Harry B. Whittington

Who was Harry B. Whittington?

Harry Blackmore Whittington FRS was a British paleontologist based at the Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge, and was affiliated to Sidney Sussex College. He attended Handsworth Grammar School in Birmingham, followed by a degree and Ph.D in geology from the University of Birmingham. He was professor of paleontology at Harvard University and then Woodwardian Professor of Geology at the University of Cambridge from 1966 to 1983. During a paleontological career that spans more than sixty years, Whittington achieved brilliant results in the study of fossil arthropods of the early Paleozoic era, with a particular focus on trilobites. Among his major achievements were:

the study of trilobite morphology, ecology, and fossil stratigraphy, together with paleogeography

the study of the Burgess Shale fauna, which led to elucidation of the nature of the Cambrian explosion.