Robert Jameson - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Professor Robert Jameson, FRS FRSE (1774–1854) was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

naturalist

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...

and mineralogist.

As Regius Professor

Regius Professor

Regius Professorships are "royal" professorships at the ancient universities of the United Kingdom and Ireland - namely Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dublin. Each of the chairs was created by a monarch, and each appointment, save those at Dublin, is approved by the...

at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

for fifty years, Jameson is notable for his advanced scholarship in natural history

Natural history

, his superb museum collection, and for his tuition of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

. Jameson was not at his best in the lecture theatre however, and, for the first half of his career, he grappled with his predecessor John Walker

John Walker

-Politicians:* John Walker , U.S. Senator, public official, and soldier* John Walker , State Treasurer of Missouri...

's perverse "Neptunian" geological theories. Darwin attended Robert Jameson's natural history course at the University of Edinburgh in his teenage years, learning about stratigraphic geology and assisting with the collections of the Museum of Edinburgh University, then one of the largest in Europe. At Jameson's Wernerian Natural History Association, the young Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

saw John James Audubon

John James Audubon

John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...

give a demonstration of his method of using wires to prop up birds to draw or paint them in natural positions. Robert Jameson was the great-uncle of Sir Leander Starr Jameson

Leander Starr Jameson

Sir Leander Starr Jameson, 1st Baronet, KCMG, CB, , also known as "Doctor Jim", "The Doctor" or "Lanner", was a British colonial statesman who was best known for his involvement in the Jameson Raid....

, Bt, KCMG, CB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

, British colonial official and inspiration for the Jameson Raid
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid was a botched raid on Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic carried out by a British colonial statesman Leander Starr Jameson and his Rhodesian and Bechuanaland policemen over the New Year weekend of 1895–96...

.

Early life

Jameson was born in Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

on 11 July 1774, the son of Thomas Jameson (c.1750-1802), a soap manufacturer, and Catherine Paton (1750–94). His early education was spent at Leith Grammar School, after which he became the apprentice of the Leith surgeon John Cheyne (father of John Cheyne), with the aim of going to sea. He also attended classes at the Edinburgh University (1792-3), studying medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, and natural history

Natural history

.

By 1793, influenced by the Regius Professor of Natural History, John Walker

John Walker (naturalist)

John Walker was a Scottish minister and natural historian. He was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1779 to 1803....

(1731–1803), Jameson abandoned medicine and the idea of being a ship's surgeon, and focused instead on science, particularly geology and mineralogy. It is worth noting that Walker was a presbyterian Minister who had actually combined the Regius Professorship with a period of service as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

The Moderator of the General Assembly of Church of Scotland is a Minister, Elder or Deacon of the Church of Scotland chosen to "moderate" the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is held for a week in Edinburgh every May....

in 1790.

In 1793, Jameson was given the responsibility of looking after the University's Natural History Collection. During this time his geological field-work frequently took him to the Isle of Arran

Isle of Arran

Arran or the Isle of Arran is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, and with an area of is the seventh largest Scottish island. It is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire and the 2001 census had a resident population of 5,058...

, the Hebrides

Hebrides

The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...

, Orkney, the Shetland Islands

Shetland Islands

Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...

and the Irish mainland. In 1800, he spent a year at the mining academy in Freiberg, Saxony

Freiberg, Saxony

Freiberg is a city in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, administrative center of the Mittelsachsen district.-History:The city was founded in 1186, and has been a center of the mining industry in the Ore Mountains for centuries...

, where he studied under the noted geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner

Abraham Gottlob Werner

Abraham Gottlob Werner , was a German geologist who set out an early theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and coined the word Neptunism...

(1749 or 1750–1817).

As an undergraduate, Jameson had several noteworthy classmates at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

including Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

, Joseph Black

Joseph Black

Joseph Black FRSE FRCPE FPSG was a Scottish physician and chemist, known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide. He was professor of Medicine at University of Glasgow . James Watt, who was appointed as philosophical instrument maker at the same university...

, and Thomas Dick

Thomas Dick

Reverend Thomas Dick , was a Scottish church minister, science teacher and writer, known for his works on astronomy and practical philosophy, combining science and Christianity, and defusing the tension between the two.-Early life:Thomas was brought up in the strict tenets of the presbyterian...

Regius Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh

In 1804, Jameson succeeded Dr Walker as the third Regius Professor

Regius Professor

of Natural History at Edinburgh University, a post which he held for fifty years. During this period he became the first eminent exponent in Britain of the Wernerian geological system, or Neptunism

Neptunism

Neptunism is a discredited and obsolete scientific theory of geology proposed by Abraham Gottlob Werner in the late 18th century that proposed rocks formed from the crystallisation of minerals in the early Earth's oceans....

, and the acknowledged leader of the Scottish Wernerians, founding and presiding over the Wernerian Natural History Society

Wernerian Natural History Society

The Wernerian Natural History Society , commonly abbreviated as the Wernerian Society, was a learned society interested in the broad field of natural history, and saw papers presented on various topics such as mineralogy, plants, insects, and scholarly expeditions...

http://www.scholarly-societies.org/history/1808wnhs.html in 1808 until around 1850, when his health began to decline, together with the fortunes of the Society. Jameson's support for Neptunism, a theory that argued that all rocks had been deposited from a primaeval ocean, initially pitted him against James Hutton

James Hutton

James Hutton was a Scottish physician, geologist, naturalist, chemical manufacturer and experimental agriculturalist. He is considered the father of modern geology...

(1726–1797), a fellow Scot and eminent geologist also based in Edinburgh (but not in the university), who argued for uniformitarianism

Uniformitarianism (science)

In the philosophy of naturalism, the uniformitarianism assumption is that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the...

, a theory that saw the features of the Earth's crust being caused by natural processes over geologic time. Later in life, Jameson renounced Neptunism when he found it untenable and converted to the views of his opponent, Hutton.

As a teacher, Jameson had a mixed reputation for imparting enthusiasm to his students; Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

, who gave serious attention to Natural History, described Jameson's lecturing style as a "blizzard of facts" and Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

apparently found the lectures boring, saying that they determined him "never to attend to the study of geology" . The detailed syllabus of Jameson's lectures, as drawn up by him in 1826, shows the range of his teaching. The course in zoology began with a consideration of the natural history of human beings, and concluded with lectures on the philosophy of zoology, in which the first subject was Origin of the Species of Animals. (The Scotsman, 29th Oct., 1935: p. 8). Modern scholarship also suggests that, by 1826, Jameson was convinced of Lamarckian concepts of evolution, and that he could express this conviction only in anonymous terms.

Over Jameson's fifty year tenure, he built up a huge collection of mineralogical and geological specimens for the Museum of Edinburgh University, including fossils, birds and insects. By 1852 there were over 74,000 zoological and geological specimens at the museum, and in Britain the natural history collection was second only to that of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. Shortly after his death, the University Museum was transferred to the British Crown and became part of the Royal Scottish Museum, now the Royal Museum, in Edinburgh's Chambers Street.
He was also a prolific author of scientific papers and books, including the Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles (1800), his System of Mineralogy (1808), which ran to three editions, and Manual of Mineralogy (1821). In 1819, with Sir David Brewster

David Brewster

Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA FSSA MICE was a Scottish physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, writer and university principal.-Early life:...

(1781–1868), Jameson started the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal http://www.thoemmes.com/reference/edin_phil.htm#pub and became its sole editor in 1824.

He died at 21 Royal Circus in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

on 19 April 1854, and was interred at Warriston Cemetery

Warriston Cemetery

Warriston Cemetery lies in Warriston, one of the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was built by the then newly formed Edinburgh Cemetery Company, and occupies around of land on a slightly sloping site...

.

A portrait of Robert Jameson is housed by the National Portrait Gallery

National Portrait Gallery (England)

The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in London, England, housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was the first portrait gallery in the world when it opened in 1856. The gallery moved in 1896 to its current site at St Martin's Place, off...

in London, and a bust of him is in the Old College of the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

. Robert Jameson was the uncle of Robert William Jameson

Robert William Jameson

Robert William Jameson, WS : A Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, Town Councillor, newspaper editor, poet and playwright, Robert William Jameson was the father of Sir Leander Starr Jameson, South African statesman and prime minister, and the nephew of Professor Robert Jameson of the University of...

, Writer to the Signet and playwright of Edinburgh

Edinburgh

, and therefore also the great-uncle of Sir Leander Starr Jameson

Leander Starr Jameson

, Bt, KCMG, British colonial statesman.

Publications

JAMESON, Professor Robert, James Wilson, and Hugh Murray, (1830) 'Narrative of Discovery and Adventure in Africa, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time: with illustrations of the geology, mineralogy, and zoology'. With a map; plans of the routes of Park, and of Denham and Clapperton; several engravings. First published in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, 1830.

JAMESON, Robert, (1798) The Mineralogy of the Shetland Islands and of Arran.

JAMESON, Robert, (1800) Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles.

JAMESON, Professor Robert, (1804) System of Mineralogy.

JAMESON, Professor Robert, (1805) Mineralogical Description of Scotland, vol. i, part I.

JAMESON, Professor Robert, (1809) Elements of Geognosy.

JAMESON, Professor Robert, (1813) Mineralogical Travels through the Hebrides, Orkeny and Shetland Islands.

JAMESON, Professor Robert, (1821) Manual of Mineralogy.

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