John Whitaker Hulke FRCS FRS FGS (6 November 1830 – 19 February 1895) was a British surgeon, geologist and fossil collector. He was the son of a physician in Deal, who became a Huxleyite despite being deeply religious. Hulke became Huxley's colleague at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a long-time collector from the Wealden cliffs of the Isle of Wight, and his work on vertebrate palaeontology included studies of Iguanodon and Hypsilophodon from the Wealden (Lower Cretaceous). He became president of the Geological Society (1882–84); and was awarded Wollaston Medal in 1888. He was president of the Pathological Society of London in 1883, and president of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1893 until his death. Life Hulke was born in Deal, Kent, the son of a general practitioner. He was educated partly at a boarding-school in England, partly at the Moravian College at Neuwied (1843–1845), where he gained an intimate knowledge of German and an interest in geology through visits to the Eifel district. Of Dutch Reformed descent, and Calvinist leanings, he held strict views: "his Protestantism was of the intolerant kind". He got on well with Huxley, whose agnosticism was also rather strait-laced. After returning from Germany he entered King's College School, and three years later commenced work at the hospital. He qualified MRCS in 1852. Career In the Crimean War he volunteered, and was appointed (1855) assistant-surgeon at Smyrna and subsequently during the Siege of Sevastopol. On returning home he became medical tutor at his old hospital, was elected FRCS in 1857, and afterwards assistant-surgeon to the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields (1857), and surgeon (1868–1890). In 1861, Hulke first described oculodermal melanosis (Nevus of Ota). In 1870 he became surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital, and here much of his more important surgical work was accomplished. His skill as an operator was widely known: he was an excellent general surgeon, but made his special mark as an ophthalmologist. As a geologist he attained a European reputation: he was elected FRS in 1867 for his researches on the anatomy and physiology of the retina in man and the lower animals, particularly the reptiles. He subsequently devoted all his spare time to geology and especially to the fossil reptilia, describing many remains of dinosaurs from the Isle of Wight. He had access to one of the best private collections of the day: that of Rev. W. Fox on