Archibald Geikie taught him geology during his time at the
University of Edinburgh. Herdman graduated BSc in 1879 and became the assistant of Sir
Charles Wyville Thomson. In this capacity he was placed as Secretary to the
Challenger Expedition Commission: overseeing the deciphering of the huge catalogue of information found during this important exploration. In 1880, he became Demonstrator of Zoology at the
University of Edinburgh and then, in 1881, the first holder of the Derby Chair of
Natural History at Liverpool University College (later to become the
University of Liverpool). In 1881 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir
Charles Wyville Thomson,
Sir William Turner, Sir
Archibald Geikie and
Sir John Murray. He won the Society's
Neill Prize for the period 1880–1883. He devoted himself from 1891 to the organization of a laboratory for study of the sea. He endowed the Herdman chair of geology in 1916 and then a chair of Oceanography in 1919. He was the author of
Founders of Oceanography and Their Work: An Introduction to the Science of the Sea (1923) and made many contributions to the scientific study of the fauna of the Irish Sea. He was also interested in fisheries and in 1901-1902, he studied the harvesting of pearls in
Ceylon, during which time he discovered the
harpacticoid copepod Syngastes twynami. He was a specialist in
tunicates. Herdman was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1892. He served as president of the
Linnean Society from 1904 to 1908. He was the president of the
British Association for 1919–1920. He was
knighted in 1922. ==Death==