Skip to main content

Julian Huxley letter to Clinton George Evelyn Dawkins

 Collection
Identifier: MS 472
Finding aid note: Stored onsite at the Woodson Research Center. Location: control folder

Scope and Contents

Personal letter from Julian Huxley to Dawkins, not dated but perhaps from 1941, which mentions Dawkins' son beginning a career in Africa.

Dates

  • ca. 1941

Creator

Access Restriction

This material is open for research.

Conditions Governing Access

Stored onsite at the Woodson Research Center in control folder.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from this Julian Huxley letter must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library.

Biographical / Historical

Julian Sorell Huxley (b. June 22, 1887, d. February 14, 1975) was a lecturer in Zoology at Oxford (1910-1912), Research Associate and later Assistant Professor of Biology at Rice Institute (1913-1916), and fought in World War I before returning to Oxford in 1919, where he conducted the famous axolotl experiments and participated in the university's expedition to Spitsbergen. He became Professor of Zoology at King's College, University of London in 1925, but resigned his position in 1927 to collaborate on what would become The Science of Life with H.G. Wells. He was Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution (1927-1929) while working with Wells, however after 1929 he held no academic position. For ten years he was a private person working to advance his ideas about the biological sciences not as a researcher nor as a teacher, but as a writer on scientific developments and their relationship to contemporary social issues.

From 1935-1942 he served as Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, allowing him to encourage solid research on animal behavior while introducing innovative methods for implementing his vision of the zoo as an educational institution. He continued his work as a writer and lecturer and was known throughout war-time Britain for his participation as a panel member of the BBC Brains Trust program. After World War II he helped form Unesco, serving as the organization’s first Director-General (1946-1948). Here he set out a program cosmopolitan in vision, one concerned with mankind in relationship with nature and with its past, one in which art and science were equally valued. He also began to articulate fully the concerns which would occupy the later years of his life: the relation of overpopulation to poverty and ignorance, the necessity for the conservation of wilderness and wildlife, and the importance of the renunciation of parochial views on religion and politics. The remainder of his life was spent traveling, lecturing and writing in support of the causes to which he was devoted. Throughout his long career, he contributed significantly to the fields of ethology, ecology and cancer research, and acted as a powerful proponent of neo-Darwinism.

Clinton George Evelyn Dawkins (1882-1966) was at Balliol College, Oxford, with Huxley for some period of time.

Extent

0.1 Linear Feet ( (1 leaf))

Language of Materials

English

Overview

Personal letter from biologist Sir Julian Huxley to Clinton George Evelyn Dawkins in regards to his son, Clinton John Dawkins, embarking on a career in Africa.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Dawkins’ grandson, Richard Dawkins, in March 1999.

Related Materials

See Julian S. Huxley Papers, MS 50, Woodson Research Center.

Juliette Huxley Papers, MS 474, Woodson Research Center.

Grover Smith Collection, MS 462, Woodson Research Center.

Kenneth Clark Papers, MS 55, Woodson Research Center.

Solly Zuckerman Papers, MS 56, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to G. W. N. Eggers, MS 57, Woodson Research Center.

Huxley letter to Mr. Dyke, MS 58, Woodson Research Center.

Aldous Huxley letters, MS 498, Woodson Research Center.
Title
Guide to the Julian Huxley letter to Clinton George Evelyn Dawkins, ca. 1941
Status
Completed
Date
2004
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Woodson Research Center, Rice University, Houston, Texas Repository

Contact:
Fondren Library MS-44, Rice University
6100 Main St.
Houston Texas 77005 USA