Johan Hjort 1869-1948

• Published in: Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1950
• Subjects: Christiania; Norway; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1950.0012; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1950.0012

Johan Hjort died on 7 October 1948 at the age of seventy-nine; he was one of the great leaders in oceanography whose names will live in the annals of this science, and his influence will be felt for many years to come. His fame will last both for the contributions he made to oceanic biology, especially in that classic The depths of the ocean which he published with Sir John Murray as a result of their North Atlantic expedition in 1910, and equally for his remarkable pioneer achievements in practical fisheries research. All in a position to judge, would, I am sure, regard him as the most outstanding personality in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea since its foundation in 1902; from that date until his death he remained the Norwegian delegate and became its President in 1938. He was born in Oslo (then Christiania) on 18 February 1869, the son of Johan S. A. Hjort, Professor of Ophthalmology. Since his school days he had wanted to be a biologist, but to please his father he undertook to complete part of a medical course before leaving for Munich to study zoology under Richard Hertwig. He then went to Naples to work at the Stazione Zoologica on an embryological problem, the development of the bud in the ascidian Botryllus , a study which won for him his doctorate at Munich in 1892. He returned to Norway to become curator of the University Zoological Museum and to develop a more modern course of instruction based on the experience he had gained at Munich. He was soon, however, destined to forsake academic zoology and to embark upon his life’s work in oceanography, for in 1894 he succeeded G. O. Sars as Research Fellow in Fisheries. He now felt the need of widening his knowledge of physiological chemistry and went to study at Jena from 1895 to 1896. Upon his return he was appointed in 1897 to be Director of the University Biological Station at Drøbak.