Manor, the country house of Lady Ottoline Morrell. Huxley was later unfaithful to Baillot and told her that he wanted an open marriage.[4] One of his affairs was with the poet May Sarton who in turn fell in love with Baillot and had a brief affair with her as well.[4] Huxley described himself in print as suffering from manic depression, and his wife's autobiography suggests that Julian Huxley suffered from a bipolar disorder.[1][5] He relied on his wife to provide moral and practical support throughout his life.[1] Julian and Juliette Huxley had two sons, Anthony Huxley (1920–1992) and Francis Huxley (1923–2016), who both became scientists. Early career Huxley grew up at the family home in Surrey, England, where he showed an early interest in nature, as he was given lessons by his grandfather, Thomas English Heritage blue Henry Huxley. When he heard his grandfather talking at dinner about the plaque at 16 Bracknell lack of parental care in fish, Julian piped up with "What about the Gardens, Hampstead, stickleback, Gran'pater?". His grandfather also took him to visit Joseph London, commemorating Dalton Hooker at Kew.[6] At the age of thirteen Huxley attended Eton Julian, his younger brother College as a King's Scholar, and continued to develop scientific interests; his Aldous, and father Leonard grandfather had influenced the school to build science laboratories much earlier. At Eton he developed an interest in ornithology, guided by science master W. D. "Piggy" Hill. "Piggy was a genius as a teacher ... I have always been grateful to him."[7] In 1905 Huxley won a scholarship in Zoology to Balliol College, Oxford and took up the place in 1906 after spending the summer in Germany. He developed a particular interest in embryology and protozoa and developed a friendship with the ornithologist William Warde Fowler.[8] In the autumn term of his final year, 1908, his mother died from cancer at the age of 46. In his final year he won the Newdigate Prize for T. H. Huxley with Julian in 1893 his poem "Holyrood". In 1909 he graduated with first class honours, and spent that July at the international gathering for the centenary of Darwin's birth, held at the University of Cambridge. Huxley was awarded a scholarship to spend a year at the Naples Marine Biological Station where he developed his interest in developmental biology by investigating sea squirts and sea urchins. In 1910 he was appointed as Demonstrator in the Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Oxford, and started on the systematic observation of the courtship habits of water birds such as the common redshank (a wader) and grebes (which are divers). Bird watching in childhood had given Huxley his interest in ornithology, and he helped devise systems for the surveying and conservation of birds. His particular interest was bird behaviour, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxley 3/23 3/4/2021 Julian Huxley - Wikipedia especially the courtship of water birds. His 1914 paper on the great crested grebe, later published as a book, was a landmark in avian ethology; his invention of vivid labels for the rituals (such as 'penguin dance', 'plesiosaurus race' etc.) made the ideas memorable and interesting to the general reader.[9] In 1912 Huxley was asked by Edgar Odell Lovett to take set up the Department of Biology at the newly created Rice Institute (now Rice University) in Houston, Texas, which he accepted, planning to start the following year. Huxley made an exploratory trip to the United States in September 1912, visiting a number of leading universities as well as the Rice Institute. At T. H. Morgan's fly lab (Columbia University) he invited H. J. Muller to join him at Rice. Muller agreed to be his deputy, hurried to complete his PhD and moved to Houston for the beginning of the 1915–1916 academic year. At Rice, Muller taught biology and continued Drosophila lab work. Great crested grebes Before taking up the post of Assistant Professor at the Rice Institute, Huxley spent a year in Germany preparing for his demanding new job. Working in a laboratory just months before the outbreak of World War I, Huxley overheard fellow academics comment on a passing aircraft "it will not be long before those planes are flying over England". One pleasure of Huxley's life in Texas was the sight of his first hummingbird, though his visit to Edward Avery McIlhenny's estate on Avery Island in Louisiana was more significant. The McIlhennys and their Avery cousins owned the entire island, and the McIlhenny branch used it to produce their famous Tabasco sauce. Birds were one of McIlhenny's passions, however, and around 1895 he had set up a private sanctuary on the Island, called Bird City. There Huxley found egrets, herons and bitterns. These water birds, like the grebes, exhibit mutual courtship, with the pairs displaying to each other, and with the secondary sexual characteristics equally developed in both sexes.[10] In September 1916 Huxley returned to England from Texas to assist in the war effort. He was commissioned a temporary second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps on 25 May 1917,[11] and was transferred to the General List, working in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 26 January 1918, [12] Julian Huxley first in Sussex, and then in northern Italy. He was advanced in grade within the Intelligence Corps on [13] British Army Intelligence Corps 3 May 1918, relinquished his intelligence appointment on 10 January 1919 and was demobilised five [14][15] 1918 days later, retaining his rank.