Thomas Jeffery Parker

Jeffery Parker is a redirect to this article. For other people, see Jeff Parker .

Thomas Jeffery Parker

Thomas Jeffery Parker (born October 17, 1850 in London , † November 7, 1897 in Warrington ) was a British zoologist and member of the Royal Society in London.

Life

He was born as the eldest son of William Kitchen Parker (1823-1890), a respected zoologist and scientist.

His family was very cultural and intellectual. In order to better serve his interests, the father sent his children to younger leading universities in the field of science in Great Britain. Both Thomas Jeffery Parker and his younger brother, William Newton Parker (1861-1924), became zoologists and professors; the former, however, used to turn to literature and art. The family bond always remained very close, even when the two brothers were drawn apart to different parts of the world; the first work by Thomas Jeffery Parker was published in collaboration with his father, and after his death he published another work with his brother, who was then Professor of Zoology in Cardiff .

Parker was educated at Clarendon House School in London, then at the Royal College of Chemistry and finally at the Royal School of Mines . Here he came under the influence of Thomas Henry Huxley , whose methods of determination and evolutionary theory were never forgotten and later made a great impression. In recognition of Parker's unusual talent, Huxley made him an offer in 1872 to take on the position of demonstration of his works at the institution that later became the Royal College of Science . During this time, which Parker later described as the most important of his life, he developed special skills as a teacher and worked with Huxley on his work on crayfish .

On December 23, 1874, Parker married Charlotte Elizabeth Rossell in Bramley, Yorkshire. In 1880 he was offered the chair of biology at the still relatively new University of Otago in Dunedin (New Zealand). Over the next 17 years, until his untimely death, he pushed through many changes at the university that also affected the entire island nation; partly through his research, but partly also through an important textbook series, which became a standard reference after about 60 years and is still used today in many universities around the world. The first was A course of instruction in zootomy (published 3 years from his arrival in New Zealand) and reflected the educational time with Huxley. It was important because it specifically shows how to teach biology in the laboratory. This manual has been used almost everywhere in the world and has been published in several editions, including a. also a German translation. When Prof. Harry Borrer Kirk (1859-1948) founded the Department of Biology at Victoria University of Wellington , he introduced Parker's system; After Parker's instruction in the training had become very well established, Kirk was very much looking forward to a copy of Parker dedicated to him, presented personally.

Parker began working again in 1892 with a previous colleague, William Aitcheson Haswell (1854-1925). Haswell was at that time Challis Professor of Zoology in Sydney and together they wrote their work A text-book of zoology . They were both back in London by now, but it took a total of five years of diligent correspondence, as the two authors had no direct contact with each other. Immediately after the publication of this work (1897), many universities around the world recognized that this - at that time - far exceeded the achievements of their predecessors. Another British colleague criticized the work for the fact that the good context of the excellent illustrations for the layout and the text modules make the work easy to understand even in non-English-speaking countries. After about 60 years until today, it is still recommended at leading universities to work through it.

Another work, Lessons in elementary biology , appeared in 1891 and has been published several times in English and German. Parker was otherwise interested in museum work (he was curator of the Otago Museum ) and developed a method of displaying cartilage skeletons. He also wrote many technical papers.

Since the text-book was only published in 1897, Parker never saw it, so he could not make any final checks. He died just before the first edition arrived in New Zealand . Two serious illnesses, 1895 and 1897, made him very weak, and in his final years he mourned his deceased wife. On a vacation trip to Shag Valley with his three young sons and sister, he suffered a sudden relapse and died. Parker was buried in Warrington .

Parker's humble manner and his artistic and musical talents brought him a very large circle of friends; he and his students and colleagues were very popular. He took an active part in Dunedin's social life in the 1980s and 1990s as President of the Savage Club and the Otago Department of the then New Zealand Institute . He was very universal, but nevertheless capable of judgment; his knowledge resulted mostly from the most varied of life situations. He has even received awards from abroad; he was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1888 and a member of the Linnean Society shortly before his death ; he was also a member of Russian learned societies abroad . His untimely death was a great loss to science, his achievements surpassed that of most of his contemporaries in the fledgling British colony of New Zealand, his name synonymous with meticulous and clear presentation of anatomical data. He was a competent taxonomist , as many important manuscripts show, although his methods of identification, which he has advocated so tirelessly, had torn apart and scattered systematic studies in the universities. Today interest in systematic zoology is reviving in New Zealand, but Parker's identification methods are increasingly being suppressed. In fact, it is claimed that there wasn't one good point that would have been helpful in systematizing it, it was just a waste of time in laboratory study of zoology.

Works

• A course of instruction in zootomy (vertebrata). Macmillan, London 1884-95.
• Lessons in elementary biology. Macmillan, London 1891-1920 pm
• William Kitchen Parker, FRS Macmillan, London 1893.
• Lectures on elementary biology. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1895.
• A text-book of zoology. Macmillan, London, New York 1897–1972 pm (with William Aitcheson Haswell (1854–1925)), ISBN 0-444-19579-3 .
• A manual of zoology. Macmillan, New York 1900-03 pm (with William Aitcheson Haswell (1854-1925)).
• An elementary course of practical zoology. Macmillan, London 1900–22 pm (with William Newton Parker (1861–1924)).
• Lecons de biologie elementaire. Paris 1904 pm

literature

• Howard Barraclough Fell : Parker, Thomas Jeffery, FRS . In: Alexander Hare McLintock (Ed.): An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1966 ( online [accessed December 15, 2015]).
• BI Brewin: Thomas Jeffery Parker (1850-1897) . MS. DUHO
• Obit. In: Nature. 57, No 1471, 1898, pp. 225-227.
• Obit. In: Otago Daily Times. November 8, 1897.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Jeffery Parker  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (English)