John Richardson (naturalist)

Sir John Richardson ( born November 5, 1787 Dumfries, Scotland, † June 5, 1865 in Grasmere, Westmorland ) was a Scottish natural historian, physician, botanist, zoologist, geologist, Arctic explorer, ichthyologist and explorers. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Richardson ".

Life

In 1801, Richardson began his medical and partial natural history studies at the University of Edinburgh. In addition, he served 1804-06 as house surgeon at the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, the hospital in Dumfries. He went in 1807 from the University and joined the British Navy. There he served as an assistant surgeon and Chief Surgeon on various ships of the British fleet and traveled the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. In 1816 he made his doctorate in medicine in Edinburgh.

Richardson was ordered to 1819-22 as a third party and 1825-27 as a Second Ship Surgeon Rear- Admiral Sir John Franklin ( 1786-1847 ) to accompany its search for the Northwest Passage. He made botanical, ichthyological and geological observations and held firmly into several scientific works. The data collected by him during these trips plant has described the British botanist William Jackson Hooker in his two-volume work Flora Boreali - Americana ( 1829-1840 ).

In the years 1824-38 Richardson served in the Chatham Marine Division as a surgeon, in 1828 as chief physician at the Melville Hospital and completed his natural history studies. Then the chief physician office at the Royal Naval Hospital, he was offered in Haslar. There was more of an opportunity to investigate the natural history than in medical direction, and he was also a mentor of scientific luminaries such as Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Thomas Henry Huxley ( 1825-1895 ). In 1840 he was appointed inspector of hospitals in the Navy and held the post until his retirement.

For those looking for the missing John Franklin ( 1847-49 ) were chosen Richardson as Commander and John Rae ( 1813-1893 ). However, they went out without success. Richardson took the trip also to explore the region around the Mackenzie River and Cape Kendall.

In 1855, Sir Richardson sat in Grasmere to rest, but he was in 1857 again Doctor, this time in law at the University of Dublin. He died on 5 June 1865 in Grasmere.

Richardson in 1825 a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1846 he was appointed by Queen Victoria ( 1819-1901 ) knighted. He was awarded in 1856 by the Royal Society of London with the Royal Medal.

Works

• Fauna Boreali - Americana or The Zoology of the northern parts of British America. Murray, London 1829-31.
• The Zoology of the voyage of HMS Erebus & Terror, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross falling on the years 1839 to 1843. Janson, London 1844-75.
• The museum of natural history. New York, 1862.