Spencer Fullerton Baird

Spencer Fullerton Baird, a naturalist, built the Smithsonian Institution's collections into a national museum from 1850 by organising a network of collectors on railway and military surveys. As the first head of the US Fish Commission from 1871 he set up a seasonal marine laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, which drew other research bodies there, including the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1888. Woods Hole is still one of the world's main centres of ocean science.