Life and work

The son of a wealthy leather merchant, Sladen was born near Halifax

Halifax, West Yorkshire

Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 on 30 June 1849. He was educated at Hipperholme Grammar School

Hipperholme Grammar School

Hipperholme Grammar School is an independent grammar school in Hipperholme , West Yorkshire, England. It educates pupils between the ages of 11 and 18....

 and Marlborough College

Marlborough College

Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...

, but received no university training. As a young man he indulged his hobby of natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

, but soon become fascinated with echinoderms. In 1876 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London

Linnean Society of London

The Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...

, and the following year became a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London

Zoological Society of London

The Zoological Society of London is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats...

. 1877 also saw the publication of his first paper, in which he split the sea-lily genus Poteriocrinus into four; in his lifetime, Sladen would gain a reputation as a "splitter"

Lumpers and splitters

Lumping and splitting refers to a well-known problem in any discipline which has to place individual examples into rigorously defined categories. The lumper/splitter problem occurs when there is the need to create classifications and assign examples to them, for example schools of literature,...

 because of his proclivity for declaring specimens to belong to new genera or species. Late that year he began a long and fruitful collaboration with Duncan

Duncan

Duncan, originally a Scottish name, may also refer to:- Fiction :* King Duncan, a character in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth* Duncan , a locomotive character in The Railway Series children's books by the Rev. W...

; which would see the publication of some 15 co-authored papers, many on fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s, over the course of twelve years.

From December 1878, Sladen spent three month at Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

British Association for the Advancement of Science

frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...

. His work there, on echinoderm pedicellariae, established his reputation as a leading authority on echinoderms, and in 1881 he was invited to organise and write up an account of the starfishes collected during the Challenger expedition

Challenger expedition

The Challenger expedition of 1872–76 was a scientific exercise that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the mother vessel, HMS Challenger....

. This would take him a decade to complete, and comprise nearly 1000 pages and 118 plates.

By 1890, Sladen married Constance Anderson. By that time he was on the Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Zoological Secretary of the Linnean Society of London, and also active in the Zoological Society of London and the Geological Society of London

Geological Society of London

The Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth"...

. He therefore relocated to London, at least temporarily. Unfortunately much of Sladen's later life was interrupted by poor health. In 1895 he was elected Vice-President of the Linnean Society, but only a few months later he gave up both this and his secretarial position because of health problems. He completed only two more papers before retiring in 1898 to an Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

 estate inherited on the death of his uncle. He died there two years later, on 11 June 1900.

Following his death, Sladen's wife helped preserve her husband's memory by donating his large collection of echinoderms to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Royal Albert Memorial Museum on Queen Street, Exeter, Devon, England is the largest museum in the city.-History:Initially proposed by Sir Stafford Northcote as a practical memorial to Prince Albert, an appeal fund was launched in 1861 and the first phases of the building were completed by 1868...

 in Exeter, and endowing the Percy Sladen Memorial Trust

Percy Sladen Memorial Trust

The Percy Sladen Memorial Trust is a trust fund administered by the Linnean Society of London for the support of scientific research. It was endowed by the wife of marine biologist Percy Sladen in his memory....

, to be administered by the Linnean Society to support scientific research.