L. Harrison Matthews facts for kids

Leonard Harrison Matthews FRS (12 June 1901 – 27 November 1986) was a British zoologist, especially known for his research and writings on marine mammals.

Life

Matthews was born in Bristol, and attended Bristol Grammar School. He studied biological sciences at King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a first-class degree in 1922. He was involved with the British Colonial Office backed Discovery Investigations from 1924 to 1929, during which he was largely based on the subantarctic island of South Georgia studying the biology of whales and southern elephant seals. He then held an academic position at the University of Bristol. During the Second World War he worked on radio communications and radar. He served as scientific director of the Zoological Society of London from 1951 to 1966.

His younger brother was the physiologist Sir Bryan Harold Cabot Matthews CBE FRS and his uncle the chemical scientist Lt-Col Edward Frank Harrison, inventor of the first serviceable gas mask.

Honours

• 1954 – Fellow of the Royal Society
• Harrison Point and Matthews Point in South Georgia are named after him