Bidder family

George Parker Bidder (1863-1953), marine biologist, attended Trinity College, Cambridge, 1882-1884. He settled in the city in 1902, and lectured on sponges in the university during the 1920s. He gave financial support to marine biological research, and was President of the Marine Biological Association in 1939. On the death of his father, George Parker Bidder (1836-1896), a writer on cryptography, he inherited managerial responsibilities in Cannock Chase Colliery and the Danish Gas Company. Bidder was a member of the provisional committee, and also the later committee, of the British Association, which organised a scientific expedition to examine a sector of the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns, Queensland. He was married to the botanist and physiologist Marion Greenwood (1862-1932).