Edward Alfred Minchin

Edward Alfred Minchin (26 February 1866 – 30 September 1915) was a British zoologist who specialised in the study of sponges and Protozoa.

Early life and education Edward Alfred Minchin was born in Weston-super-Mare on 26 February 1866 to Charles N. Minchin and Mary J. Lugard. He was educated at the United Services College, Westward Ho!, and the Bishop Cotton Boys School, Bangalore, India. Minchin graduated from Keble College, Oxford in 1890 with first class honours in zoology, and three years later was elected Fellow of Merton College.

Career After graduating Minchin was awarded first the University Scholarship, and then the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship which enabled him to travel through Europe. He worked at several different institutions including the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Observatoire océanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer and Station biologique de Roscoff in France, and in the laboratories of Otto Bütschli and Richard Hertwig in Germany. He was the first to conclusively prove that sponges are not part of the Coelenterata. Minchin was appointed to the job which he continued to hold until his death in 1915.

During his career he published around 40 papers, including the entry for Protozoa. In 1912 he published a general textbook entitled An Introduction to the Study of Protozoa. Minchin also contributed chapters to Lankester's Treatise on Zoology, for Volume I Introduction and Protozoa, and Volume II Porifera and Coelenterata published between 1900 and 1909.

Minchin was encouraged to stand for election to the Royal Society by E Ray Lankester, who championed his work on tsetse flies to support the application. Vice-president of the Zoological Society of London and Zoological Secretary of the Linnean Society. He won the Linnean Society's Trail Award in 1910.

Death and legacy Minchin had always suffered from ill health. He died from tubercular pleurisy on 30 September 1915, aged 49. In his obituaries Minchin was praised for the quality of his work, the depth of his knowledge, and was described as the first great British protozoologist.

Published works On the origin of the triradiate spicules of Leucosolenia, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 1895 Vol. 58 204–205 Note on the larva and the postlarval development of Leucosolenia variabilis, H. sp., with remarks on the development of other asconidæ, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 1897, Vol. 60, 45–52 Volume I Introduction and Protozoa and Volume II Porifera and Coelenterata in A Treatise on Zoology, 1900–1909, E Ray Lankester Report on the anatomy of the tsetse-fly (Glossina palpalis), Proceedings of the Royal Society B 1905 Vol 76, issue 512 Glossina palpalis in its relation to Trypanosoma gambiense and other trypanosomes (preliminary report), Proceedings of the Royal Society B 1906 Vol 78 An introduction to the study of the Protozoa, with special reference to the parasitic forms 1912