Cecil Hoare

Cecil Arthur Hoare (6 March 1892 – 23 August 1984) FRS was a British protozoologist and parasitologist.

Early life and education Hoare was born in Middelburg, Netherlands, the illegitimate son of Arthur Stovell Hoare, a journalist working for the British War Office. His Russian-born mother Luboff Shalyte, known as Aimee Challet, was from Vitebsk in Belarus/Bielorussia, where her father was said to be the Mayor. She was a professional operatic singer. Hoare was joined by a sister, Catherine Eleanor Hoare, born in Vlissingen, Netherlands on 10 August 1894. His parents later married in the London Borough of Barnet in 1896, Shortly after the birth, his parents separated permanently, leaving Lilian to be brought up by her father in England, Luboff returning for the time being to St Petersburg with the elder two children.

He entered Saint Petersburg State University, Russia, in 1912 aged 20, in the Section of Biology, specializing in zoology from his second year. He graduated in 1917, and the British Consulate called him up for military service. He was exempted on medical grounds, as chronic otitis media had cause deafness in one ear since childhood.

In 1923, he joined the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research in London, under Charles Morley Wenyon. Hoare was appointed Protozoologist, and in later Head of the Department of Protozoology, a post he held for 34 years until his retirement in 1957.

Following the Second World War, Hoare continued to publish prolifically, and undertook a number of extended visits in support of his research and colleagues around the world, visiting the United States in 1948, Lisbon, Portugal in 1958 and received a very warm welcome as a native Russian speaker when he visited the Soviet Union in 1959.

Awards and honours He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society on 16 March 1950.

Family and personal life In 1915, Hoare married his first wife, Alexandra Marti, born in Malans, Switzerland, but brought up in Russia. She was a professional pianist and taught at the Petrograd Institute of Music. Their marriage was not a happy one, and they broke up when they left Russia.

In July 1938, MI5 were surveilling Hoare's household in Chiswick, under the mistaken belief that a bolshevik cell was based there.

Hoare's younger sister, Lilian, who had remained in London when their parents' marriage ended, was killed in the London Blitz on 18 September 1940 due to enemy action. The following year, Hoare's elder sister Catherine, now known as Eleanor Stafford, committed suicide in Manhattan following the death of her husband from tuberculosis.