Geoffrey E. Blackman
Geoffrey Emett Blackman (April 17, 1903 – February 8, 1980) was a British scientist and administrator. He studied at King's College School and Cambridge, and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Blackman served as the Sibthorpian Professor of Rural Economy at the University of Oxford from 1945 to 1970 and was Director of the Agricultural Research Council Unit of Experimental Agronomy from 1950 to 1970.
During World War II, the Biology War Committee (BWC) was formed by the Association of Applied Biologists, the British Ecological Society, and the Society for Experimental Biology. Talks began in 1940 and the group was established in 1941. The BWC answered to a Joint Government Committee of research organisations and aimed to inform the government about ongoing biological research in universities and research institutes, as well as to identify new projects to help the war effort. It could provide financial support through the Joint Committee. Geoffrey Blackman, from Imperial College, helped set up the BWC and served as its secretary, keeping it running.
The BWC ran several large projects and many smaller ones, including studies on grass mixtures for airfields, using certain plants for camouflage, and comparing seaweed for agar. It also explored a variety of other questions, some of which were tied to wartime needs.
In 1944, after the Allied invasion of northern France, the BWC turned its attention to practical post‑war concerns. It prioritized controlling outbreaks of rats and blowflies that could arise from buried or damaged food stores, preventing dry rot in timber, mosquitoes in deep shelters, and protecting clothes and blankets from moths.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:58 (CET).