Wilfrid Le Gros Clark
Born
Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark

(1895-06-05)5 June 1895
Died28 June 1971(1971-06-28) (aged 76)
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society[1]
Royal Medal (1961)
Karl Spencer Lashley Award (1971)
Scientific career
InstitutionsSt Thomas' Hospital
University of Oxford
Royal Army Medical Corps
University College London
Websiteucl.ac.uk/cdb/about/history/clark

Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (5 June 1895 – 28 June 1971)[2] was a British anatomist, surgeon, primatologist and palaeoanthropologist, today best remembered for his contribution to the study of human evolution. He was Dr Lee's Professor of Anatomy at the University of Oxford.

Education

Le Gros Clark was educated at Blundell's School and subsequently admitted as a medical student to St Thomas' Hospital Medical School in Lambeth.

Career

After qualification he immediately joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a medical officer and was sent to France early in 1918. He caught diphtheria and was sent back to England to recover, following which he spent the remainder of the war as a medical officer at '‘No. 8 Stationary Hospital'’ at Wimereux in northern France.

Box of cards containing photomicrographs and notes on salient features to accompany Le Gros Clark's histology demonstration slides on the Central nervous system

Following a period in the Department of Anatomy at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School he was appointed as Principal Medical Officer to the Sarawak Government. He was subsequently appointed as Professor of Anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, followed by a period as Professor of Anatomy at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School and finally, in 1934, he was invited to take over as the Dr. Lee's Professor of Anatomy (and effectively the Chair of the Anatomy Department) at the University of Oxford.[2] The following year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[3] Le Gros Clark was also editor of the Journal of Anatomy between 1938 and 1945.[4]

In 1953, Le Gros Clark was one of three men (the others being Joseph Weiner and Kenneth Oakley) who proved that the Piltdown Man was a forgery.[5]

In 1960, Le Gros Clark was elected to the American Philosophical Society.[6] He was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1961 and delivered their Ferrier Lecture in 1956. He was elected President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1951 to 1953.[7]

Papers relating to Le Gros Clark, his grandfather the surgeon Frederick Le Gros Clark and his brother Cyril Le Gros Clark (former Chief Secretary of Sarawak, who was murdered by the Japanese in 1945 after a period of detention at Batu Lintang camp in Borneo) are held at the Bodleian Library (Special Collections and Western Manuscripts) at Oxford University.[8] During his career Le Gros Clark published numerous papers on human evolution and palaeontology,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] and an autobiography.[22]

References

  1. ^ Zuckerman, L. (1973). "Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark 1895-1971". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 19: 216–233. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1973.0008. PMID 11615723.
  2. ^ a b Spencer, Frank (1990). Piltdown Man: A Scientific Forgery. Oxford University Press. p. 127. ISBN 0-19-858522-5.
  3. ^ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  4. ^ "Anatomical Society Officers" (PDF).
  5. ^ Spencer, Frank (1990). Piltdown Man: A Scientific Forgery. Oxford University Press. p. 134. ISBN 0-19-858522-5.
  6. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  7. ^ "The Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland – Presidents of the Society" (PDF). The Anatomical Society. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
  8. ^ "Papers of SIR WILFRID LE GROS CLARK, F.R.S. (1895 - 1971)".
  9. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1920). On series of ancient Eskimo Skulls from Greenland. J. R. Anth. Inst. 50: 281–298.
  10. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1928). Rhodesian man. Man 28: 206–207.
  11. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1935). Man’s place among the primates. Man 35: 1–6.
  12. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1936). Evolutionary parallelism and human phylogeny. Man 36: 4–8.
  13. ^ Clark, W. E. L. G. (1940). "Palaeontological Evidence Bearing on Human Evolution". Biological Reviews. 15 (2): 202–230. doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.1940.tb00755.x. S2CID 85333056.
  14. ^ Clark, W. E. L. G. (1940). "The Relationship between Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus". Nature. 145 (3663): 70–71. Bibcode:1940Natur.145...70C. doi:10.1038/145070a0. S2CID 4112325.
  15. ^ Clark, W. E. (1946). "Significance of the Australopithecinae". Nature. 157 (4000): 163–165. doi:10.1038/157863a0. PMID 20991722. S2CID 28320890.
  16. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1949). History of the primates. British Museum (Natural History), London.
  17. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1955). The fossil evidence for human evolution: An introduction to the study of paleoanthropology. The Scientist’s Library: Biology and Medicine. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
  18. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1964). The fossil evidence for human evolution: An introduction to the study of paleoanthropology, 2nd ed. The Scientist’s Library: Biology and Medicine. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
  19. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1967). Man-Apes or Ape-Men? The Story of Discoveries in Africa. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
  20. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E. (1968). Chant of pleasant exploration. E. and S. Livingstone, Edinburgh.
  21. ^ Le Gros Clark, W. E., Cooper, D. M. and Zuckerman, S. (1936). The endocranial cast of the chimpanzee. J. Roy. Anthropol. Inst. 66: 249–268
  22. ^ Chant of Pleasant Exploration (1968)

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