Herbert Graham Cannon facts for kids

Herbert Graham Cannon (1897–1963) was an important English zoologist. He was known for studying animals and was a strong supporter of an idea called Lamarckism.

Life and Work

Herbert Graham Cannon was born in Wimbledon, London on April 14, 1897. His family later moved to Brixton. He was a very bright student and earned a scholarship to Wilson’s Grammar School.

He then went to Cambridge University to study Zoology, which is the study of animals. He finished his studies there in 1918.

After university, he taught at University College, London from 1920 to 1926. In 1926, he became a professor at Sheffield University. Most of his career was spent as a professor of Zoology at Manchester University, from 1931 until he passed away in 1963.

In 1927, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which is a group of important scientists in Scotland. In 1935, he also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, another very old and respected scientific group.

Cannon did a lot of research on how arthropods (like insects and spiders) eat. He studied the different parts of their bodies used for feeding. He believed that animals could pass on traits they developed during their lives to their children. This idea is called Lamarckism.

One of his students was a famous entomologist, Sidnie Manton, who studied insects. However, Cannon's ideas about Lamarckism were strongly disagreed with by another biologist named Theodosius Dobzhansky.

Herbert Graham Cannon passed away in a hospital in London on January 6, 1963.