Leonard Doncaste7\ 



xlv 



his loss will be severely felt, for we have in this country no one who 

 combines, as he did, personal experience both in all the branches of genetics 

 and in cytological technique. 



He was an exceptionally clear-headed thinker and speaker, full of 

 enthusiasm and faith in the value of his work, and therefore an admirable 

 teacher. From 1906-10 he held a zoological post at Birmingham University, 

 being fur the latter part of his tenure of that appointment Lecturer in 

 Heredity and Variation. In 1908 he married Dora, daughter of Walter 

 Priestman, of Birmingham. Keturning to Cambridge, he served the 

 University in various capacities, especially as Superintendent of the 

 Museum of Zoology (1910-14), and Lecturer in Zoology (1911-17). When, 

 in 3 919, Professor Herdman resigned the Derby Professorship of Zoology 

 in Liverpool University, Doncaster was appointed his successor. To 

 geneticists this appointment was a source of great satisfaction. It seemed 

 that a fresh centre for the development of these interests was assured. He 

 began the work of his new Chair with all his zeal and devotion. But 

 within a year he was struck down with malignant disease, and died May 28, 

 1920. 



In a notice of his "fine young colleague " which appeared in the 'Liverpool 

 Daily Post ' of May 29, Professor Herdman wrote : — " Doncaster was a 

 splendid lecturer, and an investigator of the first rank. But what struck 

 one most, beyond these high qualities, was his absolute right-mindedness, 

 his serious conscientiousness, his evident determination to do what he felt 

 to be right under all circumstances. We have all alike been impressed by 

 the care and trouble that he took, by his sound judgment, and the weight 

 of his considered opinion." 



Personally, Doncaster was slight in build, and in temperament intellectual, 

 highly strung and somewhat anxious — a combination not rare among the 

 advancers of knowledge. His mind was always working, and he felt and 

 thought of everything with concentration and intensity. The years of the 

 war were, I believe, to him a period more horrible than to most thoughtful 

 men. He held strongly the Friends' attitude of the unlawfulness of war, 

 but feeling that alternative service was a duty, he gave up his researches 

 and qualified as a bacteriologist, working first in one of the Cambridge 

 military hospitals, and afterwards in the Friends' Ambulance Unit at 

 Dunkirk. 



Holding these reservations from the common ways of men, he never 

 joined quite easily in ordinary society. That religion was a prominent 

 element in his nature was well known to his scientific friends, but it made 

 no obvious difference in his demeanour towards us. This pre-occupation^ 

 latterly, came nearer to the surface, and in Cambridge he occasionally 

 delivered religious addresses, it is reported, with distinction. At Dunkirk 

 also he took part in the Sunday services of the Friends. 



In several ways his work received outward recognition. He was 

 Mackinnon Eesearch Student of the Eoyal Society (1904-5). He was- 



