Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

41. A new headquarters Building had just been completed at Wormley, Surrey,
about 38 miles Southwest of London. The building an ugly one, had been built for
the Admiralty as an extension of the Signal and Radar Research Establishment at
Haslemere. As well as large shared laboratories there were workshops, library,
canteen and other facilities. By l955 the staff had increased to 48, but there were
still only 53 scientific and technical staff at the NIO in l958, when I was promoted
to Principal Scientific Officer. In l960 the scientific and technical staff of NIO still
totalled only 59.
Colleagues
In my time at NIO my colleagues in biology included: Dr N A Mackintosh,
Deputy Director of the Institute, my boss and distinguished for his work on blue
and fin whales in the 1920s. James Marr, famous as "Scout" Marr on Shackleton's
last expedition and Field Leader of FIDS in [l945-46], was working on Antarctic
krill. John Hart, a distinguished botanist - phytoplankton expert - had several
Antarctic voyages to his credit on Discovery II. Ron Currie was particularly
interested in primary production (and later to become Director of the Scottish
Marine Biological Station at Dunstaffnage). Peter David worked on arrow worms
(Chaetognaths), particularly Sagitta gazellae; he was an Oxford graduate, a sophist
who, sadly, delighted in cruelly interrogating junior colleagues who were less
articulate, but was an outstanding photographer of marine life. Peter Foxton, a
popular colleague with a great sense of humour, studied the 'standing crop'
distribution of Antarctic zooplankton and later on salps, jelly-like creatures that
have a strange biology and life-history (many years later he took a post in NERC
HQ and was liaison officer with BAS). Arthur Baker worked on another krill
species, Euphausia triacantha. and on the copepod, Calanus acutus. .
Also there was the Whales Research Unit (WRU), including as well as myself
Robert Clarke and Sidney Brown. Robert was an Oxford graduate turned whale
biologist who had specialised on sperm whales in the Azores, and the open-boat
whaling methods practised there. Sidney was a mine of information and later
mastermind of the international whale-marking project, particularly on dispersal
of blue and fin whales. He worked with Dr Mackintosh on whale sightings
surveys in the Southern Ocean. (Much later Sidney came with the WRU to become
part of SMRU at Cambridge). Arthur Fisher, was my assistant in the whale ovary
work and much later in his career assumed responsibility for the NIO ships in the
1970s.
Other scientists on the staff of the institute included the Director, George
Deacon FRS (later Sir George), a distinguished physical oceanographer. Henry
Charnock (later FRS and Director), was also a physicist. Tony Laughton (later Sir
Anthon, FRS and Director), was a marine Geophysicist from Cambridge. Michael
Longuett-Higgins (later FRS), was an applied mathematician and John Swallow
(later FRS), worked on ocean currents. David Cartwright, (also later FRS), was an
expert on tides; Mike Tucker, technical wizard, later head of an Institute on coastal
and estuarine processes. Jim Crease, mathematician and Henry Herdman,
extremely knowledgeable about the ships. Brian Hinde, later to become Head of
the Scientific Services of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
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