Prof. J. Stanley Gardiner, F.R.S

Abstract

JOHN STANLEY GARDINER, emeritus professor of zoology in the University of Cambridge and one of the outstanding figures in British zoology, died suddenly on February 28 at the age of seventy-four. His research career began in 1896 when he took part in the Royal Society's well-known expedition of Funafuti ; from then onwards he was recognized as an authority on the distribution of marine animals in general and on the madreporarian corals in particular. Between 1897 and 1909 he organised and led three major expeditions to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, each of which threw considerable light on the broad relationships between the physical and biological aspects of oceanography. Perhaps the most interesting of these expeditions was that to the Maldive Archipelago, for it led to the theory that a large land mass could be eroded to a depth of about 150 fathoms, thus giving rise to a submerged plateau which would later provide a foundation for coral reefs. From 1909 onwards, university duties prohibited further expeditions, but at least three other major projects owe much to Gardiner's inspiration and active support: the Suez Canal expedition under Munro Fox (1924), the Indian Ocean expedition (1933) under Seymour Sewell and the Lake Titicaca expedition under H. C. Gilson (1937). Gardiner's work was recognized by his election to the Royal Society at the relatively early age of thirty-six, and in later years he received the Agassiz Medal of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the Gold Medal of the Linnean Society, and the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society. He delivered the Lowell Lectures at Harvard in 1930.