William Forster LanchesterFRSE (1875–1953) was a Britishzoologist.
He was born inCroydon on 14 March 1875 to Dr Henry Thomas Lanchester MD and his wife Catherine Forster. He was one of eight children, but the only son. In 1893 he was admitted toCambridge University. He studied Science and graduated BA in 1897 and gained an MA in 1900. He went on to work as a Demonstrator in Zoology atUniversity College, Dundee.[1]
He was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Edinburgh in 1907. His proposers wereJohn Graham Kerr,Edward J. Bles,Malcolm Laurie andRamsay Heatley Traquair. He resigned in 1910 when he returned to England.[2]
In 1910 he was living at 19 Fernshaw Road inChelsea, London, a fashionable three storey Victorian mid-terraced villa.[3]
At the outbreak of theFirst World War he was in theRoyal Navy Reserve so was immediately called up. However, he moved to theRoyal Army Medical Corps and rose to the rank of captain.
He returned toCambridge in later life, living at 10 St Andrews Hill in 1945.
In 1899 he and his friend fromKing's College, Francis Perch Bedford, had collected somecrustaceans inSingapore andMalacca. He studied them and then published ongephyreans and crustaceans during the first years of the 20th century.
He is honoured in thesipunculan nameThysanocardia lanchesteri and also in thestomatopod nameGonodactylellus lanchesteri.
He married Grace Margaret Ainslie in 1900. They had four children.