Hugh Edwin Strickland

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Hugh Edwin Strickland at the age of 26
Hugh Edwin Strickland

Hugh Edwin Strickland (born March 2, 1811 in Reighton , Yorkshire , † September 14, 1853 near Retford , Nottinghamshire ) was an English geologist , ornithologist and systematist.

Live and act

Strickland was born the second son of Henry Eustatius Strickland and Mary, daughter of Edmond Cartwright . He grew up on a somewhat remote state stud and so it is not surprising that as a child he developed a strong interest in natural phenomena; He is also said to have already collected fossils in the area. This initially childlike interest he deepened in his youth by taking numerous trips to Gloucestershire , Lincolnshire and other parts of England. In February 1829 he began studying at Oriel College , Oxford. At Oxford he attended lectures on anatomy, zoology and geology. In May 1831 he obtained a BA, the following year an MA. During the study holidays he made several trips, including a. to the Isle of Wight and Paris (with his father).

From the summer of 1835 he accompanied the English geologist William John Hamilton (1805–1867) on his journey to the eastern Mediterranean and published as a result several reports on the geology of Asia Minor, which were presented at the meetings of the Geological Society of London ; some of these reports had been sent from Athens to London. Together with Hamilton, Strickland visited Greece , Athens , the west coast of Turkey around Smyrna , the Bosporus , Constantinople and Zante ; He went back alone , via Malta , Naples and Brussels . Strickland kept a diary throughout his trip that has not yet been published. After his return, he processed his notes and research in several writings, which, however, were only printed in part or in article form during his lifetime. He also researched the geology of various regions of England.

In 1837, a year after returning from his great journey, he visited Scotland with his father . He returned there in 1840 for a conference and there met not only Sir William Jardine , but above all his daughter Catherine, whom he married five years later (see below).

In 1844, Strickland was one of the founders of the Ray Society , the aim of which was to publish scientific papers on natural history for which no other publisher or financier could be found. Strickland himself brought out on behalf of the Society the comprehensive, four-volume Bibliographia zoologiae et geologiae (London 1848-1854), the revision and addition of a handwritten catalog that was first created by Louis Agassiz . Together with the anatomist Alexander Gordon Melville (1819–1901), Strickland wrote a study on the dodo in 1848 , based on the meager remains of several specimens of the extinct bird that had been kept in England since the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1846, Strickland finally settled in Oxford. There he worked as a reader in geology from 1850 . He later supported Roderick Murchison in his preparatory work on the Stratigraphy of the Silurian .

Strickland tragically died in 1853 when he was taking geological samples along the newly built Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway near Retford in Nottinghamshire : To avoid a freight train that had hit a track, he stepped onto the adjacent track and overlooked one Passenger train coming from the other direction. He was hit by the train and was dead on the spot. The track in question was on a sharp bend, and Strickland didn't see the second train until the last moment; the passenger train is said to have been traveling about 42 km and less than 90 m from Strickland when it first saw it - and too late. Strickland was buried in Deerhurst Church near Tewkesbury .

Dedication names

The following were named after Strickland between 1855 and 1859: the bird Copsychus stricklandii ("White-Crowned Shama") from the flycatcher family , which is only native to Borneo , and Stricklandia , a genus of fossil armpods .

family

Strickland had been married to Catherine Dorcas Maule Jardine, daughter of Sir William Jardine , since 1845 . She was a talented draftsman and illustrator and produced many illustrations for the series Illustrations to Ornithology (1825–1843). She also produced the images of birds and fossils that her husband used in his Oxford lectures.

Memberships

Fonts

  • 1837: "On the geology of the western part of Asia Minor". In: New notes from the field of natural science and medicine (Weimar), No. 17 (March 1837), Col. 257–261
  • 1840: "On the Geology of the Neighborhood of Smyrna ". In: Transactions of the Geological Society of London , Series 2, Volume V, Part 2 (London 1840), pp. 393-402
  • 1845: RI Murchison: Outline of the Geology of the Neighborhood of Cheltenham. A New Edition, Augmented and Revised by James Buckman and HE Strickland . London: John Murray ( Google )
  • 1848 (with Alexander G. Melville ): The Dodo and its Kindred, or the History, Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and Other Extinct Birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon . London: Reeve, Benham, & Reeve ( BHL digitized ) ( Google )
  • 1848–1854 (together with Louis Agassiz ): Bibliographia zoologiæ et geologiæ. A General Catalog of all Books, Tracts, and Memoirs on Zoology and Geology . 4 volumes. London: Ray Society
    • Volume I: Containing Periodicals, and the Alphabetical List from A to BYW (1848) ( BHL digitalisat )
    • Volume II: Containing the Alphabetical List from CAB to FYF (1850) ( BHL digitalisat )
    • Volume III: Containing the Alphabetical List from GAB to MYL (1852) (BHL digitalisat )
    • Volume IV: Containing the Alphabetical List from NAC to ZWI (1854) (together with Sir William Jardine ) ( BHL digitalisat )
  • 1852: On Geology in Relation to the Studies of the University of Oxford . Oxford: J. Vincent ( Hathitrust )
  • 1855 (posthumous): Ornithological Synonyms . Edited by Mrs. Hugh E. Strickland and Sir W. Jardine . London: John Van Voorst
  • 1858 (?): Scientific Writings of the Late Hugh Edwin Strickland on Geology, Asia Minor, and the Bosphorus . Edited by Sir William Jardine. London: John Van Voorst undated ( Hathitrust )
  • 1878 (posthumous): Rules for Zoological Nomenclature Drawn up by the Late HE Strickland (Assisted by Many Zoologists, British and Foreign) . Edited by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. London: John Murray ( Google )

literature

  • James W. Davis: Biographical Notices of Eminent Yorkshire Geologists. No. IV. Hugh Edwin Strickland ”. In: Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society , Volume 11 (January 1889), pp. 139-154.
  • Julian P Hume: Extinct Birds. Christopher Helm, London - New York 2017, pp. 155–158 (about the dodo ).
  • Christine E. Jackson, Peter Davis: Sir William Jardine. A Life in Natural History . Leicester Univ. Press, London - New York 2001, pp. Xi, 46, 104-107.
  • Sir William Jardine: Memoirs of Hugh Edwin Strickland . London: John Van Voorst 1858 ( Hathitrust ).
  • Osbert Salvin: A Catalog of the Collection of Birds Formed by the late Hugh Edwin Strickland . Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 1882 ( BHL digitized version )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Davis 1889, p. 139.
  2. ↑ See the notes in: Proceedings of the Geological Society in London. Volume II: November 1833 to June 1838, 1838, accessed on November 16, 2019 (English).
  3. ↑ Davis 1889, p. 146 f.
  4. ^ Davis 1889, p. 153.
  5. ^ Copsychus stricklandii. In: Wikispecies. Retrieved November 16, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Stricklandia Billings 1859 (lamp shell). In: Fossilworks. Retrieved November 16, 2019 .
  7. ^ Genus Stricklandia Billings, 1859. In: Fossiilid.info. Retrieved November 16, 2019 .
  8. ^ Davis 1889, p. 152.
  9. ^ Nouveaux membres admis dans la Société Cuvierienne. In: Revue Zoologique par La Société Cuvierienne. Volume 8, 1845, p. 270 , accessed on November 16, 2019 (French).
  10. ↑ Actually Catherine Jardine, the daughter of Sir William Jardine.
  11. ↑ About Strickland's collection of about 6000 birds, which was first kept in Oxford but was transferred to Cambridge University in 1867.
personal data
SURNAME Strickland, Hugh Edwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English geologist, ornithologist and systematist
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Reighton , Yorkshire
DATE OF DEATH September 14, 1853
Place of death at Retford , Nottinghamshire