Professor Ivan Goodbody - Priceless adopted son of Jamaica

 Louis Marriott,  Contributor

WHEN THE Irish-born, Scottish-educated Professor Emeritus Ivan Goodbody died in Aberdeen, Scotland, on April 16, he had spent half of his life in Jamaica and 44 of his 50 years of work rendering totally dedicated service to his adopted homeland.

Ivan Miles Goodbody was born in Dublin, Ireland, on September 21, 1926. He received his tertiary education at St Columbia's College, Dublin, and Trinity College, University of Dublin, before earning his doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree in ornithology at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland.

Goodbody was assistant lecturer in zoology at Aberdeen from 1950 to 1955, married Charlotte Fraser of Aberdeen in September 1953, then in 1955, accepted the position of lecturer in zoology at the Mona campus of the then University College of the West Indies (UCWI), which offered programmes and conferred qualifications of the University of London.

He remained in the post of lecturer when the UCWI got its charter as the University of the West Indies (UWI) in 1962 and served in it until later that year when he was promoted to senior lecturer in zoology.

In 1964, he was appointed professor of zoology and head of the UWI's Zoology Department, in which post he remained for 22 years until he was transferred to the new Marine Science Unit as director in 1986. Notwith-standing his expertise in the science of birdlife, as evidenced by his PhD in ornithology, his membership of such bodies as the American Ornithologists' Union and the British Ornithologists' Union, as well as the lure of the fascinatingly varied Jamaican bird population, with his appointment as director of the Marine Science Unit, he dutifully shelved his interest in the open sky to take command of his new underwater domain.

There, as director of the Port Royal Marine Laboratory - and later also as chairman of the Management Committee of the Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory, while continuing his career as Jamaica's principal educator of generations of students of zoology, he was primarily engaged in such studies as fish stock, marine ecology and protection and wholesomeness of the marine environment. His watchdog role as a marine environmentalist was recognised in the use of his name to mark a boat channel through mangroves into Kingston Harbour.

Goodbody's most significant contribution to marine zoology, however, was his harvesting of sea squirts - small animals that attach themselves, individually or in clusters to rocks in the sea and squirt water with a great force that is disproportionate to their size.

Goodbody reaped harvests of sea squirts from colonies on the harbour side of Port Royal and exported them to European scientists who used them in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals for chemotherapy, notably as treatment for breast cancer.

widely published

The professor was widely published, was a member of many academic and professional bodies, and was the recipient of several honours and awards. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; scientific fellow of the Zoological Society of London; fellow of the Caribbean Academy of Sciences; member of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, the American Ecological Society and the Editorial Boards of the Bulletin of Marine Science and Caribbean Marine Studies. At the national level, he was a council member and deputy chairman of the Institute of Jamaica, which awarded him a Musgrave silver medal; and a member of the Beach Control Authority and the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA).

At a 1995 NRCA luncheon in tribute to him, after several eminent speakers had spoken glowingly of Professor Goodbody's great contribution over the years, his response was that he was "very grateful for the opportunity to serve Jamaica and the NRCA". He was the recipient of the national honour of the Order of Distinction, Commander class.

He managed to eke out time for religious observation as a Quaker and to indulge his hobby of gardening. His wife Charlotte was massively supportive of his service to Jamaica and was the Goodbody family's principal channel of social contact with those outside the family. The couple had three daughters - Anne, Caroline and Susan - all past students of St Andrew High School for Girls who were considered by their peers as typically Jamaican.

After the professor retired and returned to Aberdeen with his family towards the end of the second millennium, tragedy struck. Goodbody's plan to write his magnum opus, largely featuring his work in Jamaica, was frustrated by a fire that destroyed all his papers. Perhaps the UWI and the numerous worthies who worked with Goodbody, many at first as students and later as colleagues, can fill the breach. It is certainly a history that is worth recording.