| Activity | 1886 he visited the salt lakes of the Russian steppes and in 1887 the brackish water of Egypt before settling down in Cambridge to make a systematic collection of examples of variation in the animal kingdom. He was elected a fellow of St John's College in 1885 and in 1892 was made college steward in charge of the wine cellar, kitchen garden, and kitchens. Support for his research came from the Balfour studentship in 1887 and a succession of annual grants (from 1900 to 1906) from the Royal Society, to which he had been elected fellow in 1894.
From 1895 onwards he began working on experimental hybridization and genetic research
In Cambridge University he continued the outsider to the biological community. Apart from serving as deputy to the ageing zoology professor and expert ornithologist, Alfred Newton, he received no university teaching appointment until the readership of zoology in the winter of 1907–8. Shortly thereafter he was offered the directorship of the new John Innes Horticultural Institute at Merton, close to London.
In 1922 he accepted the request to become a trustee of the British Museum, but he declined the offer of a knighthood. The Royal Society had honoured him twice, with the Darwinian medal in 1904 and the Royal medal in 1920. In 1910 he received an honorary DSc from Sheffield University, and St John's College made him an honorary fellow. |