William Ringrose Gelston Atkins was appointed Head of the Department of General Physiology at the Plymouth Laboratory in February 1921 at the age of 36 having already at Trinity College, Dublin, applied widely the methods of physics and chemistry to the problems of biology, particularly botany. He was very well equipped to study the physics and chemistry of sea water as an environment for marine life. He served with great distinction at Plymouth, apart from the years of the Second World War, until he retired from the staff in March 1955 and enjoyed only four years of leisure before his death on 4 April 1959.