G
GARDINER, JOHN STANLEY (1872–1946)
Barbara E. Brown
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Durham, UK
Definition
An eminent British zoologist who is primarily recognized
for his early work on reefs throughout the Indian Ocean
but who was also a major influence on the1928–1929
Great Barrier Reef Expedition from its inception through
to review of its resultant publications.
Professor Stanley Gardiner was best known for his
extensive expeditions into the Indian Ocean to study the
flora and fauna of coral reefs and islands in the early
1900s. As a young man, he joined the Royal Society Expedition to Funafuti in the Ellice Islands in 1896 to assist the
deep boring of an atoll and test the “subsidence theory” of
reef origin proposed by Charles Darwin. On this trip, he
also visited nearby Rotuma and Fiji carrying out preliminary experiments on coral nutrition and growth, the results
of which made him one of the first scientists to question
the role of coral symbiotic algae in these processes. During 1899–1900, 1905, and 1908, Gardiner undertook several expeditions into the Indian Ocean working in the
Laccadives, Maldives, Chagos Archipelago, Farquhar,
Providence, St. Pierre, and Mauritius. He was one of first
scientists to provide detailed descriptions of the reefs of
the Indian Ocean together with taxonomic details of their
constituent corals as well as comments on their form and
possible modes of origin.
Less well known is the fact that he was a key figure in
the instigation of the 1928–1929 Great Barrier Reef Expedition; in the funding and appointment of C.M. Yonge as
its leader; in the development of the scientific programme;
and in evaluation of scientific papers which resulted from
the expedition’s activities.
Gardiner was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal
Society of London in 1908 and in 1909 became Professor
of Zoology at Cambridge. In 1929, he was awarded the
Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences of
the United States and while in the country he delivered
a series of lectures on coral reefs at the Lowell Institute
in Boston which were published a year later in a book entitled “Coral reefs and atolls.” In 1936, he was awarded
the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society and in 1945
the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society of London.
Throughout his life, he promoted coral reef interests
both within his Department and abroad. At home, he
provided a laboratory for fellow reef scientists such as
R.B. Seymour Sewell and Cyril Crossland while personally supervising George Matthai’s anatomical treatise on
soft tissues of reef corals. He entertained overseas visitors
in Cambridge and during his and his student’s visits to the
United States engaged actively with Thomas Wayland
Vaughan, Alfred Goldsborough Mayer, and Alexander
Agassiz. His legacy to reef science was much more than
descriptive studies from the Indian Ocean and included
scientific and administrative steerage of the Great Barrier
Reef Expedition which set the scene for a new phase in
the development of reef science in the twentieth century.
Bibliography
Gardiner, J. S., 1898. The coral reefs of Funafuti, Rotuma and Fiji
together with some notes on the structure and formation of coral
reefs in general. In Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical
Society, Vol. 9, pp. 417–503.
David Hopley (ed.), Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2,
# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
GARDINER, JOHN STANLEY (1872–1946)
Barbara E. Brown
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Durham, UK
Definition
An eminent British zoologist who is primarily recognized
for his early work on reefs throughout the Indian Ocean
but who was also a major influence on the1928–1929
Great Barrier Reef Expedition from its inception through
to review of its resultant publications.
Professor Stanley Gardiner was best known for his
extensive expeditions into the Indian Ocean to study the
flora and fauna of coral reefs and islands in the early
1900s. As a young man, he joined the Royal Society Expedition to Funafuti in the Ellice Islands in 1896 to assist the
deep boring of an atoll and test the “subsidence theory” of
reef origin proposed by Charles Darwin. On this trip, he
also visited nearby Rotuma and Fiji carrying out preliminary experiments on coral nutrition and growth, the results
of which made him one of the first scientists to question
the role of coral symbiotic algae in these processes. During 1899–1900, 1905, and 1908, Gardiner undertook several expeditions into the Indian Ocean working in the
Laccadives, Maldives, Chagos Archipelago, Farquhar,
Providence, St. Pierre, and Mauritius. He was one of first
scientists to provide detailed descriptions of the reefs of
the Indian Ocean together with taxonomic details of their
constituent corals as well as comments on their form and
possible modes of origin.
Less well known is the fact that he was a key figure in
the instigation of the 1928–1929 Great Barrier Reef Expedition; in the funding and appointment of C.M. Yonge as
its leader; in the development of the scientific programme;
and in evaluation of scientific papers which resulted from
the expedition’s activities.
Gardiner was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal
Society of London in 1908 and in 1909 became Professor
of Zoology at Cambridge. In 1929, he was awarded the
Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences of
the United States and while in the country he delivered
a series of lectures on coral reefs at the Lowell Institute
in Boston which were published a year later in a book entitled “Coral reefs and atolls.” In 1936, he was awarded
the Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society and in 1945
the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society of London.
Throughout his life, he promoted coral reef interests
both within his Department and abroad. At home, he
provided a laboratory for fellow reef scientists such as
R.B. Seymour Sewell and Cyril Crossland while personally supervising George Matthai’s anatomical treatise on
soft tissues of reef corals. He entertained overseas visitors
in Cambridge and during his and his student’s visits to the
United States engaged actively with Thomas Wayland
Vaughan, Alfred Goldsborough Mayer, and Alexander
Agassiz. His legacy to reef science was much more than
descriptive studies from the Indian Ocean and included
scientific and administrative steerage of the Great Barrier
Reef Expedition which set the scene for a new phase in
the development of reef science in the twentieth century.
Bibliography
Gardiner, J. S., 1898. The coral reefs of Funafuti, Rotuma and Fiji
together with some notes on the structure and formation of coral
reefs in general. In Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical
Society, Vol. 9, pp. 417–503.
David Hopley (ed.), Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2,
# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011