Peter Chalmers Mitchell

Peter Chalmers Mitchell

Peter Chalmers Mitchell (born November 23, 1864 in Dunfermline , † July 2, 1945 in the University Hospital in London ) was a British zoologist.

Life and activity

Mitchell was the son of the Presbyterian clergyman Alexander Mitchell. After attending school, he studied at the University of Aberdeen, which he left with a master's degree. 188 he was appointed professor of zoology (University Demonstrator in Zoology) at Christ Church, Oxford.

In 1896 Mitchell wrote an article published anonymously in the Saturday Review entitled "A Biological View of English Foreign Policy", which postulated the inevitability of a great final battle between Great Britain and Germany, which would end with the destruction of one of the two adversaries. During the First World War he publicly acknowledged his authorship of this article. In May 1939, when the outbreak of World War II was already looming, Mitchell reaffirmed his remarks in a letter to the London Times .

In 1903 Mitchell was appointed secretary of the Zoological Society of London. He held this post until 1935. Julian Huxley was his successor . In this position he was entrusted with the management of the London Zoo. He also created the Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire , the first zoo in the world in which the animals on display were not kept in cages but in outdoor enclosures.

After his retirement, Mitchell moved to Málaga, where he stayed during the Spanish Civil War.

In recognition of his services to zoology, the South American double-creeping species Amphisbaena mitchelli was named after him.

In addition to numerous monographs, Mitchell also published various articles on zoological topics in the Encyclopedia Britannica , which are signed with the abbreviation "PCM".

Fonts

• Thomas Henry Huxley. A Sketch of his Life and Work , Putnam's, London 1900.
• The Nature of Man , 1904.
• Official Guide to the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, Zoological Society of London , London 1911.
• The Childhood of Animals , Penguin, 1912.
• Evolution and the War , J. Murray, London 1915.
• Materialism and Vitalism in Biology , Oxford, 1930.
• A Centenary History of the London Zoo , 1931.
• My Fill of dDays , Faber & Faber, London 1937.
• Counter-Attack in Spain , Houghton-Mifflin, Boston 1937 (together with Ramon Sender).
• My House in Málaga , Faber & Faber, London 1938.

literature

• Crook DP: "Peter Chalmers Mitchell and Antiwar Evolutionism in Britain during the Great War", in: Journal of the History of Biology , Vol. 22 (1989), 325-356.
• NA: Obituaries . In: Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London . tape 157 , no. 3 , 1946, pp. 212-218 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1095-8312.1946.tb00425.x .