Charles Wesley Hargitt (1852-1927): American educator and cnidarian biologist

Charles Wesley Hargitt was born near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, USA, and died at Syracuse, New York. After a brief career as a Methodist Episcopal Minister, he carried out graduate studies in biology at Illinois Wesleyan University and Ohio University. He served briefly on the faculty at Moores Hill College and later at Miami University of Ohio before receiving an appointment at Syracuse University. Hargitt spent 36 years at Syracuse, and for 21 years was a trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His research encompassed animal behaviour, cell biology, development, ecology, natural history, and taxonomy, as well as education, eugenics, and theology, and he wrote or contributed to more than 100 publications in science. Approximately half of these were on Cnidaria, with 41 of them on Hydrozoa. His most important works in hydrozoan taxonomy were on species of the Woods Hole region, the Philippines, and south China. Hargitt was author of three genera and 48 species and subspecies ascribed to Hydrozoa, seven species of Anthozoa, and one species of Cubozoa. Four species of hydroids are named in his honour.