Career
Lankester became a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 1873. He co-edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science which his father had founded. From 1869 until his death he edited this journal (jointly with his father, 1869–71). He worked as one of Huxley's team at the new buildings in South Kensington, and after the death of Francis Balfour became Huxley's intended successor.
Lankester was appointed Jodrell Professor of Zoology at University College London from 1874 to 1890, Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford University from 1891 to 1898, and director of the Natural History Museum from 1898 to 1907. He was a founder in 1884 of the Marine Biological Association and served as its second President between 1890 and 1929. Influential as teacher and writer on biological theories, comparative anatomy, and evolution, Lankester studied the protozoa, mollusca, and arthropoda. He was knighted in 1907, awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1913, and the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal in 1908.
At University College London (the 'Godless Institute of Gower Street') Lankester taught W.F.R. Weldon (1860–1906) who went on to succeed him in the chair at UCL. Another interesting student was Alfred Gibbs Bourne, who went on to hold senior positions in biology and education in the Indian Empire. When Lankester left to take up the Linacre chair at Oxford in 1891, the Grant Museum at UCL continued to grow under Weldon who added a number of extremely rare specimens. Weldon is perhaps best known for founding the science of biometry with Francis Galton (1822–1911) and Karl Pearson (1857–1936). He followed Lankester to Oxford in 1899.
After Huxley the most important influence on his thought was August Weismann, the German zoologist who rejected Lamarkism, and wholeheartedly advocated natural selection as the key force in evolution at a time when other biologists had doubts. Weismann's separation of germplasm (genetic material) from soma (somatic cells) was an idea which took many years before its significance was generally appreciated. Lankester was one of the first to see its importance: his full acceptance of selection came after reading Weismann's essays, some of which he translated into English.
Lankester was hugely influential, though perhaps more as a teacher than as a researcher. Ernst Mayr said "It was Lankester who founded a school of selectionism at Oxford". Those he influenced (in addition to Weldon) included Edwin Stephen Goodrich (Linacre chair in zoology at Oxford 1921-46) and (indirectly) Julian Huxley (the evolutionary synthesis). In turn their disciples, such as E.B. Ford (ecological genetics), Gavin de Beer (embryology and evolution), Charles Elton (ecology) and Alister Hardy (marine biology) held sway during the middle years of the 20th century.
As a zoologist Lankester was a comparative anatomist of the Huxley school, working mostly on invertebrates. He was the first to show the relationship of the horseshoe crab or Limulus to the Arachnida. His Limulus specimens can still be seen in the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL today. He was also a voluminous writer on biology for the general readership; in this he followed the example of his old mentor, Huxley.
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