Goodall, Jane (1934–)

Jane Goodall is a world-renowned primatologist who was born in London on April 3, 1934 to Mortimer and Vanne Goodall. Her family decided to move to England when Hitler began invading areas of Europe. She spent most of her childhood on the south coast of England in Bournemouth. She lived with her mother, her maternal grandmother, and sister Judy at the Birches. After high school, at age 19, she attended a secretary training school in London.

In 1956, a schoolmate invited Goodall to visit in Kenya. Goodall had dreamed of Africa since early childhood, possibly as early as 1 year old, when her father gave her “Jubilee,” a stuffed chimpanzee. After a few weeks, Goodall went to Nairobi to work as a secretary and arranged to meet Louis Leakey, who hired her as his personal secretary. Leakey soon invited Goodall to join him and his family for archaeological research at Olduvai Gorge. Leakey then gave her the opportunity to study the chimpanzees of Gombe, despite her lack of university education. He recognized Goodall's potential, and it was her scientific naïveté that Leakey believed would give her an observational advantage leading to wonderful new discoveries.

Research with the Gombe chimpanzees began in July of 1960 with funding from Leighton Wilke of Illinois and later by the National Geographic Society and others. Goodall arrived in Gombe with her mother, [Page 1099]Vanne, two scouts, and their cook, Dominic. She had enlisted her mother's companionship because the British government did not like the idea of a young English woman alone in the jungles of Africa. During the beginning hardships of setting up the camp and working on getting the chimpanzees to accept her presence, Vanne was a comforting source of support for Jane. She stayed at Gombe with Jane for the first 5 months.

Leakey also did not like Goodall being alone at Gombe. He sent Hugo van Lawick, a filmmaker and photographer for National Geographic, to work with Goodall. They got along well and married in 1964. Goodall and van Lawick also had a child in 1967, Hugo Eric Louis. He is better known as “Grub.” Grub stayed in Gombe with Jane when the couple divorced in 1974.

Source: Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Goodall received her PhD from Cambridge University in Ethology, in 1965. She is one of only eight people to have earned this degree without first earning a bachelor's degree. Her thesis advisor thought her research was unprofessional, especially because she named her subjects. Goodall believed it was important to see the chimpanzees in an anthropomorphic light if she was to study their emotional lives.

In 1975, Goodall and the Gombe camp endured one of the most terrible hardships possible when four students working at Gombe were kidnapped. A ransom was eventually paid for their safe return. However, scandal and rumors regarding the situation followed Goodall for many years. For her own safety, it was 2 years before she was able to return to Gombe.

Also in 1975, Goodall remarried to Derek Bryceson, a politician, the only voluntarily elected White official at the time and former head of the national parks in Tanzania. Sadly, Bryceson died of cancer in 1980,after only 5 years of marriage.

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