Henry Lyster Jameson

Henry Lyster Jameson (1874 – 26 February 1922, West Mersea) was a zoologist, who studied pearl-formation. He also made contributions to speleology and encouraged the study of psychology in adult education.

Life

H. Lyster Jameson was educated at Trinity College Dublin. In 1895 he explored the Marble Arch Caves with Édouard-Alfred Martel, and was the first to describe fauna in the Mitchelstown Cave.

After a year at the Royal College of Science in London, Jameson studied zoology under Otto Bütschli at the University of Heidelberg, writing his dissertation (1898) on Thalassema neptuni, a species of spoon worms. Put in charge of a pearling station in British New Guinea, he studied the causes of pearl-formation. He continued this research at the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Station in Piel Island, Barrow-in-Furness, developing the parasitic theory of pearl-formation in the common sea mussel. After developing pulmonary tuberculosis, he went to South Africa, where he worked for the Natal Education Department and later lectured at the Technical College in Johannesburg.

With Eden and Cedar Paul, Jameson was also active in the Plebs' League, for whom he wrote an introductory psychology textbook, and made "strenuous attempts [...] to develop psychology" as a component of working-class education in the League.

Works

• Contributions to the anatomy and histology of Thalassema neptunii Gaertner, 1899. Jena : G. Fischer, 1899.
• On the origin of pearls, 1902
• Studies on pearl-oysters and pearls. Pt. 1. Structure of the shell and pearls of the Ceylon pearl-oyster (Margaritifera vulgaris Schumacher); with an examination of the cestode theory of pearl-production, 1912
• Outline of psychology, Plebs' League, 1922. 6th ed., 1933, revised and expanded by Eden and Cedar Paul.