36 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at St. Bartholo- 

 mew's. At the Hunterian Museum he met Cuvier, 

 and on his invitation went, in 1831, to Paris, where 

 Owen attended the lectures of Cuvier and Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire, and worked in the dissecting rooms 

 of that city. His first published paper appeared 

 in "The Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical 

 Society," in 1830. In 1832 his " Memoir on the 

 Pearly Nautilus" founded his reputation, and in 

 1834 h^ became F.R.S. In 1833 he founded the 

 " Zoological Magazine," but he soon severed his 

 connection with it. For some seven years he had . 

 been engaged to Caroline Clift, the only daughter 

 of his friend and chief at the Museum, but it was 

 not until 1835 that his prospects admitted of their 

 marriage. In 1842 he was made joint Conservator 

 with Clift, who soon afterwards retired, when Owen 

 became wholly responsible, with J. T. Quekett as 

 his assistant. 



In 1836 Owen was appointed first Hunterian 

 Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology 

 at the Royal College of Surgeons. Honours then 

 began to fall fast upon him, including a civil list 

 pension of /^2oo per annum, granted by Sir Robert 

 Peel ; and about that time it is said he refused a 

 knighthood. 



Up to 1852, from his appointment as Curator of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, he had occupied 

 small rooms in the College buildings ; in that 

 year, however, the Queen gave him the use of 

 the cottage named Sheen Lodge, in Richmond 

 Park, where he resided until his death. In 1853, 

 Owen took his wife to Paris, and lectured in 

 French at the Institute, Later, on his connection 

 with the British Department of the Universal 

 Exhibition, Napoleon III. created him a Knight of 

 the Legion of Honour. This was not his first 

 association with an exhibition, for he was a 

 member of the Organising Committee of the Great 

 Exhibition of 1851, and was destined to be later 

 occupied at the building on its removal to 

 Sydenham, where he suggested and carried out 

 the design for the models of extinct animals still 

 to be seen in the grounds at the Crystal Palace. 



In 1856, he was appointed to the specially 

 created post of Superintendent of the Natural 

 History Department of the British Museum. 

 Previously the collections had been in charge of 

 the principal librarian. The permanent staff at 

 the Museum having hitherto been in a very in- 

 dependent position, continued their work much in 

 their own way, leaving the administrative work 

 for Owen of the smallest. Instead of resenting 

 this, he quietly settled down, free from financial 

 anxiety, his salary being ;f8oo a year, to study the 

 vast material in the Museum, and his pubhcations 

 became most voluminous, though we doubt their 

 great value for future generations. 



Owen was a man of strong views in some 



directions, and in him Charles Darwin found a 

 steady opponent to his theory of natural selection 

 as the origin of species ; Owen following his 

 courtier's instinct in supporting the orthodox view 

 of special creation. 



Richard Owen's most useful work in his con- 

 nection with the British Museum was his persistent 

 application to the Government for more space for 

 the collections than was available at Bloomsbury. 

 In this he was well supported by the heads of the 

 department, but it was not until 1881 that the new 

 museum at South Kensington was open to the 

 public, though he commenced his agitation in 1859. 

 In 1883, his health had become a source of 

 anxiety to his friends, and being in his eightieth 

 year, at his own desire he resigned his position at 

 the Natural History Museum, in which he was 

 succeeded by the present director, Sir William 

 Flower, K.C.B., F.R.S. In 1884, Owen was made 

 a Knight Commander of the Bath, and his annual 

 pension was augmented. He survived until 1892, 

 when he died and was buried in the churchyard at 

 Ham, near Richmond, where his wife had preceded 

 him in 1873. 



It would be hardly in place in these sketches of 

 scientific worthies to criticise Sir Richard Owen as 

 a man of science. He was eccentric from some 

 points of view, and a link between the old times 

 and the new. He never fully appreciated the new, 

 but clung tenaciously to the old. As an example 

 of what we mean, we have only to compare what 

 we remember of the natural-history department at 

 Bloomsbury, with the magnificent galleries as now 

 arranged at Cromwell Road, Kensington, 



The portrait of Sir Richard Owen hangs in Room 

 xvii. of the Gallery. It was painted by H. W. 

 Pickersgill, R.A., and represents Professor Owen in 

 his academic gown holding in his left hand a 

 nautilus shell. The portrait is about half life-size, 

 at middle age, showing the black hair and large 

 black eyes which were so characteristic of his face. 

 He changed considerably in later years, growing 

 more massive in his features. 



Sir William Herschel (1738-1822). 

 There are two pictures of this celebrated astro- 

 nomer in the National Portrait Gallery, one in oil 

 colours at the age of fifty years, the other in pencil. 

 The former is about two-thirds life size, by Lemuel 

 F. Abbot. It was purchased for the Gallery in i860. 

 He is represented simply by head and shoulders, 

 dressed in a rich purple brown coat and wearing 

 white stock and frilled shirt. His hair is grey, full 

 at the back, and may have been a wig, though it is 

 drawn as though natural. The pencil sketch is by 

 Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., and was purchased 

 in May, 1891. It represents Si^ William at an 

 apparently earlier age than the oil-painting, as 

 his face is far less full. 



