Downloaded from http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on March 29, 2015 Notes Rec. R. Soc. (2009) 63, 191–202 doi:10.1098/rsnr.2008.0030 Published online 25 February 2009 RECOLLECTION The University Marine Biological Station Millport: in the beginning was the vision (1970) P. G. Moore*, University Marine Biological Station Millport, Isle of Cumbrae KA28 0EG, UK INTRODUCTION Having recently opted for early retirement (after more than 36 years coming up through the ranks as an academic at the University Marine Biological Station Millport (UMBSM) as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, Professor and Acting Director) and thereby relinquished my status as the longest-serving member of permanent staff, it seemed appropriate to set down my recollections of how the UMBSM came to be (not least to furnish a human dimension for the benefit of future historians of the subject). The history of the Marine Station at Millport is a long and distinguished one1,2 and, in a series of recent papers,3–10 I have been endeavouring to flesh out that early background; that is, before the establishment of the Scottish Marine Biological Association (SMBA) in 1914. When the SMBA—primarily a research organization—finally vacated the then rather run- down Millport laboratory in 1970 and moved to a new site at Dunstaffnage Bay (Oban), it was taken over by the universities of London and Glasgow to facilitate field teaching of marine biology at tertiary level, with priority being given to the two parent universities and other Scottish universities (prioritization then cascading to other universities, higher education institutions, field studies organizations and school parties, etc., as space allowed).11 In a not unbiased view expressed at the time, Millport had changed for the better.12,13 The cost of the Millport project to the universities of London and Glasgow at takeover, split 50:50, was £6793 19s 6d. The University Grants Committee (UGC) approved the sum of £10 000 to adapt the Station’s buildings to accommodate 70 student places (spread over three classrooms). Probably, in the end, the ratio of London:Glasgow financial support for Millport stabilized somewhere between 60:40 and 70:30. Full administrative and financial responsibility for the Station by these universities took place with effect from 1 August 1970. In that first year, the princely sum of £48 780 served to run the whole enterprise.11 Departments of zoology within the colleges of the University of London, in the 1960s and 1970s, were awash with marine biologists (an influence, sadly, that has declined steadily over the past 40 years). The heads of zoology departments in many London colleges were distinguished marine biologists: Professor Norman Millott (1912–90) was at Bedford College, Professor Joe Webb was at Westfield, and Professor N. B. (‘Freddie’) Marshall (FRS 1970) was at Queen Mary College. Professor Eric (later Sir Eric) Smith FRS (1909–90) had been at Queen Mary before taking over as Director at the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. *[email protected] 191 This journal is q 2009 The Royal Society Downloaded from http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on March 29, 2015 192 P. G. Moore Professor Richard Purchon (1916–92) was at Chelsea. Rodney Phillips Dales was also at Bedford (as was John Dodge in botany), both Phil Rainbow and Andrew Campbell were at Queen Mary in the mid 1970s, and Richard Newell had been there. Minnie Courtney, Brenda Thake and Rob Hughes were at Westfield (where Professor Jim Green had a broad interest in crustaceans besides the purely freshwater ones). Alan Brafield was at Queen Elizabeth, and Mary Whitear had some marine interests at University College. Both John Evans and John Binyon were on the staff at Royal Holloway, as was Roland Emson at King’s College. Queen Mary College, at one time, boasted a small field-hut facility at Whitstable on the north Kent coast (run on a shoestring, with an eye kept on it by Professor Gordon Newell, who lived close by)14 but the Thames estuary foreshore had its limitations and there was no dedicated facility in the University of London for marine fieldwork on the scale of that which was seen to be desirable. Things came to a head after Gordon Newell’s death14 in 1968 and, in that year, a UGC Working Party was formed to investigate the matter; when the greater part of the SMBA pulled out of Millport, the University of London made its case (mainly as a result of the advocacy by Norman Millott and Joe Webb) and was offered the Millport Station.11 It should be borne in mind that London University, with its vast experience of running its external degree programme and administering university colleges in far-flung parts of the Commonwealth (for example the West Indies and Nigeria), found no difficulty in contemplating running a facility merely at the other end of the United Kingdom. No doubt adhering to the principle that he who gets (shares?) the vision gets the job, Millott was persuaded to move north to take charge of establishing the new enterprise for the few years before his retirement. Besides, he had already had the experience of setting up a marine station at Port Royal in Jamaica.15 His eldest daughter recalls that he was very happy at Millport (see also note 12), even if some might have regarded the move as a step down. At least he had relinquished a load of administration in London University,15,16 and field courses were lots of fun.17,18 He had himself described a Sheffield University field course, recalled from his own student days at Robin Hood’s Bay, as ‘a rumbustious affair’.19 The University of Glasgow, however, had had a long (and chequered) history of involvement with the management of the Millport Marine Station going back to its earliest manifestations (see references above) and doubtless felt that it should not just sit back and watch a Sassenach university set up shop on ‘its’ territory. So, it was agreed that the Marine Station should be managed in partnership between them; this in spite of the fact that, as Millott had recounted to a reporter,12 ‘the two universities have nothing whatsoever to do with each other’.13 This accounts for why the UMBSM was given its cumbrous, and oddly anonymous-sounding, title (although all the locals simply refer to it as the Marine Station, as they have done for more than a century). The novelty of this arrangement should not be underestimated. The prevailing Realpolitik in autonomous British universities, where empire- building was rife, was (and often still is) that even sister departments rarely cooperated with one another; let alone two competing universities (interestingly, Millott himself had been antagonistic to the subsequent merger of Bedford College with Royal Holloway College within the University of London, which took place after his translation to Millport). The partnership between London and Glasgow universities may have set out to be one between equals but it was always led through London; all members of staff at the UMBSM were employed on the London payroll, for instance (academic staff having been granted honorary status in Glasgow). World-class marine biologists from Glasgow had been intimately involved with Millport’s Marine Station in the past (Sir John Graham Kerr FRS (1869–1957) and Sir Maurice Yonge FRS (1899–1986) most notably)—if sometimes locally Downloaded from http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/ on March 29, 2015 Millport’s vision 193 controversially in the case of Graham Kerr (see references above)—but in the 1970s Professor J. D. Robertson, Peter Meadows, Peter Spencer-Davies, Peter Norton (and later Alan Taylor and Douglas Neil) retained active marine interests in the Zoology Department, while Professor Don Boney and Trevor Norton were authorities on seaweeds in the botany department. Professor Alastair Wardlaw and Harry Birkbeck nurtured marine interests in the microbiology department, as did Professor Adam Curtis in cell biology. Maurice Yonge, of course, had also been the first chairman of the Field Studies Council, so there had been no lack of sympathy for marine biological fieldwork at Glasgow at one time. In an undated typescript from that period, written by Millott, proselytizing the potential of the UMBSM (which I assume he had circulated sedulously around the universities)—much reminiscent of an earlier such missive of similar intent dated 1909,7 which I rediscovered when clearing out my old room recently—he had stated: It is obviously important that the acquisition of these valuable facilities and the plans for their development, which could have far-reaching implications for teaching, research, and the development of marine biology in the U.K., should be made known as quickly and widely as possible. Many biologists will already be familiar with the Millport Station in its former role, but it is hoped that the appended outline of its reorganisation will prove helpful and in addition may perhaps serve to allay some anxiety that has been expressed concerning the future of the Station and the facilities on which many universities and other institutions of higher education have come to rely. It is of interest that the typescript listed the charges then applying: table fees for research workers, £3 per week, £10 per month or £100 per year; undergraduate courses given by the Station, £6 per head per week; other classes taught by their own staff (depending on time of year), £4 to £2 per head per week. I had been encouraged to apply for the first advertised academic post at the UMBSM by John Gray (1941–2007) at my old laboratory at Robin Hood’s Bay (run by Leeds University).