William Plane Pycraft (13 January 1868 – 1 May 1942) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

osteologist and

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 ...

. Pycraft was born on 13 January 1868 in

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth ( ), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside resort, seaside town which gives its name to the wider Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. Its fishing industry, m ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

the elder son of William John Pycraft and Margaret Fiddes Pycraft (née Blake). His father was in the Merchant Navy and drowned at Llanelli on 14 August 1868 when William was only 8 months old. His mother remarried Clement Watson, a Butcher on 14 January 1872 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. In 1891 Pycraft was a Museum Assistant to Montague Browne, the Curator of the Town Museum in Leicester. In 1892 Pycraft became assistant to

Edwin Ray Lankester Sir Edwin Ray Lankester (15 May 1847 – 13 August 1929) was a British zoologist.New International Encyclopaedia. An invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London and Oxford University. He was th ...

, and in 1898 moved with Lankester to the staff of 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 ...

. He married Lucy Agnes Shee, daughter of Jeremiah Dunlay Shee in 1899 in Chelsea. In 1907 Pycraft took charge of

osteology Osteology () is the scientific study of bones, practiced by osteologists . A subdiscipline of anatomy, anthropology, archaeology and paleontology, osteology is the detailed study of the structure of bones, skeletal elements, teeth, microbone mo ...

at the museum. Pycraft wrote many articles and books on natural history, including ''The Story of Bird-Life'' (1900), ''The Story of Fish-Life'' (1901), ''The Story of Reptile Life'' (1905), ''The British Museum of Natural History'' (1910), ''A History of Birds'' (1910), ''The Infancy of Animals'' (1912), ''The Courtship of Animals'' (1913), ''Birds in Flight'' (1922), ''Camouflage in Nature'' (1925) and ''Birds of Great Britain and their Natural History'' (1934).

References

External links

Works by William Plane Pycraft online at BHL
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pycraft, William Plane English zoologists Employees of the Natural History Museum, London Fellows of the Zoological Society of London 1868 births 1942 deaths People from Great Yarmouth

See also

References

Further reading

External links