G.P. Bidder was educated at Harrow School (1876-81), University College London (1881-82) and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences (BA 1886, MA 1895). After graduating he carried out research on the biology of sponges, and became a leading figure in the world of marine biology. Inherited wealth enabled him to live the life of a gentleman scholar (in addition to his scientific studies he was a mathematician and a classicist), and to make very generous gestures in support of the biological sciences (including the purchase of two journals that were in danger of closure, and of a steam trawler which he converted into a research vessel [1]). He married in 1899, and settled in Cambridge in 1902. He died there on 31 December 1953, aged 90.