Florence Margaret Durham

Florence Margaret Durham (6 April 1869 – 25 June 1949) was a British geneticist at Cambridge in the early 1900s and an advocate of the theory of Mendelian inheritance, at a time when it was still controversial.

Early life and education

Florence Margaret Durham was born on 9 December 1869 in London, one of six daughters of surgeon Arthur Edward Durham (1833–1895) and his wife Mary. Her siblings included the anthropologist Edith Durham, the scientist Herbert Durham, the suffragette and musician Lilla Durham and the civil servant Frances Hermia Durham.

In 1891 and 1892, Florence Durham achieved second class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos Part I and II (physiology) at Girton College.

Career From 1900 to 1910, she was a demonstrator in Physiology at the Balfour Laboratory.

Newnham College Mendelians, 1900–1910

Between 1900 and 1910, Gregor Mendel's work on inheritance was rediscovered and caused a bitter controversy between its supporters – William Bateson and his group of Mendelians – and its opponents, who included Walter Frank Raphael Weldon (Bateson's former teacher) and Carl Pearson. Weldon's group were known as the Biometrics. William Bateson's group at Cambridge was very unusual for its time, in that it was made up mainly of women. Florence Durham, Edith Rebecca "Becky" Saunders and Muriel Wheldale performed work to show that complex traits could be explained by Mendel's law of segregation. Florence´s sister Beatrice was also actively involved in his research.

Florence Durham joined Bateson´s group as a post-graduate research student who had already published research.

Durham began working on the heredity of mice coat colours in 1903, with Muriel Wheldale. She challenged the prevailing view of Lucien Cuénot, who proposed that it was the combination of factors which explained the different colours of mouse coats. and issuing licences on behalf of the Board of Trade.

In 1932, Durham published the results of a long-term experiment into the genetic effects of alcohol on guinea pigs, conducted at NIMR. This was one of several studies that discredited the Lamarckian theory of inheritance that Stockard's work appeared to support.

Scientific publications Durham's scientific publications include: Durham, Florence M. 1905. On the Presence of Tyrosinase in the Skins of Some Pigmented Vertebrates: Preliminary Note. Proc. Roy. Soc. London, 74:311-313 Durham, Florence M. 1907. Note on Melanin. Journal of Physiology, 35: xlvii-xlviii Durham, Florence M. 1908. A Preliminary Account of the Inheritance of Coat-Colour in Mice. W. Bateson, E.R. Saunders, and R.C. Punnett (eds.), Reports to the Evolution Committee, Report 4. London: Royal Society of London, pp. 41–53. Durham, Florence M. and Marryat, Dorothea. 1908. Note on the Inheritance of Sex in Canaries. W. Bateson, E.R. Saunders and R. C. Punnett (eds.), Reports to the Evolution Committee, Report 5. London: Royal Society, pp. 57–60.

Durham, Florence M. 1917. Sex Linkage and Other Genetical Phenomena in Canaries. Journal of Genetics, 17:19-32. Durham, Florence M. and Woods, H.M. 1932. Alcohol and Inheritance: An Experimental Study. Special Report Series, Medical Research Council 168.