George James Allman

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George James Allman (1812-November 24, 1898), M.D., Emeritus Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh, an eminent naturalist.

Allman was born in Cork, Ireland, and received his early education at the Royal Academical Institution, Belfast. For some time he studied for the Irish bar, but ultimately gave up law in favour of natural science. In 1843 he graduated in medicine at Dublin, and in the following year was appointed professor of botany in that university, succeeding his namesake, William Allman (1776-1846). This position he held for about twelve years until he removed to Edinburgh as Regius Professor of natural history. There he remained until 1870, when considerations of health induced him to resign his professorship and retire to Dorset, where he devoted himself to his favorite pastime of horticulture.

The scientific papers which came from his pen are very numerous. His most important work was upon the gymnoblastic hydrozoa, on which he published in 1871-1872, through the Ray Society, an exhaustive monograph, based largely on his own researches and illustrated with drawings of remarkable excellence from his own hand. Biological science is also indebted to him for several convenient terms which have come into daily use, e.g. endoderm and ectoderm for the two cellular layers of the body-wall in Coelenterata. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1854, and received a Royal medal in 1873. For several years he occupied the presidential chair of the Linnaean Society, and in 1879 he presided over the Sheffield meeting of the British Association.