E. B. Ford: Biography of a Geneticist

Born in Cumberland, England during 1901, Edmund Brisco Ford FRS Hon. FRCP was an ecological geneticist, entomologist and author.

Educated at Oxford, Ford originally studied classics before switching to zoology. It was during this time that his interest in genetics first developed, spurred on by his tutor on the subject, Julian Huxley, whom he held in high regard.

He was appointed University Reader in Genetics in 1939, and directed the University’s Genetics laboratory from 1952 until 1969. Later he was elected a fellow of All Souls College, a rare honour for a scientist at the time.

Ford became highly influential in the field of genetics and pioneered ecological genetics as a field of study, writing his groundbreaking work on the subject, known simply as Ecological Genetics in 1964. Of the work, Ford wrote “This book was planned in 1928, and in considerable detail. At that period I believed it would be necessary for myself and others to work for a quarter of a century before it could be written. I was over-optimistic; more than thirty years were in fact needed.” ¹

It was Ford who supervised Bernard Kettlewell during Kettlewell's experiments on the peppered moth (Biston betularia). He also helped gain funding for the research via the Nuffield Foundation.This study caused much controversy in recent years, when Journalist Judith Hooper wrote a book, Of Moths of Men, criticizing the research. She claimed that the work performed was either fraudulent or incompetent. The late Mike Majerus, a respected Entomologist, who had written about earlier academic criticisms of the work done by Kettlewell described Of Moths and Men as a book “littered with errors, misrepresentations and falsehoods”². Other academic researchers have also come to the conclusion that the allegations made by Hooper were completely unjustified.

E. B. Ford is perhaps now best remembered for his book Butterflies, which was the first title in the highly acclaimed New Naturalist series. He also authored a further New Naturalist work, Moths in 1955.

Little information is available about Ford’s personal life. He was unmarried, and had no children. His fellow professors have stated that he was a sharp minded, meticulous man with a forthright nature and no patience for fools. Ford was also considered quite eccentric in his behaviour, a fact he was said to be well aware of, using it as a means of controlling unruly students and keeping them on their toes.

He was well known for his misogynistic views and campaigned against the admission of Female students to All Souls College. Despite this, he made good friends with a small number of women, including the noted zoologist, Miriam Rothschild.

In The Biology of Butterflies³ Rothschild writes of her first meeting with him, “I stood there with my mouth open, trying to reconcile this vacant room with that ghostly cry – had I dreamed it – when suddenly Professor Ford appeared from underneath his desk like a graceful fakir emerging from a grave.” He had been sat, as he often did, cross legged upon the floor in deep thought. After this initial meeting, they became close friends, and in later years Rothschild joined Ford in the campaign for the legalization of Male Homosexuality.

After his retirement Ford continued to write on the subject of genetics, and also co-authored a work on the church artifacts of Oxford district.

He died on January 21st 1988.

Selected bibliography:

Ford E.B. Butterflies (1945) Collins, London.

Ford E.B. Moths (1954) HarperCollins, London.

Ford E.B. Ecological genetics (1964) Chapman and Hall, London.

Ford E.B. Understanding genetics (1979) Faber and Faber, London.

Ford E.B. Taking genetics into the countryside (1981) Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.

Ford E.B. and J.S. Haywood Church treasures of the Oxford district (1984) Alan Sutton, Gloucester.

References:

Notes:

1. Ford E.B. Ecological genetics (1964). Chapman and Hall, London.

2. Majerus, Michael E. N. The Peppered moth: decline of a Darwinian disciple (2004). Talk delivered to the British Humanist Association, at the London School of Economics, on Darwin Day, 12^th February 2004.

3. Vane-Wright R. I. & Ackery P.R. (editors) The Biology of Butterflies (1984). Dedication by Miriam Rothschild: Henry Ford and butterflies. London: Academic Press, pp. xxii-xxiii.