Robert T. Gunther

Robert Theodore Gunther (born August 23, 1869 in Surbiton , Surrey , † March 9, 1940 in South Stoke, Oxfordshire ) was a science historian and founder of the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford .

life and work

Robert T. Gunther's father, Albert Günther (1830–1914), was director of the zoological department of the Natural History Museum in London . Robert Gunther was educated at University College School in London. From there he moved to Magdalen College in Oxford in 1888 , after studying there for a year at University College .

From 1920 he wrote a 14-volume work Early Science in Oxford , the last volume of which appeared in 1945. This work was first published under the auspices of the Oxford Historical Society . A fifteenth volume, published by his son Albert Everard Gunther in 1967, shows a portrait of Gunther on the book cover.

Between 1926 and 1930, Gunther founded the Museum of the History of Science in the Ashmolean Museum building in Oxford, but this establishment was not entirely without problems: Apparently not many of his colleagues shared Gunther's preference for historical scientific instruments, which was also due to Gunther's malicious comments Early Science can be read about some of its predecessors in venerable institutions and their failure to preserve these instruments for posterity. The first exhibition consisted largely of exhibits of scientific instruments that came from the collection of his friend Lewis Evans .

After a short illness, Gunther died in a friend's house. He and his wife Amy, née Rolfe, are buried in Heacham , Norfolk in the family crypt, whose biography Gunther wrote.

Fonts (selection)

• Early English Botanists and their Gardens . Kraus Reprint, New York 1971 (unaltered reprint Oxford 1922).
• as editor: The greek herbal of Dioscorides , illustrated by a byzantine AD 512, englished by John Goodyer AD 1655. Robert T. Gunther, New York 1934; Reprinted there in 1959.
• The Herbal of Apuleius Barbarus , from the 12th century manuscript formerly in the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds (Oxford, MS. Bodley 130). The Roxburgh Club, Oxford 1925.

literature

• Albert E. Gunther: Robert T. Gunther. A Pioneer in the History of Science 1869-1940 (Early Science in Oxford; Vol. 15). Oxford University Press, Oxford 1967.
• Miles Hadfield et al. a .: British gardeners. A biographical dictionary . Zwemmer Books, London 1980, ISBN 0-302-00541-2 .
• Roger Hutchins: Gunther, Robert William Theodore (1869–1940) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 23 . Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2005 [1]
• AV Simcock (Ed.): Robert T. Gunther and the old Ashmolean . Museum of the History of Science, Oxford 1985, ISBN 0-903364-04-2 .
• Museum of the History of Science . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago 2007 (Ultimate Reference Suite).