Ray Society
The Ray Society is a British society for the publication of books on zoology, botany, biology-history and paleontology, especially on systematics. It was founded by George Johnston (1797–1855) in 1844 and is named in honor of the biologist John Ray .
A special focus of the publications is the flora and fauna of Great Britain, but in the beginning there were also many translations, especially from German. 176 books were published by 2014. No. 176 is an English translation of the Methodus Plantarum Nova by John Ray and some other historical works have also been published, including botanical works by Carl von Linné , works by William Turner , Gilbert White , Marcello Malpighi and Robert Brown .
The most famous authors include Charles Darwin (monograph on barnacles ), Louis Agassiz and Thomas Henry Huxley . Other authors were Joshua Alder , William Baird , John Blackwall , Francis Balfour-Browne , George Parker Bidder (former Honorary Vice President), George Albert Boulenger , James Scott Bowerbank , Geoffrey Allan Boxshall (* 1950), George Stewardson Brady , William Syer Bristowe , William Buckler , Hermann Burmeister , William Thomas Calman (Secretary of the Society 1919 to 1946), Peter Cameron , William Benjamin Carpenter , Richard William George Dennis , James Cash , John William Douglas , Edward Forbes , Vera Fretter (1905–1992), Alastair Graham , Albert Günther (zoologist) , Robert Gurney , Albany Hancock , Wilhelm Hofmeister , John Hopkinson (zoologist) (1844–1919), Thomas Rupert Jones , Zbigniew Kabata (1924–2004), Frederick James Killington , Edwin Lankester , George Hazelwood Locket , Sievert Lorenzen , John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury , William Carmichael McIntosh , Robert McLachlan , Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen , Albert Davidson Michael , Alfred Frank Millidge , Robert Newstead , Christian Ludwig Nitzsch , Lorenz Oken , William Kitchen Parker , Charles David Soar , William Thomas Stearn , Japetus Steenstrup , Thomas Alan Stephenson , Hugh Edwin Strickland (co-founder), Thomas Everett Thompson , William Bertram Turrill , William West and George Stephen West , William Crawford Williamson , William Williamson and Frederick Everard Zeuner .
The number of members fluctuated greatly, from 868 members in 1847 to 171 in 1941. In the 1990s it had around 400 members who received the works at preferential prices. The printing costs of the elaborate works were often raised by donors, often the Royal Society, but also, for example, by the Carnegie Trust, ICI or Ciba-Geigy. Meetings were often held at the Linnean Society of London in the 19th century, and later at the Natural History Museum.
literature
- Curle, The Ray Society, a bibliographical history, Ray Society 1954
- Elizabeth Platts, D. Heppel: In celebration of the Ray Society, established 1844, and its founder George Johnston (1797-1855). Eight facsimile prints with eight sheets of descriptive text by various authors, Ray Society 1994