Electronic edition published by Cultural Heritage Langauge Technologies (with permission from Charles Scribners and Sons) and funded by the National Science Foundation International Digital Libraries Program. This text has been proofread to a low degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using data entry.
OWEN, RICHARD (b. Lancaster, England, 20 July
1804; d. Richmond Park, London, England,
18 December 1892), comparative anatomy, vertebrate
paleontology, geology.
Owen, the younger son of Richard and Catherine
Parrin Owen, lost his father in 1809. When six years
old Owen was enrolled at the Lancaster Grammar
School, where he was a younger schoolmate of William
Whewell. In 1820 Owen was apprenticed to the first of
three Lancaster surgeons under whom he studied. As
an apprentice he had access to postmortems and
dissections at the local jail, which sparked an early
interest in anatomy and started him collecting
anatomical specimens. Before completing his apprenticeship,
Owen matriculated in October 1824 at the
University of Edinburgh, where he attended the
anatomical lectures of Alexander Munro Tertius.
More importantly, Owen was able to attend the
extramural lectures on anatomy given by John Barclay,
from whom Owen gained considerable knowledge of
comparative anatomy. In April 1825 Barclay recommended
that Owen go to London to study at St.
Bartholomew's Hospital with John Abernethy, to
whom Barclay addressed a letter of introduction on
Owen's behalf. Abernethy immediately appointed
Owen to be his prosector. After qualifying as a member
of the Royal College of Surgeons in August 1826,
Owen set up practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Abernethy had recognized Owen's dissecting ability
and knowledge of comparative anatomy. As president
of the Royal College of Surgeons, Abernethy had
Owen appointed assistant to the conservator, William
Clift, of the Hunterian Collection. Owen soon became
engaged to Clift's only daughter, Caroline, whom he
married in 1835. His primary task was to assist Clift in
the preparation of the long-needed catalogue of John
Hunter's wide-ranging collection, which had been
purchased for the College of Surgeons and served as
the nucleus of the College's Museum. Since most of
Hunter's notes concerning the specimens had been
lost, Owen was obliged to perform many fresh
dissections in order to identify the specimens. His
general assistance to Clift included serving as Georges
Cuvier's guide around the Museum in 1830. This
encounter led to an invitation to visit Cuvier in
Paris, which Owen did the following year. He later
considered the experiences of that trip and the contact
with Cuvier a major influence on his work. In 1836
Owen was appointed Hunterian professor at the Royal
College of Surgeons, an appointment that necessitated
his presenting annually a course of twenty-four
lectures based on some aspect of the Hunterian
Collection.
Owen succeeded Clift as conservator of the Museum
and continued in that position until his appointment
in 1856 as superintendent of the natural history
departments of the British Museum. At that time these
departments were still housed with all the other
departments of the British Museum in Bloomsbury.
In 1859 Owen sent a forceful report to the trustees of
the Museum detailing his views and plans for a new
building in a separate location to house the natural
history departments. There was much talk and little
action, until Gladstone took an interest in Owen's
scheme and introduced a bill into Parliament. Finally,