William Dickson Lang

Career In 1902 he started as an assistant in the Geology Department of the British Museum (N.H.) in charge of Protozoa, Coelenterates, Sponges and Polyzoa (=Bryozoa). During World War I he was made curator of mosquitos and produced in 1920 "A Handbook on British mosquitos". After the war he returned to the Geology Department and in 1928 became Keeper of Geology in succession to F. A. Bather.

Lang was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1929. His candidacy citation read: "Distinguished for his knowledge of palaeontology; has applied evolutionary principles to the systematic arrangement of fossil polyzoa and corals, studying the recapitulation of ancestral characters in the post-embryonic growth-stages of compound as well as simple organisms, e.g., 'Brit Mus Catalogue Fossil Bryozoa' (1921, 1922), 'The Pelmatoporinae'. Lang elucidated in detail the faunal and stratigraphical succession of the Lias along the Dorset coast, with special relation to ammonites. He was a proponent of the theory of orthogenesis, believing that several lineages of cribrimorph cheilostome bryozoans evolved progressively thicker and more elaborate skeletal structures which eventually became maladaptive, driving the lineage to extinction. By extending the study of existing British species of mosquitoes to their four larval stages, previously ill-known, he tested the relationships already inferred from imaginal characters.

Later life Lang mentored many students, who came to use the facilities of the British Museum (N.H.). He retired from the British Museum (N.H.) in 1938 and moved to Charmouth, Dorset, where he had holidayed from an early age. In 1940, Lang, Stanley Smith and H. Dighton Thomas published the "Index to palaeozoic coral genera". He was well liked and respected, and his letters to colleagues and students, including Dorothy Hill, demonstrate the respect and affection with which he and his work was held.

Personal life Lang married Georgiana Dixon in 1908; they had a son, W. Geoffrey Lang and a daughter, J. Brenda Lang. He died in 1966 and was survived by his wife and children.