David Guthrie Catcheside

David Guthrie Catcheside FRS (31 May 1907 – 1 June 1994) was a British plant geneticist.

Life He was educated at Strand School and King's College London (BSc). He was a Lecturer in Botany at King's College London from 1933 to 1936, and at the University of Cambridge from 1937 to 1950. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1951. He was also a Fellow of King's College London and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He attempted to do research in what was then Rhodesia but was deported by the Ian Smith regime for supporting political rights for the indigenous black population. After independence, the new government of Zimbabwe invited him to return to the country and pursue his research in 1980. He moved to Zimbabwe in October 1980, and began researching plant genetics in the region of Mashonaland. He lived in Zimbabwe until his death of natural causes at his home in Harare in 1994.

Studies In 1931, David Catcheside proposed the idea that there is evidence of parasynapsis within Oenothera plants, based on their chromosomal arrangement.

Recognition He was elected an International Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1974. The D.G. Catcheside Prize, awarded by the Genetics Society of Australia to the top doctoral student in the field of genetics, was named for him.