George O. Mackie

October 20, 1929 - August 25, 2023

It is with great sadness that we announce the peaceful death of our father, George Owen Mackie in Victoria. George was born in Lincolnshire, England, on October 20, 1929, the son of Mary Owen and Percival Mackie, a doctor in the Indian Medical Service and a specialist in tropical diseases. George and his brother lived in India and England as children and with the outset of war in 1940 they were sent to live with relatives in Vernon. Their uncle Augustine was headmaster of a school near Vernon, and famous locally as a rattlesnake hunter. The boys went snake hunting with their uncle and roamed Coldstream Ranch and the Monashee lakes and mountains. George went back to England in 1944, when he could return safely. He went to Blundell's School in Devon and did two years of national service with an anti-aircraft regiment in Gibraltar. After gaining a B.A. from the University of Oxford in 1953, he obtained an M.A. and D. Phil (1957) on Portuguese Man of War behaviour, based on his research in the Straits of Messina. George returned to Canada with our mother Gillian (1931-2021) in 1956 with their oldest two children. Until 1968 they lived in Edmonton, where George worked at the University of Alberta, and then they moved to Victoria, where George taught in the Biology Department at the University of Victoria. He did most of his research at the University of Washington labs on San Juan Island. Much of his research focused on invertebrate behavioural physiology. George explored how nerves, muscles, and excitable epithelia interact to produce behaviour. He and Robert Meech discovered axons in a jellyfish that conduct two sorts of action potential: sodium-based in fast swimming, calcium-based in slow. With Sally Leys he found that hexactinellid sponges conduct electrical impulses through the body, triggering arrests of the feeding currents. Sponges have no nervous systems, so this work was significant. In 1982, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1991, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of London. George published 157 original research papers between 1956 and 2022, served on many editorial boards, and was Editor of the Canadian Journal of Zoology from 1981 to 1989. George loved music and played the cello in chamber music ensembles. He made earthenware pottery in the English slipware tradition and developed his own glazes. He was potting, preparing music, corresponding with family, and doing his own house maintenance until three days before his death. He kept in touch with a wide network of friends and colleagues around the world. Two of his children (Alexander and Quentin) became archaeologists, Christina an artist, Richard a historian and editor, and Rachel teaches at the Universit� Aix-Marseille. George has ten grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. A memorial service for family and friends will take place on September 15th at St. Stephen's. - The Mackie children