G. Evelyn Hutchinson papers

George Evelyn Hutchinson was born in Cambridge, England, on January 30, 1903. His father, Arthur Hutchinson, was a mineralogist and master of Pembroke College at Cambridge University. Hutchinson's early education was at St. Faith's School, Cambridge, and Gresham's School, Holt. He demonstrated an early interest in natural history, particularly butterflies and aquatic insects, and published his first piece of scholarship when he was fifteen.

Hutchinson was a member of Emmanuel College as an undergraduate and received a B.A. from Cambridge University in 1924. After graduation he spent a year as a Rockefeller Fellow at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples where he studied octopus, squid, and other deep sea animals of Messina but also became fascinated with folklore and art. In 1926 Hutchinson accepted his first academic job as a senior lecturer in zoology at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where he began his studies of the physical, biological, chemical, and meteorological conditions of lakes of the western Transvaal. In 1928, he married Grace Pickford.

In that same year, Hutchinson made his final career move, joining the faculty of Yale University as an instructor. He rose to become Sterling Professor of Zoology, a post he held until his retirement in 1971. In 1932, Hutchinson was given the opportunity to study the ecosystems of the lakes on the high plateaus of Tibet, as the biologist accompanying the Yale North India Expedition. Hutchinson chronicled his impressions and experiences in The Clear Mirror (1936). On the return trip from India, he met Margaret Seal, who became his second wife in 1933.

Hutchinson is best known for his work in limnology, the study of freshwaters, particularly lakes. Early on he recognized the significance of ecology, and much of his research and writing dealt with the relationship between living organisms and their environment. He was particularly interested in the determining influence of the physical and chemical environment on the ecology of rivers and lakes. In 1935, he demonstrated the importance of horizontal movements of water in stratified lakes in mixing the upper and lower layers of water. In other studies he showed the circulation of phosphorous in stratified lakes and conducted research on the chemistry of lake sediments. In 1957, he published the first volume of his A Treatise on Limnology, a work of such extensive and thorough analysis that it comprised four volumes, the last of which was released posthumously.

Hutchinson had vast theoretical insight and defended the importance of theory as a stimulus to empirical research. In his desire to find order in the diversity of nature, he maintained that there was a need for dialogue between mathematicians and biologists and he employed mathematical models to arrive at general principles. His curiosity and ability to pose stimulating questions on ecological principles inspired his students, many of whom became leading figures in ecology. He asked, and partially answered the question, "Why are there so many kinds of animals?" and he provided a theoretical understanding of how an organism fits in nature, giving a modern definition of the ecological niche. A prolific writer, Hutchinson presented some of his most provocative ideas in his "Marginalia" column in American Scientist.

Hutchinson was an active participant in numerous professional organizations and learned societies. He was a charter member of the Limnological Society of America and its president from 1947 to1948. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1950, he served on its Committee on Science and Public Policy and was a foreign member of the Royal Society. He received several honorary degrees, and his contributions were recognized by, among others, the Naumann Medal of the International Association of Theoretical and Applied Limnology (1959), the Frederick Garner Cottrell Award for Environmental Quality of the National Academy of Sciences (1974), the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1984), and the Kyoto Prize in Basic Science (1986).

Hutchinson is remembered as a shy, reserved man, with an insatiable curiosity about all fields of human inquiry and a delightful sense of humor. His wife Margaret had died in 1983, and he had married Anne Twitty in 1985. After her death in 1990, Hutchinson, in failing health, had returned to England. He died there on May 17, 1991.