Biology has been taught at Bristol – as Botany and Zoology – since before the University was founded in 1909. Bristol has made significant contributions to many fields, from animal cognition and medicinal plants to entomology, evolutionary Game Theory and bird flight. Beyond academia, our graduates have gone on to diverse careers, including successful television careers,  aided by the BBC Natural History Unit's long-established links, as many alumni of the school have worked there, and its proximity to the University.

In 1876, University College, the precursor to the University, appointed Dr. Frederick Adolph Leipner as Lecturer in Botany, Zoology and, slightly less on topic, German! Leipner had trained at the Bristol Medical School, but taught botany and natural philosophy, later combining this with teaching in Vegetable Physiology at the Medical School. He became Professor of Botany in 1884 and was a founding member of the Bristol Naturalists' Society, becoming its President in 1893.

Bristol today is proud of its interdisciplinary strengths and, among others, previously offered Joint Honours Degrees in Geology and Biology, and in Psychology and Zoology. A portent of these modern links is seen in one of the University's most notable early appointments, Conwy Lloyd Morgan, appointed as Professor of Zoology and Geology in 1884 and then – somehow fitting in service as Vice Chancellor – becoming the first Chair in Psychology (and Ethics). Lloyd Morgan is most famous as a pioneer of the study of comparative animal cognition. He was a highly influential figure for the North American Behaviourist movement: “Lloyd Morgan's cannon” is a comparative psychologist's version of Occam's Razor whereby no behaviour should be ascribed to more complex cognitive mechanisms than strictly necessary. He was the first Fellow of the Royal Society to be elected for psychological work. 

Another major contribution to the early success of biology at Bristol, in particular to botany and agricultural studies, was the entry into the university in 1912 of the National Institute of Fruit and Cider (NIFC). After its creation in 1903 by Lady Emily Smyth, the NIFC became the University’s Agricultural and Horticultural Research Department, changing its name to The Long Ashton Research Station. It remained such until 2003, when it was closed and the money raised converted to an endowed fund associated with a ‘primary unit’ of the University called the Lady Emily Smyth Agricultural Research Station. Research at Long Ashton forms an important part of the school’s history, including research on crops like wheat, as well as the invention of Ribena!

Additional growth of the botanical facilities was led by Otto Darbishire, who was appointed head of the Botany Department in 1911, in 1919 promoted to the newly created Chair of Botany, designated the Melville Wills Chair in 1930. Darbishire introduced different ecological regions in the Botanic Gardens and set up an experimental greenhouse with laboratories funded by avid plant collector Hiatt Baker. It was here that the Botany Department raised seeds from medicinal plants as part of the war effort in the Second World War. Another influential botany Professor during the 1930's was Eric Ashby, subsequently Baron Ashby, famous as an educator as well as a scientist. He became Secretary of the Society for Experimental Biology while at Bristol, subsequently going on to become President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and chancellor of Queen's University, Belfast.

In 1921, the first PhD to be awarded to anyone in any subject at the University of Bristol was to a woman in Botany, Lily Batten^[1], later Lily Newton, for her doctoral thesis The British Species of the Genus Polysiphona. Newton worked as an assistant lecturer in Bristol until after her PhD when she moved to Imperial College, the John Innes Institute and University of Wales, Aberystwyth. There she became a Professor in the botany department and also served as Vice-Principal and Acting Principal of the University of Wales. Her work on seaweed has had an enduring legacy, and she did pioneering work on river pollution on the river Rheidol and with the Nature Conservancy in Wales. Newton held the presidency of Section K of the British Association, the British Phycological Society and the UK Federation for Education in Home Economics.

Rose Bracher was another noted botanist and lecturer at Bristol between 1924 and 1941, rising to the post of Senior Lecturer. She had three degrees from the University of Bristol, as well as experience in Wisconsin and at the East London College. Bracher was the first non-professorial woman to be elected to the University Senate, before her sudden death at just 47.^[2] Bracher was an ecologist with particular interest in Euglena on the tidal mudbanks of the Avon. She was a member of the Linnean Society and also wrote two books, ‘Field Studies in Ecology’ and ‘Ecology in Town and Classroom’ and taught significant numbers of extra courses outside of the university, as well as working as a warden with responsibility for women students’ welfare. The prize for the best final year student is named the Rose Bracher Memorial Prize.  

Lilian Hawker was an illustrious mycologist and one of the first women in Bristol to hold a chair (in mycology from 1965, having started as a lecturer in 1945), and served as the Dean of the science faculty. She helped found the University’s course on Microbiology and worked to produce microbiology textbooks, as well as promoting practical work in university education. Hawker was President of the British Mycological Society and made major contributions to the field of mycology, working on fungal diseases of plants, revolutionising the understanding of truffles in England, and writing early canonical texts on the mycology.

During the 1970s and 80s Bristol continued to be home to leading biologists. Among them, Howard Everest Hinton was a world-renowned entomologist and Head of Zoology in the 1970's, he published 17 papers before receiving his B.Sc. Hinton founded and edited the Journal of Insect Physiology and the Journal Insect Biochemistry. Geoff Parker FRS, a PhD student of Hinton's, is, many would argue, one of the greatest living evolutionary theorists. His doctoral research on the humble dung-fly led to seminal papers on evolutionary Game Theory, the Marginal Value Theorem and sperm competition, his writings on the latter effectively creating a whole new field of post-Darwinian evolutionary biology.

Between 1978-84, prominent plant pathologist Julie Flood was another notable lecturer in the botany department, before moving on to work in Bath and Papua New Guinea, and finally Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), with specific expertise on coffee diseases, and serving as regional and global director with a number of remits. She was a founder member and later President of the British Society for Plant Pathology, of which she was also made an honorary member.^[3]

During the 1980s, the School also pioneered the field of visual ecology, whose agenda was laid down in a series of papers and a classic textbook by John Lythgoe and in which Bristol still excels. At the same time, the School came to the forefront in the mechanisms and mathematical theory of animal locomotion, particularly bird flight, largely through the work of Colin Pennycuick, Jeremy Rayner and Geoff Spedding.

The current School of Biological Sciences was founded in 1990 from the fusion of the Departments of Zoology - with its particular strengths in animal physiology - and Botany, where both plant taxonomy and agricultural research had long been at the forefront. The School moved to its current home in the Life Sciences Building, on 24 Tyndall Avenue in 2014, which was opened by Sir David Attenborough. The transition was overseen by Jane Memmott OBE Hon. FRES as Head of the School. Prof Memmott is a notable ecologist and entomologist, President of the British Ecological Society and was appointed OBE in 2021 for her services to insect ecology. She was succeeded as Head of School by Professor Mike Benton OBE FRS, an internationally recognised Paleobiologist, and subsequently Professor Claire Grierson, a plant molecular biologist, synthetic biologist, and co-founder of the Bristol iGEM team. 

Throughout our history the School has produced several figures who have commanded political as well as scientific influence. Sir David Smith, who held the Chair in Botany from 1970-1980, became successively Biological Secretary of the Royal Society, Principal of Edinburgh University and President of Wolfson College, Oxford. Sir Brian Follett, Head of Zoology and then the combined School of Biology in the late 1980s and early 1990s, also became Biological Secretary of the Royal Society, then Vice Chancellor of Warwick University (1993-2001). Sir John Beringer, Head of Botany during the same period, became Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University and chaired several high profile Research Council and government advisory committees, the most significant being that on the potential effects of releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment. Joanna Jenkinson was a graduate of Long Ashton in Bristol, before becoming Head of Infection and Immunity at the Medical Research Council, and later Director of the GW4 Alliance^[4].

Influential figures have come not only from the academic staff: Dr Una Ryan OBE, who graduated from Zoology in 1963, is former president and chief executive officer of Avant Immunotherapeutics Inc. and winner of the Albert Einstein Award in June 2007 for her leadership in the development of vaccines for major infectious disease.Tony Juniper, who graduated with a joint psychology and zoology degree in 1983, is a former executive director of Friends of the Earth and, for his tireless and prescient environmental campaigning, named by the Environment Agency in 2006 as one of the 'all time eco-heroes'. Miranda Krestovnikoff,  who received her undergraduate degree from Bristol in zoology, has been president of the RSPB since 2013 (current in 2022) alongside her work as a natural history presenter and writer. Many other graduates of biological sciences in Bristol have built successful careers in science media, notably with the BBC Natural History Unit just down the road from the School. Gillian Burke is a Bristol Biological Sciences graduate who has become a household name for her work presenting Springwatch. Among others whose work can be seen regularly on television are Nigel Marven (producer: The Land of the Russian Bear, presenter: Walking with Dinosaurs, Sea Monsters), Charlotte Uhlenbroek (presenter: Chimpanzee Diary, Cousins, Talking with Animals) and Pete McCowen (camera operator: Springwatch, Autumnwatch, Big Cat Diary, The Meerkats; Editor: A Lemur's Tale). Comedian Chris Morris (Brass Eye, Four Lions) is also a graduate of the school (in zoology). Many staff in the school have made television appearances discussing their research.

[This history was adapted from the original by Innes Cuthill by Rox Middleton and Steve Montgomery in 2022, with editorial suggestions from Gary Foster, Andy Bailey, Jane Memmott & Claire Grierson.]