Edwin Stephen Goodrich

Edwin Stephen Goodrich FRS (Weston-super-Mare, 21 June 1868 – Oxford, 6 January 1946), was an English zoologist, specialising in comparative anatomy, embryology, palaeontology, and evolution. He held the Linacre Chair of Zoology in the University of Oxford from 1921 to 1946. He served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science from 1920 until his death.

Life Goodrich's father died when he was only two weeks old, and his mother took her children to live with her mother at Pau, France, where he attended the local English school and a French lycée. In 1888 he entered the Slade School of Art at University College London; there he met E. Ray Lankester, who interested him in zoology.

In 1913 Goodrich married Helen Pixell, a distinguished protozoologist, who helped greatly with his work. His artistic training always stood him in good stead. He drew diagrams of beauty and clarity whilst lecturing (students used to photograph the blackboard before it was erased), and in his books and papers. He also exhibited his watercolor landscapes in London. Goodrich was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1905 and received its Royal Medal in 1936. He was honorary member of the New York Academy of Science and of many other academies, and awarded many honorary doctorates. In 1945 Lev Berg of Leningrad sent a message through Julian Huxley: "Please tell [Goodrich] that... we all regard ourselves as his pupils." A small, dapper, thin man with a dry sense of humor, he always complained that, when travelling by air, he was not weighed with his luggage, since his own weight was only half that of an average passenger.

On his seventieth birthday, in 1938, his colleagues and pupils published a festschrift edited by Gavin de Beer: Evolution: essays on aspects of evolutionary biology.

Selected works Goodrich E.S. 1909. The Vertebrata Craniata (Cyclostomes and Fishes). Volume IX of Lankester E. Ray (ed) Treatise on Zoology, London. Goodrich, Edwin S. 1924. Living organisms: an account of their origin and evolution. Oxford University Press. Goodrich E.S. 1930. Studies on the structure and development of Vertebrates. Macmillan, London. xxx+837p, 754 figures. One of the great works of vertebrate comparative anatomy. Goodrich E.S. 1895. On the coelom, genital ducts, and nephridia. Q.J.M.S. 37, 477–510. Goodrich E.S. 1913. Metameric segmentation and homology, Q.J.M.S. 59, 227–248. Goodrich E.S. 1927. The problem of the sympathetic nervous system from the morphological point of view. Proceedings of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Journal of Anatomy 61, p499. Goodrich E.S. 1934. The early development of the nephridia in Amphioxus, Introduction and part I: Hatschek's Nephridium. Q.J.M.S. 76, 499–510. Goodrich E.S. 1934. 'The early development of the nephridia in Amphioxus, part II: The paired nephridia. Q.J.M.S. 76, 655–674. Goodrich E.S. 1945. The study of nephridia and genital ducts since 1895. Q.J.M.S. 86, 113–392.