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Department of Zoology
University of Oxford

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Linacre Professors of Zoology
University of Oxford

The Linacre Chair of Zoology carries the name of Thomas Linacre (1460 - 1524), Physician to Henry VIII and founder of the Royal College of Physicians. The Professorship was founded in 1860 (initially as the Linacre Professorship of Physiology), although its origins can be traced back a further 300 years, to the Linacre Lectureships at Merton College.

There have been 11 Linacre Professors since inception of the post in 1860. These have included some very well known and influential scientists, including Sir Ray Lankester, founder of the Marine Biological Association and later Director of the British Museum (Natural History), Sir Alister Hardy, Sir Richard Southwood and Edwin S Goodrich, considered by many to be the greatest British comparative anatomist.

Sir Ray Lankester (right), in post as Linacre Professor, together with his former student E S Goodrich (left), who later also held the Linacre Chair. Photograph, taken 1893, copyright of Department of Zoology, University of Oxford.

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Linacre Professors (and dates post held)
George Rolleston FRS	1860 – 1881
Henry Nottidge Moseley FRS	1881 – 1891
Sir Edwin Ray Lankester FRS	1891 – 1898
Walter F.K. Weldon FRS	1899 – 1906
Gilbert C. Bourne FRS	1906 – 1921
Edwin S Goodrich FRS	1921 – 1946
Sir Alister Hardy FRS	1946 – 1961
John W S Pringle FRS	1961 – 1979
Sir Richard Southwood FRS	1979 – 1993
Sir Roy M Anderson FRS	1993 – 2000
Peter W H Holland FRS	2002 –