Cresswell Shearer, FRS (24 May 1874 – 6 February 1941), was a British zoologist and Cambridge lecturer in Experimental Embryology, where he motivated his students to develop a keen interest in hands-on research, inviting them to practical marine research experience at Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom during the summer months. It is also where he and Dorothy Jordan Lloyd worked as early pioneers on how to rear parthenogenetic sea-urchin larvae through metamorphosis. He also conducted research there with Harold Munro Fox and Walter de Morgan on the genetics of sea urchin hybrids. During World War I (1914-1918) Cresswell returned to medicine working at Davenport Military Hospital in Plymouth. Due to an outbreak of cerebrospinal fever amongst the troops, he improved cultivation methods to study meningococcus, a bacterium involved in some forms of meningitis and cerebrospinal infection. He pursued life long interests in both photography and Italian architecture, publishing The Renaissance of Architecture in Southern Italy in 1935. Cresswell's architectural photographs contribute to the Courtauld's Conway Library archive, which are currently being digitised as part of the Courtauld Connects project. Education Initially taking courses in Zoology and Biology at Johns Hopkins University, Cresswell returned to Quebec to graduate with a medical degree from McGill University in 1901. Academic career Shearer's career as a zoologist began in the biological laboratory at McGill the same year he graduated, in close association with Ernest MacBride. Between 1903-1909 he developed his interest in experimental embryology at Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn. He settled in Cambridge, lecturing in Experimental Embryology between 1910-1914. At the outbreak of World War 1 Cresswell was already in Plymouth so returned to medicine to help troops at Davenport military hospital. It was here he discoverered importance of nasal secretion and vitamin supply to improve cultivation of meningococcus samples. On his return to Cambridge at the end of the war, he transferred from the Zoology to the Department of Anatomy where embryology was a relatively new subject to lecture in. After his retirement from this post in 1937, he returned to the Zoology Department to conduct further research. Awards Elected to the Harding Lectureship in 1912 (for the development of new aspects of biological science) Elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1916 Family Cresswell Shearer met his wife while working as a medic during World War 1 in Plymouth and had 2 sons. Actress Norma Shearer