William Bateson

William Bateson was an English biologist who was responsible for founding and naming the science of genetics. He was born on 8 August, 1861 in Whitby, England and died on 8 February, 1926. He was the son of Anna Aikin and William Henry Bateson. 

He also provided evidence through his experiments for the understanding of heredity. In 1896, Bateson married Caroline Beatrice Durham. He had three sons Martin, John and Gregory. Bateson went to Rugby School and Cambridge University where he studied morphology. This led him into evolution and to attempts classification of echinoderms. 

He was also interested in species variation and heredity. As a researcher at Cambridge, he traveled to Central Asia and collected data on how environmental conditions relate to variation. Based on his observations, he published a book in 1894 called "Materials for Study of Variation". Bateson noted homeotic mutations in Materials, in which an expected body-part has been replaced by another. The book was an outline of the experiment approach that should be used to study inheritance.

In 1897, he began some hybrid experiments with poultry and butterflies. He read De Vries’ and Mandel’s papers, and a few years later, he translated Mendel’s work into English and began to support the Mendelian Laws of inheritance. 

Bateson also reported some significant conceptual and methodological advances in his study of variation. Bateson received credit for the terms: genetics, allele, zygote, heterozygote and homozygote. 

In 1908, as a professor of Biology at Cambridge, he helped establish the Cambridge School of Genetics. He kept a connection with R.C. Punnett at Cambridge, collaborating on genetic experiments and publications. Together they co-founded the “Journal of Genetics” in 1910.  Bateson published his final book "Problems of Genetics" in 1913, which discussed genetic phenomena and speciation.

William Bateson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and won their Darwin medal in 1904 and their Royal Medal in 1920.

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