Ray LankesterSir Edwin Ray Lankester KCB FRS (15 May 1847-13 August 1929) was a British zoologist. He was an evolutionary biologist and invertebrate zoologist who held positions at Oxford University and University College London. He served as the third Director o the Natural History Museum in London and received the Royal Society's Copley Medal. Ray Lankester was born on Burlington Street in London on May 15, 1847, as the son of Edwin Lankester, a coroner and doctor-naturalist who helped eradicate cholera in the city, and his wife, botanist and novelist Phebe Lankester. Ray Lankester was most likely named after naturalist John Ray, whose monuments his father had recently edited for the Ray Society. Ray attended boarding school in Leatherhead in 1855, then St Paul's School in 1858. His academic education was at Downing College, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford; he switched from Downing after five terms at his parents' request since Christ Church offered better instruction in the shape of the newly appointed George Rolleston. Lankester earned first-class honours in 1868. He completed his schooling with study visits to Vienna, Leipzig, and Jena, as well as work at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples. He sat the exam to become a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and studied under Thomas H. Huxley before completing his MA. Read More Read Less