George Robert Gray (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

and author, and head of the

ornithological Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

section of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, now the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

, London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother of the zoologist

John Edward Gray John Edward Gray (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for a z ...

and the son of the botanist

Samuel Frederick Gray Samuel Frederick Gray (10 December 1766 – 12 April 1828) was a British botanist, mycologist, and pharmacologist. He was the father of the zoologists John Edward Gray and George Robert Gray. Background He was the son of Samuel Gray, a London Se ...

. George Gray's most important publication was his ''Genera of Birds'' (1844–49), illustrated by David William Mitchell and

Joseph Wolf Joseph Wolf (22 January 1820 – 20 April 1899) was a German artist who specialized in natural history illustration. He moved to the British Museum in 1848 and became the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists including David Livin ...

, which included 46,000 references.

Biography

He was bornon 8 July 1808 in

Little Chelsea Little Chelsea was a hamlet, located on either side of Fulham Road, half a mile southwest of Chelsea, London. The earliest references to the settlement date from the early 17th century, and the name continued to be used until the hamlet was surr ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, to

, naturalist and pharmacologist, and Elizabeth (née Forfeit), his wife. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School. Gray started at the

as Assistant Keeper of the

Zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

Branch in 1831. He began by cataloguing insects, and published an ''Entomology of Australia'' (1833) and contributed the entomogical section to an English edition of

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...

's ''Animal Kingdom''. Gray described many

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) or lepidopterans is an order (biology), order of winged insects which includes butterflies and moths. About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera have been described, representing 10% of the total described species of living organ ...

. In 1833, he was a founder of what became the

Royal Entomological Society of London The Royal Entomological Society is a learned society devoted to the study of insects. It aims to disseminate information about insects and to improve communication between entomologists. The society was founded in 1833 as the Entomological S ...

. Gray's original description of Gray's grasshopper warbler, which was named for him, appeared in 1860. The specimen had been collected by

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...

in the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West Melanesi ...

. In a brief biography dealing with Gray's work on phasmids, BraggBragg, P.E. (2007) Biographies of Phasmatologists – 2. George Robert Gray. ''Phasmid Studies'', 15(1&2) 5–9. credits Gray with more than doubling the number of named species of phasmids with three publications (in 1833, 1835 and 1843); three species of phasmids were subsequently named after Gray. Gray died on 6 May 1872 in

, England.

Works

*1831 ''The Zoological Miscellany Zool. Miscell''. (1): 1–40 *1833 ''The Entomology of Australia, in a series of Monographs. Part I. The Monograph of the Genus Phasma''. London. *1835 ''Synopsis of the species of insects belonging to the family of Phasmidae.'' London, Longmans. 48pp. *1844 ''List of the specimens of birds in the collection of the British Museum.'' London, Trustees of the British Museum. *1846 ''Descriptions and Figures of some new Lepidopterous Insects chiefly from Nepal''. London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. *1843 ''Description of several species of the genus Phyllium. Zoologist,'' (1)1: 117–123. *1852 ''Catalogue of Lepidopterous Insects in the British Museum''. Part 1. Papilionidae. 853 Jan "1852" iii + 84pp., 13pls. *1871 ''A fasciculus of the Birds of China''. London, Taylor and Francis. *with

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English people, English zoologist and ornithology, ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his car ...

, ''The Zoology of the Voyage of'' HMS Erebus & HMS Terror. ''Birds of New Zealand''., 1875. The revised edition of Gray (1846) (1875).

References

*''Biographies for Birdwatchers'', Mearns and Mearns, .

External links

Plates and text from Gray's 1833 Monograph on Phasmidae
(archived)
Digitised works by or about George Robert Gray
at

Biodiversity Heritage Library The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open-access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, George Robert English taxonomists 1808 births 1872 deaths English ornithologists English lepidopterists Employees of the Natural History Museum, London Fellows of the Royal Society 19th-century British zoologists Scientists from London 19th-century English writers

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links