Robert Heath Lock (19 January 1879 – 26 June 1915) was an English botanist and geneticist who wrote the first English textbook on genetics.
Life
Robert Heath Lock was the son of John Bascombe Lock, a priest and Eton College schoolmaster who was later bursar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His younger brother was C. N. H. Lock. He was born at Eton College on 19 January 1879, and educated at Charterhouse School, where he was a member of a winning 8 at Bisley. He was Frank Smart Student of Botany at Gonville & Caius, where he graduated with a first class degree in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1902. While still an undergraduate, he accompanied William Bateson abroad.
In 1902 he was appointed Scientific Assistant to the Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), under John Christopher Willis. He returned to Cambridge in 1905 to be Curator of the Cambridge University Herbarium. He was a fellow of Caius from 1904 to 1910, taking his ScD in 1910. From 1908 to 1913 he was Assistant Director to Willis at Peradeniya, serving as Acting Director in 1909 and 1912. He specialized in the breeding of Hevea brasiliensis for rubber production. He also created a new strain of rice, "Lock's paddy".
