Hinde, Robert Aubrey

Person

Hinde, Robert Aubrey

1923 - 2016

Youngest child of Ernest Bertram and Isabella Hinde, born on 26 October 1923 in Norwich. He was educated at Oundle's preparatory school followed by Oundle senior school. At the start of the Second World War Hinde signed up for the RAF, and following a length training in Africa, Hinde was posted to a Coastal Command, initially on Catalina flying boats, and then Sunderlands, before being promoted to flight lieutenant (1941-5). Following demobilization, Hinde received an exhibition to St John's College, where he read chemistry, physiology, and zoology; achieving a First in Part II of the Zoology Tripos in 1948. On 11 August the same year, he married Hester Cecily Coutts, who had been studying at Newnham College, Cambridge. They then moved to Oxford where Hinde undertook his DPhil at the Edward Grey Institute, and had four children together (two sons, two daughters). In 1950, Hinde returned to Cambridge at the invitation of William Thorpe to take up the position of curator of the Ornithological Field Station at Madingley, which he retained until 1965. Under Hinde's guidance, Madingley field station evolved as an important centre for the study of behaviour. Hester and Robert Hinde divorced in 1970, and on 7 May 1971 Hinde married Joan Gladys Stevenson, an American psychologist. They had two daughters together, and collaborated on the study of child development.

During his career, Hinde published a vast amount of work, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1974), Honorary Fellow of the British Academy (2002) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists (1988), foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (1978), and an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1974). He also received awards and medals for his various research. Nevertheless, he was always a devoted member of St John's College, being a Fellow (1951-54, 1958-89, and 1994-2016) and, after retiring from his Royal Society Professorship in 1989, serving as Master (1989-94). He was also made an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford (1986), and Trinity College, Dublin (1990), and received honorary doctorates from from the Université Libre (Brussels, 1974), Université de Paris (Nanterre, 1979), Stirling University (1991), Göteborg University (Sweden, 1991), Edinburgh University (1992), University of Western Ontario (Canada, 1996), and Oxford University (1998). In 1988 he was made a CBE and in 1996 was awarded the royal medal of the Royal Society.

Hinde was not only a dedicated academic, but also recognised the need for a responsible society, and was committed to the peace movement. He became chair and president of the British Pugwash Group and president of the Movement for the Abolition of War. He maintained an academically active life long after his official retirement age, during which period he wrote some of his most socially-important books. He died of prostate cancer at the Arthur Rank Hospice in Great Shelford, Cambridge on 23 December 2016. A memorial service was held in St John's College Chapel on 13 May 2017, and a conference in his honour was organised by the college on 1 June 2018.

E. B. Keverne, Hinde, Robert Aubrey (1923-2016), biologist and ethologist, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Hinde, Prof. Robert Aubrey, (26 Oct. 1923 - 23 Dec. 2016), Master of St John's College, Cambridge, 1989-94 (Fellow, 1951-54, 1958-89, and since 1994), Who's Who and Who Was Who