William Bateson

William Bateson (1861-1926), British biologist, who founded and named the field of genetics. Bateson was born in Whitby, Yorkshire, and educated at Saint John's College, University of Cambridge. He emerged from St. John's a staunch evolutionist, believing that all living organisms developed from a handful of ancestors, and he sought to understand how the process of evolution could take place. He observed that, in general, species are very different from each other, and also that distinct features of a kind of organism can suddenly appear or disappear from one generation to the next. Bateson concluded that evolution takes place largely by a series of sudden, discontinuous jumps, rather than by a gradual progression. He published his ideas and supporting evidence in Materials for the Study of Variation in 1894.

Seeking further evidence of his theories, Bateson began to explore how traits are inherited. In 1900, in the course of his research, he came across a paper written by the 19th-century Austrian scientist Gregor Johann Mendel, which describes experiments Mendel did with pea plants. Bateson discovered that Mendel's work explained some of his own observations; he became one of the earliest advocates of Mendelian genetics, and performed experiments of his own that extended Mendel's work. Bateson's theory of discontinuous evolution is no longer believed to be an accurate model for how organisms evolve. But by bringing the scientific community's attention to Mendel's paper, and through his own experiments, Bateson set the stage for the rapid progress of genetics in the 20th century.

Bateson was honored for his work later in life. In 1910 he became director of the John Innes Horticultural Institution and in 1922 a trustee of the British Museum, holding both offices until his death.