Walter Heape FRS (29 April 1855 in Brompton, London – 10 September 1929 in Tunbridge Wells) was a British zoologist and embryologist, famous for the first successful mammalian embryo transfer.
[1][2][3] Until the age of seventeen, Walter Heape, born to a wealthy family, was taught by a private tutor and then was a student for one year at Owens College.
Heape left Plymouth in March 1888 and then visited Egypt, Ceylon, India, Burma, and the Straits Settlements before returning to England in 1889.
He was awarded a Royal Society Grant-in-Aid and a Balfour Studentship and in December 1889, left for India to collect early embryos from common langurs and rhesus monkeys.
After only four months in India, Heape, suffering from illness, returned to England, having failed to collect any early embryos but being successful in preserving many female genital tract specimens of the primates.
Heape's contribution to 'applied' science included the rekindling of interest in artificial insemination (1897a, 1898) and the laying of a scientific foundation to the animal breeding industry with emphasis on its economic importance (1899, 1906).