Walter Garstang

Walter Garstang FLS FZS (9 February 1868 – 23 February 1949), a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford and Professor of Zoology at the University of Leeds, was one of the first to study the functional biology of marine invertebrate larvae. His best known works on marine larvae were his poems which were published together after his death as Larval Forms and Other Zoological Verses, which describe the form and function of several marine larvae as well as illustrating some controversies in evolutionary biology of the time.

Garstang was known for his vehement opposition to Ernst Haeckel's Biogenetic Law, now discredited. He is also noted for his hypothesis on chordate evolution, known as Garstang's theory, which suggests an alternative route for chordate evolution from echinoderms. Holland, in Walter Garstang: a Retrospective (Theory in Biosciences 130: 247-258, 2011) summarizes Garstang’s more important publications with special attention to his evolutionary thoughts—their source, their relation to the biology of his times, and their fate in the twenty-first century.

Garstang

Coordinates: 53°54′11″N 2°46′01″W / 53.903°N 2.767°W / 53.903; -2.767

Garstang is an old market town and civil parish within the Wyre borough of Lancashire, England. It is 10 miles (16 km) north of the city of Preston and the same distance south of Lancaster. In 2011, the parish had a total resident population of 4,268; the larger Garstang Built-up Area, which includes the adjoining settlements of Bonds and Cabus, had population of 6,779. Garstang is famous for being the world's first ever Fairtrade Town.

History

A brief but comprehensive history of the parish, including the parish church of St Helen in Churchtown and Greenhalgh Castle, can be found in "The Parish of Garstang", A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 7.

St. John Plessington was born at Dimples Hall, which is just outside the town.

Garstang was once served by Garstang and Catterall railway station which closed in 1969, and Garstang Town railway station which closed to passengers in 1930.

The town is overlooked by the ruined remains of Greenhalgh Castle, built in 1490 by Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby.

Garstang (disambiguation)

Garstang is an old market town and civil parish within the Wyre borough of Lancashire, England.

Garstang may also refer to: