On George C. Wallich (1815–1899): The Little Known Contentious Pioneer of Deep Sea Protistology

ABSTRACT

In 1857, George Wallich returned to England from India as a retired surgeon of the British Army and began a second career as a gentleman microscopist. In 1860, he served as the “naturalist” during the five‐and‐a‐half‐month‐long voyage of the H.M.S . Bulldog across the North Atlantic, charged with investigating the fauna of the deep sea. During the cruise, Wallich found clear evidence of life in the deep as live brittle stars brought up from over 2000m depth. Wallich is then known for being among the first to demonstrate that there is life in the deep sea. However, most of his publications concerned protists, and many were on protists of the deep sea, making him a pioneer in their study. Nonetheless, Wallich and his contributions to protistology are unknown to most protistologists. Here, following a brief biography of Wallich, his contributions to protistology, especially his major studies of deep sea forms, are reviewed. They included disputes with major scientific personalities of the time that may have contributed to Wallich's relative obscurity today.