The beginnings of marine science

Throughout Western Europe, the 19th century saw the establishment of science as an integral part of the cultural activity and creative effort of nations. Physical and biological sciences flourished and specialised, as the application of their results in the practical endeavours of engineering, agriculture, seafaring, and military activity became appreciated by industry and governments. The marine environment has always been of great importance to mankind both because of its resources and because it presents dangers. Recorded observations of marine fauna and the physical characteristics of the sea can be traced back at least to the 4th century BC, and scientific investigations were an integral part of the activities of the great maritime expeditions of the 15th and 16th centuries. Systematic, progressive sampling and description of the marine environment, though, only developed as distinct objectives in the middle of the 19th century.

The influence of the British naturalist Edward Forbes stands out among the pioneers of the science of the sea at this time. The results of his programme of sampling of the marine fauna, The Natural History of European Seas, published posthumously in 1859, provided an important baseline for future studies. He identified the needs for new knowledge and, inadvertently, stimulated considerable interest and scientific controversy (Forbes had earlier mistakenly claimed that life could not exist in the sea below about 550 m). The publication in the same year of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species stimulated tremendous interest in the investigation of the widest variety of life forms. Darwin's ideas turned particular attention to forms of life in unusual and isolated environments for whatever scientific clues these could contribute to the great evolutionary debate.

Against this background, two developments, with direct relevance to the history of SAMS, set the scene for the origins of marine sciences: the opening of the first dedicated marine station in Naples in 1875, and the Challenger Expedition between 1872 and 1876.

Marine Stations

In 19th century Europe, life in the sea fascinated the general public, and since the late 1840s guided tours to the shore for amateur collectors and visits to seaside aquaria were well established in Britain. This popularity led to the establishment of several large public aquaria, including one at London Zoo in 1853, for the public exhibition of marine specimens.

Although there were several facilities for marine biology in Europe, it is Anton Dohrn, the son of an educated and cosmopolitan industrialist, who is generally credited with conceiving the idea of marine stations to provide permanent locations and resources for the scientific study of marine life. Making use of his single-minded dedication and family wealth, allied with support from scientists throughout Europe, Dohrn persuaded the somewhat bemused city authorities to allow the establishment of the world's first marine station, the Stazione Zoologica, on the shoreline of the Bay of Naples in 1875.

With direct access to the rich marine fauna and pristine waters of the Bay of Naples, the Stazione provided well-equipped laboratories, flowing seawater, holding tanks, and dedicated local staff to support the work of what soon became a great marine observatory. The Stazione, an immediate success, was funded from payments due from visiting scientists, the sale of specimens, and entrance fees to the public aquarium. It further attracted the interest and investment of industry and governments. A scientific journal and series of review monographs published the results of the work of the Stazione. Exhibitions, lectures and demonstrations were provided for the public at large and for the training of students and special interest groups such as naval officers.

The scientific principles on which the Stazione Zoologica was established, and the funding mechanisms put in place to maintain it, set the framework for the rapid expansion of marine stations throughout the world in the closing decades of the 19th century. Within a couple of decades major marine laboratories were established by most of the countries of Europe as well as North America. In Britain, current marine laboratories that originate from this time include the Scottish Marine Station (today SAMS, 1884), the Gatty Marine Laboratory (University of St Andrews, 1884), the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (Plymouth, 1888), the Port Erin Marine Biological Station (University of Liverpool, 1892 but closed in 2006), the Dove Marine Laboratory (University of Newcastle, 1897), the Fisheries Research Laboratory (Aberdeen, 1899), and the Bangor Marine Station (University of Belfast, 1903).

The Challenger Expedition

Just prior to the founding of the Stazione Zoologica in December 1872, with all the bravado and confidence of the late Victorians, HMS Challenger, a British naval corvette of 2306 tons, stripped of her guns and loaded with scientific equipment, set out to cruise around the world to observe:-  

• the physical conditions of the sea in the great ocean basins
• the chemical composition of seawater at all depths in the ocean
• the physical and chemical characteristics of the sea floor deposits and the nature of their origin, and
• the distribution of organic life at all depths in the sea and on the sea floor.

By current standards, the Challenger remit seems impossibly over-ambitious, but it continues to set the scale and direction for marine science generally.

Over the next four years, Challenger travelled 127,500 km through the world's oceans, executing the greatest programme of soundings and sampling yet undertaken. The expedition discovered 4717 new marine species, and sounded the Marianas Trench to a depth of 8185 m. The scientific party was led by Dr (later Sir) Charles Wyville Thomson, and included a Canadian-born Scotsman, Dr (later Sir) John Murray, who was to become the founding father for SAMS. In 1877, after the return of the Challenger, an office was founded in Edinburgh to process the samples from the expedition and to publish its results. John Murray became director and edited the seminal 34-volume Expedition Reports.

The founding and early history of the Association

In 1867 and 1868 Anton Dohrn, the founder of the Stazione Zoologica, had visited David Robertson, the 'Cumbrae Naturalist', a largely self-educated and highly regarded amateur naturalist, knowledgeable and interested in marine biology, to conduct marine biological studies on the west coast of Scotland. It is likely that during this time the two men discussed the rationale and ethos for prospective marine stations. David Robertson later became the man most credited with the move of the Ark from Granton and its re-estabishment as a laboratory on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Clyde in 1885. We also know that Dohrn carried back with him to Naples a design for a portable marine aquarium, arising from his contacts with Robertson, that he made up and took to Messina in 1868. In 1884 Sir John Murray, entrusted with funds raised at the Fisheries Exhibition in Edinburgh of 1882 and with the financial and practical support of many academic and business associates, declared open the Scottish Marine Station at Granton onboard an old lighter, the Ark, and endowed it with the library of Wyville Thomson. Thus, the exploratory vision, scientific impetus and resources arising from the Challenger expedition led directly to the establishment of a dedicated centre for research into the marine environment and its living inhabitants. It was to be the founding event of an Association that has persisted, adapting and growing over a period of 120 years, and that entered a new phase of development in the year 2004. In 1885 the Ark was moved to Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Clyde at the west coast of Scotland, and the Granton station eventually closed in 1903. In 1894, the Cumbrae Naturalist David Robertson founded a committee to build a marine station in Millport, and took over the Ark. The Millport Marine Biological Station was opened in 1897 by Sir John Murray. In 1904, the Association received the oceanographer and explorer, William Speirs Bruce on board the Scotia, returning from his successful, but largely ignored, expedition to the Antarctic.

Records of the activities of staff and visitors of the Association have been meticulously maintained in the form of annual reports and scientific publications in a continuous series extending back to the first days of the Granton Station in 1884. They can be accessed in the Association's library at Dunstaffnage. Over such a period of time in any field of science, some lines of investigation reach their natural conclusion or cease to be useful, while others arise and take their place as new methods become available and new needs are recognised. Many themes of investigation and activity fundamental to the Association, however, can be traced from the earliest beginnings to the present time. The history of the Association reveals the antecedents of much of the research currently important in the work of the station.

In 1882 a fisheries exhibition was held in Edinburgh to discuss the state of knowledge of the region’s fisheries. This was followed by the Great Fisheries Exhibition in London in 1883 that brought these matters to the world stage. There were already concerns about the state of stocks and the lack of knowledge of the sea’s biology. The Great Exhibition, together with the pioneering Challenger Expedition, helped fuel interest in the sea amongst the growing body of Victorian natural scientists. The Scottish Meteorological Society decided to spend some of the £ 1,400 left over from the Edinburgh expedition to establish a zoological station for marine research. They went cap in hand to the government for funding but their proposal was rejected. Fortunately, Dr (later Sir) John Murray, the entrepreneurial curator of the Challenger Expedition and editor of its reports, decided to fund the venture himself – on the condition that £250 was released every year from the fisheries fund to match his own generosity.

The Scottish Marine Station was founded by Murray in 1884 with a first donation of £50 from Queen Victoria. It grew quickly and within three years a new laboratory was created in Millport, Great Cumbrae, largely inspired by the naturalist David Robertson.  It wasn’t easy to keep the dream alive but in 1900, the Marine Biological Association of the West of Scotland was founded and this was reconstituted as the Scottish Marine Biological Association in 1914 and as the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) on 1 July 1992. During its long history, it has had to adapt many times, including the major move from Millport to Oban in 1970.  It has spawned several other major institutions, including the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science. SAMS has been home for many illustrious scientists and pioneering research expeditions. It has remained independent, innovative and increasingly international.

In the recent past, under the guidance of Professor Graham Shimmield (SAMS Director 1996-2008), SAMS became increasingly entrepreneurial, engaging with a wide range of issues of the day, benefitting from an upsurge in public funding for science and from a reawakening of the importance of the sea to the Scottish economy. The 'Sir John Murray' building, which houses the Association's major research laboratories, was built in 2004 and a very successful wing was dedicated to incubating new companies dedicated to marine biotechnology. This European Centre for Marine Biotechnology has been a resounding success and companies such as Aquapharm and Glycomar are now ready to expand into new facilities to be established alongside SAMS in Highland and Islands Enterprise’s new European Marine Science Park. In 2009, under the directorship of Professor Laurence Mee, a new £7M teaching building named after Sheina Marshall was added to the estate.

Early in my career, when I was at the SMBA's Oceanographic Laboratory in Edinburgh, I was granted leave to do some experimental work on Calanus at Millport, working alongside Sheina Marshall, which was a great privilege that Jane and I fondly remember. Years later, after I returned to SMBA and when NERC was having to consider seriously the position of the grant-aided institutions, the Highlands and Islands Development Board published Sir Graham Hills' report on a potential University for, of and in the Highlands and Islands including Argyll, although it was noted that the county did not have a college ready to be a potential partner. Council of the SMBA (soon to become SAMS) agreed that affiliation of the Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory with the new body should be considered on three grounds: first, because it was unthinkable that a university could be created in the H & I without a strong element of marine science in the curriculum; secondly that none of the other partners had a strong research ethos, while SMBA/SAMS had an established record of postgraduate activity and an international reputation in marine scientific research; and thirdly we would fill the space in Argyll most appropriately.

SAMS became a full partner in the UHI Project in 1992, and immediately started to develop a full four-year honours course in marine science; this received preliminary approval from the UHI Board in 1995, which gave me much pleasure just before I retired as Director. The opening now of the Sheina Marshall Building to accommodate what has become a truly comprehensive education in all branches of marine science is a thrilling outcome for me.