William Jardine (naturalist)
Encyclopedia
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...
to 21 November 1874, Sandown
Sandown
Sandown is a seaside resort town and civil parish on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England, neighbouring the town of Shanklin to the south. Sandown Bay is the name of the bay off the English Channel which both towns share, and it is notable for its long stretch of easily accessible...
, Isle of Wight) 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...
.
Work
Jardine made natural historyNatural 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...
available to all levels of Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
society by editing and issuing the hugely popular forty volumes of The Naturalist's Library (1833-1843). The 40 volumes is divided into four main sections: Ornithology
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
(14 volumes), Mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
ia (13 volumes), Entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
(7 volumes), and Ichthyology
Ichthyology
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
(6 volumes); each prepared by a leading naturalist. James Duncan
James Duncan (zoologist)
James Duncan was a Scottish naturalist.He wrote* with James Wilson Entomologia Edinensis: Or A Description and History of the Insects Found in Ediburgh...
wrote the insect volumes. The artists responsible for the illustrations included Edward Lear
Edward Lear
Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
. The work was published in Edinburgh by W.H Lizars. The frontispiece is a portrait of Latreille
Jardine's other publications included an edition of Gilbert White
Gilbert White
Gilbert White FRS was a pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist.-Life:White was born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He was educated at the Holy Ghost School and by a private tutor in Basingstoke before going to Oriel College, Oxford...
's Natural History of Selborne which re-established White's reputation, Illustrations of Ornithology (1825-43), and an affordable edition of Alexander Wilson
Alexander Wilson
Alexander Wilson was a Scottish-American poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and illustrator.Wilson was born in Paisley, Scotland, the son of an illiterate distiller. In 1779 he was apprenticed as a weaver. His main interest at this time was in writing poetry...
's Birds of America.
Jardine was the author of a number of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
species, alone or in conjunction with his friend Prideaux John Selby
Prideaux John Selby
Prideaux John Selby was an English ornithologist, botanist and artist and landowner.Selby is best known for his Illustrations of British Ornithology , the first set of life-sized illustrations of British birds...
.
Descendants
In 'Who Do You Think You Are?' transmitted by the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
on 18 October 2007, it was discovered that Sir Matthew Pinsent
Matthew Pinsent
Sir Matthew Clive Pinsent CBE is an English rower and broadcaster. During his rowing career, he won 10 world championship gold medals and four consecutive Olympic gold medals, of which three were with Steve Redgrave...
, the multiple gold medal Olympic rower, is a direct descendant of William Jardine.
Selected publications
- The natural history of humming-birds (1833)
- The natural history of fishes of the perch family (1835)
- The natural history of the Nectariniadae, or sun-birds (1843)
- Memoirs of Hugh Edwin Strickland, M.A. (1858)