First edition. Edward Bagnall Poulton (1856–1943) was a British zoologists and Darwinian with a great interest in sexual selection, and under his influence much knowledge was gained of the courtship of insects and of the special structures used for that purpose.
After 1900 two new theories, the mutation theory of Hugo de Vries and Mendelian theory appeared to challenge the Darwinian idea of origin of species by selection of small variations. Poulton disagreed vehemently with the way the proponents of these new theories disparaged traditional lines of research in natural history. He argued that Mendelism merely extended ideas advanced by Weismann, and hence was not an abrupt departure from Darwinism. His critique of the limitations of the new science was published as an introduction to his collection of papers, Essays on Evolution, 1889–1907 (1908).
He was a vice-president of the Royal Society for 1909–10 and its Darwin medallist in 1914. He presided over the Linnean Society of London from 1912 to 1916 and was awarded the Linnean medal in 1922. He was three times president of the Entomological Society of London, which elected him honorary life president in 1933 when the title ‘Royal’ was conferred upon it. The second International Congress of Entomology met under his guidance in 1912, as did the Association of Economic (later Applied) Biologists in 1922–3. He was for many years a member of the British Association, and he presided over it in 1937, having been president of the zoology section in 1931. He was a commander of the Swedish order of the Pole Star, and an honorary member of many foreign learned societies. The universities of Reading, Durham, Dublin, and Princeton conferred honorary degrees upon him; he was knighted in 1935. (ODNB)