Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was a botanist, an Austrian monk of the Augustinian order who first formulated the laws of heredity, now called the Mendelian Laws. Experimenting with garden peas in his small monastery garden, he worked out certain laws which laid the foundation for the study of heredity. However, Mendel's importance was not realized until 1900.
Born in Heinzendorf, Austria, Mendel developed an early interest in science. After having studied for two years at the Philosophical Institute at Olmutz, he entered an Augustinian monastery at Brunn. During his training to become a monk, he taught himself science. Then after having taught Greek and mathematics for a short time, he was sent by his abbot to the University of Vienna where he studied physics, chemistry, mathematics, zoology, and botany. Returning to Brunn, he taught natural science in the technical high school until he was elected abbot of his monastery by his fellow monks. It was during this period that he carried on his experimentation with garden peas.
After Mendel became an abbot, his experimental research almost stopped because of his pressing administrative duties. However, he had already written his paper discussing the ideas of unit-characteristics, and dominant versus recessive action of inherited traits. It had been published two years earlier by the local Society of Natural Science. Yet fame did not come to Gregor Mendel until 1900, sixteen years after his death, when three other European botanists independently obtained results similar to Mendel's. It was while searching through experimental data previously published that they found Mendel's paper, and for the first time the world realized the importance of this obscure abbot. Revered and loved by his fellow monks and the townsfolk, Mendel was a scientist whose greatness no one had ever suspected.
