10 minute read
Sir Richard Owen
- The scientist who named the dinosaurs
By Margaret Brecknell
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One of the 19th-century’s most influential scientists, Sir Richard Owen, died 130 years ago this month in December 1892. The Lancaster-born man has two impressive claims to fame. In addition to playing a crucial role in the foundation of London’s world-famous Natural History Museum, he is credited with coining the word “dinosaur” to describe the extinct prehistoric reptiles. Yet he was also a controversial figure, who was often at odds with his fellow scientists.
Owen was born on Thurnham Street in Lancaster on 20th July 1804, the youngest of six children of a local merchant. He attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School, where he was unpromisingly described by one schoolmaster as “lazy and impudent”.
At the age of 16, he began to study medicine with a local surgeon-apothecary named Leonard Dickson. Owen’s apprenticeship was subsequently transferred to another man, James Stockdale Harrison, who acted as surgeon at Lancaster Castle Prison. Harrison’s apprentices were allowed to carry out post-mortem examinations on executed prisoners at Lancaster Castle and this early introduction to human anatomy served Owen well in his future career.
Owen left Lancaster in 1824 to study at Edinburgh University. Here he first began to take an interest in comparative anatomy, which involves the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species to understand their evolutionary development. The following year, he began work at London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital. One of his early jobs was to prepare the corpses to be dissected during lectures to medical students.
Once Owen was made a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, he set up in private practice in London, but it soon became apparent that Owen’s real interest lay in comparative anatomy. In 1827, he took on a new role as assistant to William Clift at the Hunterian Museum. Owen would subsequently go on to marry Clift’s only daughter, Caroline. Owen was charged with cataloguing the many thousands of natural history specimens in the Hunterian Collection, which had been acquired by the Royal College of Surgeons following the death of its owner, John Hunter.
Owen excelled in the role and the Lancaster man’s 1832 book, Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus, confirmed his status as one of the country’s leading comparative anatomists. In this work he compared the anatomy of the nautilus, a living marine mollusc, with ammonite fossils and concluded that one had evolved from the other.
Four years later, he was appointed to the prestigious position of Hunterian Professor of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons. In this role he was required to give lectures on anatomy to the general public, inspired by the specimens in the Hunterian Collection. His Hunterian Lectures quickly proved popular and were attended by many leading figures of the day including members of the Royal Family. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, was so impressed that he later asked Owen to teach natural history to the royal children. Such was the esteem in which he was held by the royal couple that, in 1852, Queen Victoria granted him use of Sheen Lodge in Richmond Park for the rest of his life.
Owen was, therefore, already a celebrity scientist even before the publication of the 1842 article for the Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in which he famously proposed that a new taxonomic group be established and named “dinosauria” (derived from the Ancient Greek for “terrible lizard”).
Fossil hunters had been uncovering intriguing evidence of bones belonging to gigantic prehistoric creatures for decades. Sussex-born Gideon Mantell was, however, the first to establish that these remains belonged to now extinct giant land reptiles, after discovering the first evidence of the Iguanodon in 1822. Mantell proceeded to unearth and name similar fossils, notably the Hylaeosaurus, which was the first armoured dinosaur to be discovered. In so doing, he helped to establish the theory of an Age of Reptiles that ended with their mass extinction millions of years ago. However, it was Owen, the anatomical genius, who spotted the distinct characteristic which these giant fossil reptiles shared, namely that in each case the vertebrae at the base of the spine had become fused during the creature’s lifetime.
- Gideon Mantell about Richard Owen
Owen’s name for the creatures belonging to this new order of prehistoric giant reptiles, “dinosaurs”, captured the public’s imagination and it was Owen, not Mantell, who became associated with their discovery. It seems that Owen himself did little to acknowledge Mantell’s invaluable contribution, much to the latter’s obvious chagrin. He once famously described the Lancaster man as “overpaid, over-praised and cursed with a jealous monopolising spirit”.
Mantell was not the only one of Owen’s contemporaries with whom he controversially quarrelled. Charles Darwin is known to have attended some of Owen’s Hunterian Lectures in the late 1830s after returning home from his epic five-year journey of scientific discovery on board the HMS Beagle. The two even worked together. Owen even helped Darwin to identify some of the strange fossils of previously unseen vertebrates which he had brought home from South America.
When Darwin’s groundbreaking On The Origin of Species was published in November 1859, he was expecting to receive harsh criticism from some quarters. The book represented the culmination of research on which Darwin had been working for over two decades ever since his voyage on board the Beagle. It outlined his theory of evolution by natural selection, a view which sensationally contradicted the biblical account of creation.
If Darwin was hoping for support from an eminent scientist like Richard Owen, he was soon disappointed. Owen had come up with his own theory of evolution, namely that animals did evolve over time but each species originated from one original “archetype”, a blueprint created specially by God. This cleverly acknowledged the probability of evolution, but was designed not to upset the religious elite who also happened to be Owen’s wealthy patrons. Darwin’s theory challenged this assumption and, in so doing, also called into question Owen’s position as the pre-eminent scientist of his day.
A long article appeared in the influential Edinburgh Review early the following year, in which Darwin’s reasoning was heavily criticised. “Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another”, wrote its anonymous author. The article may have been published anonymously, but it quickly became apparent that Owen was its author. Darwin had his own view regarding the reasons for Owen’s apparent hostility, which he declared was “not owing to any quarrel between us”, but instead stemmed from professional jealousy
In the late 1850s, Owen left his role at the Hunterian Museum and became the Superintendent of the British Museum’s Natural History Department. He launched an energetic campaign for the vast collection of natural history specimens to be given its own premises. A site was acquired in South Kensington and construction began on the new building in 1873.
The Natural History Museum finally opened its doors for the first time in April 1881. It was very much Owen’s personal project and reflected his desire to create a “cathedral to nature”, free and accessible to all. Hitherto, museums had been expensive to visit and therefore only available to the wealthy. Owen’s vision of a building, designed to display even the largest of natural history specimens, has allowed the Natural History Museum to showcase some iconic exhibits over the years. These include the famous Diplodocus skeleton cast, which graced the Central Hall for many years, and, more recently, the giant skeleton of a blue whale.
Following his retirement in 1883, Owen lived at Sheen Lodge in Richmond Park until his death, aged 88, in December 1892. He had his critics during his lifetime and has frequently been typecast as the villain of 19th-century Victorian science since, because of his disagreements with the likes of Darwin and Mantell. However, this brilliant comparative anatomist’s contribution to science cannot be overlooked and, perhaps his greatest legacy, the Natural History Museum in London, still attracts millions of visitors each year.
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From the age of two years old Oliver started to fracture parts of his body but with very little trauma. Soon after, Oliver was given the diagnosis of osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease. After each fracture he would have to learn to walk again. This was extremely difficult for a young child to suffer so much pain and struggle with day to day living.
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