William John Swainson is honored with a Google Doodle today, on the anniversary of his 224th birthday.
The British ornithologist was known for the quality of his illustrations after becoming the first Englishman to publish works of natural history on birds and shells.
In case you’re wondering, ornithology is a branch of zoology that focuses on the study of birds.
But William John Swainson was not only a ornithologist, he was also a malacologist (study of mollusks), a conchologist (self-explanatory), entomologist (insects), and artist, who put all his knowledge into his drawings.
A member of the Royal Society, Swainson has been described as “a gentleman very zealous in … various scientific pursuits, particularly in natural history, having traveled in South America for the purpose of investigating the productions of that continent”, according to the Guardian .
Even though he had a speech impediment he never stopped his quest for knowledge in the fields of interest to him. In 1806 William John Swainson accompanied British explorer Henry Koster to Brazil.
When he returned to Britain from Brazil he came back with a collection of 20,000 insects, 1,200 different species of plants, drawings of 120 species of fish, and approximately 760 bird’s skins.
Other descriptions of the British scientist say he was “a very talented artist, [who] became the first person in Britain to publish works of natural history (on birds and shells) illustrated by lithographs” in a 2001 article titled High Church Science: William Swainson and William Kirby , published in the journal called Paradigm.
But all was not pleasant for William John Swainson. During his time in Australia, he was heavily criticized by his contemporaries because of his work in botanics, not his favored discipline.
At that time botanist William Hooker said of the British scientist, “In my life I think I never read such a series of trash and nonsense.”
Whatever the case, William John Swainson and his contribution to science earns him a Google doodle on his 224th birthday, he died on December 6, 1855.
[Illustrations via WikiCommons ]
