Hurst had hoped to read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, but became ill at a critical time, possibly with tuberculosis, and this prevented him attending,[1] although he recovered and led an active life thereafter.
He wrote an early paper proposing that new species evolved from hybridisation, based on his orchid knowledge, in 1898,[2] almost two decades before similar theories were published by Johannes Paulus Lotsy.
In his 1932 book on The Mechanism of Creative Evolution[5] Hurst adopted the chromosome theory of inheritance whole-heartedly referring copiously to Thomas Hunt Morgan's Drosophila work, and he was also clearly a staunch Darwinist.
Here is Hurst's concept of species in Creative Evolution (1932), p. 66-7: Such views were typical of the stance in evolutionary biology, adopted later by and today mainly credited to Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr, and dubbed "The Modern Synthesis" by Julian Huxley in 1942.
Hurst was much younger than Bateson, but had a fiery passion for genetics, great skill in debate, and an approachableness lacking in some of his older peers which meant he was well respected within the scientific and lay community.