Ernest William MacBride was an English marine biologist, one of the last supporters of Lamarckian evolution.

MacBride was educated at Queen's College, Belfast, as an external student at London University at St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

 and at the Zoological Station in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. Returning to Cambridge, he became a University Demonstrator in Animal Morphology and a Fellow of St John’s in 1893. From 1897 to 1909 he was Professor of Zoology at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

. From 1909 to 1913 he was Assistant Professor of Zoology under Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick (zoologist)

Adam Sedgwick, F.R.S. was a British zoologist and Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, Imperial College, London, and a great nephew of the renowned geologist Adam Sedgwick....

 at Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...

. On Sedgwick’s death in 1913, MacBride became professor at Imperial, holding the chair until his retirement in 1934.

A defender of Lamarckian evolution, MacBride supported Paul Kammerer

Paul Kammerer

Paul Kammerer was an Austrian biologist who studied and advocated the now abandoned Lamarckian theory of inheritance – the notion that organisms may pass to their offspring characteristics they have acquired in their lifetime...

’s claims to have demonstrated Lamarckian inheritance in the Midwife Toad

Midwife toad

Midwife toads are a genus of frogs in the Discoglossidae family, and are found in most of Europe and northwestern Africa. Characteristic of these toad-like frogs is their parental care: the males carry a string of fertilised eggs on their back, hence the name "midwife". The female expels a strand...

.

Works

• Text-book of embryology. Vol. I: Invertebrates, London: Macmillan, 1914
• (with A. E. Shipley) Zoology ; an elementary text-book, Cambridge: University Press, 1915.
• An introduction to the study of heredity, New York: H. Holt & Co., 1924.
• (tr.) Biological memory by Eugenio Rignano
  Eugenio Rignano
  Eugenio Rignano was a Jewish Italian philosopher.Rignano edited the journal Scientia. His book The Psychology of Reasoning influenced the social anthopologist Edward Evans-Pritchard...
  
  . London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1926. The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method
  The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method
  The International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method was an influential series of monographs published published 1910–1965 under the general editorship of Charles Kay Ogden. This series published some of the landmark works on psychology and philosophy, particularly the thought...
  
  
• Evolution, London: Ernest Benn, [1927]
• The idea of memory in biology, 1928
• (with H. R. Hewer) ‘Zoology’, in Alfred Piney, ed., Recent advances in microscopy; biological applications, 1931
• ‘The oneness and uniqueness of life’, in Frances Baker Mason, The great design; order and progress in nature, New York: Macmillan Co., 1934
• Huxley, London: Duckworth, [1934].

External links