The sub-department, established in 1960, developed from the Ornithological Field Station built on four and a half acres of field and woodland on the Madingley Estate in 1950. Originally funded by the University, Nuffield and Rockefeller Foundations to study bird behaviour, particularly the relative influence of heredity and environment, in 1958 the MRC and Mental Health Research Fund provided grants to widen research to include monkey behaviour. The MRC Unit for the Development and Integration of Behaviour was formally set up in 1970 focusing on social development in children and non-human primates, birds and small mammals. The first director was W.H. Thorpe (1902-86). He was succeeded by R.A. Hinde (1923-2016) in 1970 and P.P.G. Bateson (1938-2017) in 1976.