Emanuel Mendes da Costa

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Emanuel Mendes da Costa , also Mendez da Costa , (born June 5, 1717 , † May 31, 1791 ) was a British zoologist ( malacologist ) and paleontologist , botanist and antiquarian.

Life

Da Costa was a Sephardic Jew. His father came to England via Normandy in 1696. Da Costa was a Fellow of the Royal Society from 1747 and from 1763 until his dismissal in 1767 (for misappropriating a sum of around 1500 pounds) its employee (including librarian, museum custodian and caretaker of their premises at Crane Court). New members could pay the £ 25 enrollment fee all at once or in installments, and Da Costa, who took the funds, obtained interest-free credit by registering members who paid in full as installment payers. Da Costa had to go to prison for five years (until 1772) and paid off the debt.

He was considered an expert on fossils and came through them to malacology, the study of the shells of recent mussels and snails, about which he wrote two books. His Elements of Conchology were illustrated by the British draftsman and naturalist Peter Brown , who worked from 1758 until his death in 1799.

He was also a document collector and a Fellow of the Antiquarian Society of London . He also had a list of the first known Jewish immigrants in Great Britain. In 1739 he became a fellow of the Aurelian Society and in 1746 of the Gentleman´s Society of Spalding and a member of the Botanical Society of Florence. In 1753 he became a member of the Leopoldina .

Fonts

  • A Natural History of Fossils, London 1757, Volume 1, Part 1, Archives
  • Elements of Conchology, or An Introduction to the Knowledge of Shells, 1776
  • British Conchology, 1778

He also published articles in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions.

literature

  • PJP Whitehead: Emanuel Mendez da Costa and the conchology, or Natural History of Shells, "Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History (Historical Series), 6, 1977, pp. 1-24
  • GS Rousseau, David Hancock: The Jew of Crane Court: Emanuel Mendes Da Costa (1717-91), Natural History and Natural Excess, Journal of the History of Science 38, 2000, pp. 127-170.
  • Geoffrey Cantor: The rise and fall of Emanuel Mendes da Costa. A severe case of philosophical dropsy?, The English Historical Review, Volume 116, 2001, pp. 584-603

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry by Emanuel Mendez da Costa at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 19, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Mendes da Costa, Emanuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mendez da Costa, Emanuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British zoologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1717
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1791