Geoffrey Ainsworth Harrison first became a member of Council in 1962. From 1965 to 1968 he was a Vice President and in 1968 he succeeded Sir Alan Parkes as Honorary Secretary, an office he held until 1971. Absent from Council from 1971 to 1975 but, apart from a compulsory year off in 1984, he has served continuously since the latter date being a Vice President from 1978 to 1981 and again in 1988. In 1969, he gave the (then) Eugenics Society’s fifty-third Galton Lecture entitled “The Race Concept in Human Biology” which appeared in the Society’s fifth annual symposium volume on Biosocial Aspects of Race. Professor Harrison was co-editor of both this volume and its successor Biosocial Aspects of Sex and was subsequently to co-edit (with Milo Keynes) the twenty-fourth symposium volume Evolutionary Studies: A Centenary Celebration of the Life of Julian Huxley to which he contributed not only a central chapter but also a substantial general introduction. Together with Sir Alan Parkes and Lord Platt (the then President of the Eugenics Society) Geoffrey Harrison was a founding trustee of the Galton Foundation, set up in 1967 to mark the Jubilee year of the Eugenics Society and to give an unequivocally academic emphasis to biosocial science through the publication of the quarterly Journal of Biosocial Science.
After taking a first degree from Cambridge and a DPhil from Oxford, he became a Departmental Demonstrator in the Human Anatomy department at Oxford and then a lecturer at Liverpool University and in 1963 became Reader in Physical Anthropology at Oxford. In 1976 he became the Professor of Biological Anthropology upon promotion to a personal chair. In addition to extensive investigations into the demography, genetics and life style of the local populations of the Otmoor region of Oxfordshire, he has undertaken field studies in South-West Africa, Brazil, Ethiopia, New Guinea and in Australia. This research provided a basis for his authoritative teaching, covering a wide range of problems in not only physical anthropology but more broadly in human population genetics, human ecology, human evolution and physiology. Over more than three decades, he has vigorously pursued new research directions which have served to define the field of biological anthropology. He demonstrated that few questions of any importance could be tackled without recourse to the interleaved disciplines that comprise the study of man. Always aware of the importance of demographic and social factors he has alerted us to their effects upon the biological characteristics of peoples. He enjoys the challenge of coming to terms with really difficult issues such as the measurement of stress and he has approached the issues through a consideration of the structure of human populations and on the health and well-being of peoples in many diverse regions. A natural development needing his support was the creation of a new degree of human sciences at Oxford in 1970. This was no mean achievement in an era when new degrees there were unthinkable and required much determination and persuasion. Geoffrey’s continuing commitment and convictions were well justified so that generations of young people now leave Oxford, as never before, equipped with an understanding of the interactions between biological and sociological factors.
Like Sir Alan Parkes, Geoffrey has an emotional involvement in sport and in particular in football. Always down to earth and sensible in all other things, passion for Liverpool and Bolton Wanderers may come as a surprise, but is totally excusable in him. As his students and the many who have been fortunate to have experienced his friendship and collaboration or supervision with him their research will testify, Geoffrey Harrison has shown qualities that will guarantee for the Institute wise and inspirational leadership from its new President.