SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



35 



SCIENCE AT THE NATIONAL PORTK^AIT GALLEK'V. 



I3y John T. Cakkington. 



(Coiitinued from page 5.) 



Sir Richard Owen (1S04-1S92). transferred to two other surgeons before his time 



expired. Under the last of these masters he had 



T^HREE decades since, the name of Professor to attend the county gaol to conduct post-mortem 



Owen was frequently before the public. Many examinations, in which he soon became much inte- 



wondrous things were attributed to his knowledge rested, developing apassion for anatomy. On leaving 



of anatomy and animal structure. Those times were Lancaster, he entered the University of Edinburgh 



towards the end 

 of the days when 

 the term " natu- 

 ralist " was as- 

 s o c i a t e d with 

 museum speci- 

 mens, and before 

 the word " biolo- 

 gist" for the time 

 being drove it 

 out of fashion. 



Richard Owen 

 was born in a 

 house at the 

 junction of Brock 

 and Thurnham 

 Streets, in Lan- 

 caster, on the 

 20th of July, 1804. 

 His father was a 

 West India mer- 

 chant, of Fulmer 

 Place, Bucking- 

 hamshire, where 

 his grandfather 

 had lived and 

 acted as High 

 Sherift of the 

 county. Owen's 

 mother was a 

 Lancashire 

 woman of 

 Huguenot origin. 

 Richard Owen's 

 first experience 

 of school was at 

 the grammar 



school at Lancaster, where he went at the early 

 age of six years. There he met, as schoolfellow, 

 William Whewell, in later years a well-known 

 writer on scientific subjects and the unfortunate 

 inventor of the abominable word " scientist." At 

 school Owen never showed any brilliancy or taste 

 for natural history, heraldry being rather to his 

 bent, if he had any. 



In 1820, Owen was apprenticed to a surgeon- 

 apothecary of Lancaster, his indentures being 



SiK RicH.\i!D Owen 



and attended, 

 among other 

 studies, the lec- 

 tures on anatomy 

 by Dr. John Bar- 

 clay, who, though 

 not the Uni- 

 versity profes- 

 sor of anatomy, 

 was a man of 

 great ability and 

 reputation. To 

 his excellence in 

 teaching com- 

 parative anatomy 

 Owen always at- 

 tributed, in after 

 life, his great 

 success. Without 

 waiting to take 

 his degree, Owen, 

 in 1S25, removed 

 to St. Bartholo- 

 mew's Hospital 

 in London, where 

 he went the 

 bearer of a letter 

 of introduction 

 from Barclay to 

 the noted Dr. 

 Abernethy, who 

 appointed him 

 I'rosector for his 

 surgical lectures. 

 In 1S26 he passed 

 for his Fellow- 

 ship of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, and set up in private practice at 

 II, Took's Court, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

 In 1827 he received, through Abernethy's influence, 

 the post of Assistant Keeper of the Hunterian 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, under 

 William Clift, a devoted pupil and assistant of Dr. 

 John Hunter. He it was who had lovingly cared for 

 these collections from the time of the great surgeon's 

 death until they came under the custody of the 

 Royal College. In 1829 Owen was appointed 



