Lancelot Hogben

Lancelot Thomas Hogben
Born(1895-12-09)9 December 1895
Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Died22 August 1975(1975-08-22) (aged 79)
Wrexham, Wales, United Kingdom
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)experimental zoologist, medical statistician

Lancelot Thomas Hogben FRS FRSE (9 December 1895 – 22 August 1975) was a British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He developed the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) as a model organism for biological research in his early career. He also attacked the eugenics movement in the middle of his career, and wrote popular books on science, mathematics and language in his later career.

He created an international language, Interglossa, as 'a draft of an auxiliary for a democratic world order'.

Biography

Early life and education

Hogben was born and grew up in Southsea, near Portsmouth in Hampshire. His parents were Methodists. In 1907, his family moved to Stoke Newington in London, where his mother had grown up. He went to Tottenham County School and later studied physiology as a medical student at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Before going to Cambridge, Hogben enrolled as an external student at the University of London and earned a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in 1914. He got his degree from Cambridge in 1915, finishing with a basic (Ordinary) Bachelor of Arts (BA). During this time, he became a socialist. He changed the name of the university’s Fabian Society to the Socialist Society and joined the Independent Labour Party. Later in life, he called himself a "scientific humanist."

World War I

During the First World War, Hogben was a pacifist (against war) and joined the Quakers. He worked for six months in France with the Red Cross, helping people affected by the war as part of the Friends’ War Victims Relief Service and the Friends’ Ambulance Unit. After returning to Cambridge, he was jailed in 1916 at Wormwood Scrubs because he refused to fight in the war (as a conscientious objector). His health got worse in prison, so he was released in 1917. His brother George was also a conscientious objector and worked with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit.

Personal life

In 1918, Hogben married Enid Charles, who was a mathematician, statistician, socialist, and feminist from Denbigh. They had two sons and two daughters together. Hogben also learned to speak Welsh.

In the 1950s, he moved to Glyn Ceiriog in North Wales and bought a small cottage. During that time, his marriage with Enid ended. They separated in 1953 and got divorced in 1957. Later that same year, he married Jane Roberts (born Evans), a local retired school headmistress who was seven years younger than him.

Jane passed away in 1974, and Hogben died the following year, in 1975, at the War Memorial Hospital in Wrexham. He was 79 years old and was cremated at Pentre Bychan nearby. Hogben was an atheist and called himself a "scientific humanist."

Books he published

References

  1. ↑ Wells, G. P. (1978). "Lancelot Thomas Hogben. 9 December 1895-22 August 1975". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 24 (24): 183–21. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1978.0007. PMID 11615739.
  2. ↑ Sarkar, S. (1996). "Lancelot Hogben, 1895-1975". Genetics. 142 (3): 655–660. doi:10.1093/genetics/142.3.655. PMC 1207007. PMID 8849876.
  3. ↑ Bud, Robert (2004). "Lancelot Hogben". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 1 (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31244. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ↑ Tabery, J. (2008). "R. A. Fisher, Lancelot Hogben, and the origin(s) of genotype-environment interaction". Journal of the History of Biology. 41 (4): 717–761. doi:10.1007/s10739-008-9155-y. PMID 19244846. S2CID 46322531.
  5. ↑ Tabery, J. (2007). "Biometric and developmental gene–environment interactions: Looking back, moving forward". Development and Psychopathology. 19 (4): 961–976. doi:10.1017/S0954579407000478. PMID 17931428. S2CID 412662.
  6. ↑ Keynes, M. (1999). "Lancelot Hogben, F.R.S. (1895-1975): A review of his autobiography. Review of: Hogben, A; Hogben, A.: Lancelot Hogben - scientific humanist. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Merlin Press, 1998". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 53 (3): 361–369. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1999.0088. PMID 11624011. S2CID 72372017.
  7. ↑ Hogben, L. (1996). "Fifty years ago: Lancelot Hogben reviews Bradford Hill. 1948". Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 50 (1): 3, discussion 3–4. doi:10.1136/jech.50.1.3. PMC 1060894. PMID 8815153.
  8. ↑ "Lancelot Hogben". Lancet. 2 (7934): 565. 1975. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(75)90955-1. PMID 51402. S2CID 208786843.
  9. ↑ Milo Keynes. "Lancelot Hogben, FRS (1895-1975)". Galton Institute December 2001 Newsletter. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 16 December 2014.Reprinted from Notes and Records of the Royal Society, London, 1999; vol. 53: pp. 361-369, part 2 Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ Phillip Gething, "Forum: A whiff of optimism – Whatever happened to self-improvement?", New Scientist, 21 July 1990. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  11. ↑ "1936 Lancelot Hogben: The Retreat From Reason". Conway Hall Ethical Society. Archived from the original on 16 December 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  12. ↑ "1949 Lancelot Hogben: The New Authoritarianism". Conway Hall Ethical Society. Archived from the original on 16 December 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
  13. ↑ Gale, Floyd C. (September 1958). "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. p. 104.
  14. ↑ Hogben, Anne; Hogben, Lancelot Thomas; Hogben, Adrian (1998). Lancelot Hogben: scientific humanist: an unauthorised autobiography. London: Merlin. ISBN 978-0-85036-470-5.

Further reading

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