Ralph Ison, who has died aged 83, was an outstanding teacher of life sciences in colleges of further education. I met him in the 1960s as a colleague at Isleworth Polytechnic (now West Thames College, Middlesex), where his enthusiasm and love of learning and teaching made a great impression on students and lecturers.
Ralph was born in Slough, educated at the local primary school and won a scholarship to Slough grammar school. His father was an engineer and his mother was a famously energetic businesswoman who ran a restaurant, among other activities.
During the second world war, Ralph stayed in Slough, once witnessing a German plane shooting up the street in broad daylight. In 1947 he started his national service in the Royal Navy, serving as a coder on the destroyer HMS Creole.
He studied physics, chemistry, zoology and botany at Acton Technical College, which developed into Brunel University, and became assistant teacher of chemistry and food technology and a member of the Institute of Biology, a professional body that has since merged into the Society of Biology, before he was 30. His very happy marriage to Jean Denyer, a Slough resident and family friend, began in 1956.
In the 1960s, Ralph worked as a lecturer in biology at Isleworth Polytechnic, completing at the same time his MSc on the structure of the frog's heart. By the mid-1960s he was appointed head of department at Dacorum College of Further Education (now West Herts College), Hemel Hempstead, and in 1974 he became vice-principal of Langley College in Slough. This was a new college and a challenging project. While there, he helped to set up and became president of the Vice-Principals' Association of Great Britain.
After Ralph retired in 1988, he enjoyed gardening, birdwatching, botany, the Stoke Poges Choral Society, the Chiltern Humanists group and lecturing on Darwin, evolution and humanism to schools and colleges. He wrote and published two books: a history of the Leopold Institute in Slough and a remarkable biography of John Howard, the prison reformer.
Ralph died after a long illness, which he approached in characteristic style, delighting in discussing biology with hospital staff – an enthusiast to the end.
Jean died in 2011. Ralph is survived by a brother, Roy; twin sons, Christopher and Timothy; his daughter, Deborah; and granddaughters, Jenn, Hattie and Elsie.