Ernest Baldwin

Who was Ernest Baldwin?

Ernest Hubert Francis Baldwin was an English biochemist, textbook author and pioneer in the field of comparative biochemistry.

Born in Gloucester, Baldwin attended the Crypt Grammar School followed by St. John's College, Cambridge. He completed the natural sciences tripos, specialising in biochemistry for Part II. He won a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 scholarship for 1933–1935, remaining at Cambridge to study biochemistry. His main influence there was the eminent biochemist Frederick Gowland Hopkins; he also worked with Joseph Needham and Dorothy Needham.

In 1937, inspired by the broad biochemical interests of Hopkins and the Needhams, Baldwin published An Introduction to Comparative Biochemistry, an influential introductory textbook that went through four editions, the last in 1964. By 1946 Baldwin had advanced to the position of lecturer in biochemistry at Cambridge. In 1947, he published the first edition of Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry, a widely used textbook that won the 1952 European Cortina-Ulisse Prize. Baldwin's research at St. John's from 1940 to 1949 focused on the roundworm Ascaris lumbricoides.