The SHNH Founders’ Medal 2027

The Founders’ Medal is awarded to persons who have made a substantial contribution to the study of the history or bibliography of natural history.

Nominations are now open and should be sent to the Secretary (secretary@shnh.org.uk) by 1 March 2027.

The recipient for the award is chosen by Council and will be presented with the Founders’ Medal at the Society’s Annual General Meeting in 2027.

Guidelines

• Medallists are chosen by the Council of the Society.
• Nominations, which open on 01 September, can only be made by SHNH members.
• Nominations close on 1 March the following year.
• SHNH members and non-members can be nominated for this medal, which is open to nominees based in the UK and internationally.

Nomination

• Nominations must be sent to the Secretary (secretary@shnh.org.uk) and include the following:
• Your name as a nominator and your contact details.
• The nominee’s name and contact details.
• A supporting statement (up to 600 words) describing why the nominee should receive the award.

Selection Criteria

Nominees should satisfy one or more of the following criteria:

• A sustained record of high-quality publications or other outputs in the field of the history of natural history.
• A sustained contribution to dissemination of the history of natural history through practice or curation.

The SHNH Founders’ Medal 2026

The Society is very pleased to announce that our Founders’ Medal will this year be awarded to Anna Marie Roos, Emeritus Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Lincoln. The Founders’ Medal is awarded for substantial contributions to the study of the history or bibliography of natural history.

Professor Roos is internationally recognised for her scholarship on the history of the Royal Society, the development of scientific illustration, and the evolution of the early science museum and its ‘publics’. Her academic teaching career extends over thirty years. Concurrently, she has held  a number of external offices, including as editor-in-chief of Notes and Records of the Royal Society (2018–2024); she is also an FLS, FSA and FRHS.

Author/editor of 12 books and over 35 articles, her work analyses the development of early scientific method and fieldwork, challenging current assumptions about the arts-science divide. Her extensive publishing output includes a number of major works, including two volumes of edited correspondence of Martin Lister (Volume 1; Volume 2), and most recently a biography of Martin Folkes (‘Newtonian, Antiquary, Connoisseur’) to complement an earlier edition of Folkes’s Grand Tour diary.

The position she has established for herself, straddling the fields of both the history of science and the history of natural history, has rendered her a significant member of our community, able to convey the importance of natural history studies to a wider audience than might routinely be attracted to the (admittedly sometimes niche) themes that absorb us in the Society. The personalities on whom she has worked extensively – Willughby, Lister, Grew, Newton, Folkes, Lhuyd, Ruskin and others – were all polymaths to whom the idea of disciplinary boundaries would have been meaningless and proper assessment of their work is dependent on researchers who are equally capable of looking across the whole range of activity in the natural sciences within a historical context. The breadth of the themes she has explored – ‘The chymistry of the learned Dr Plot’; ‘Salient theories in the fossil debate in the early Royal Society’; ‘Thomas Philipot  and chemical theories of the tides in seventeenth-century England’; ‘The philosophy of colour’ – hint at the impressive range of subjects in the natural sciences that she has tackled in detail, as do her contributions to a number of substantial published volumes and a variety of scholarly journals – over twenty in number – Notes and Records of the Royal Society; History of Science; Eighteenth-Century Thought; Ambix; Nuncius, Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature and Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society – to mention only a few. She is also a prolific reviewer across a similarly wide spectrum of publications, contributing thoughtfully to the debates covered in their subject-matter. She has organized ten academic conferences and has contributed to almost thirty others; she has also been a regular contributor and adviser to radio and television programmes.

The SHNH Founders’ Medal – Previous Winners

Recipients of the Founders’ Medal

• 2026 Professor Anna Marie Roos

• 2025 Professor David J. Mabberley

• 2024 Professor Kristin Johnson

• 2023 Professor P. Geoffrey Moore

• 2022 Professor Theodore W. Pietsch

• 2021 Mr Robert McCracken Peck & Mr E. Geoffrey Hancock

• 2019 Dr Henry Noltie

• 2018  Professor Kraig Adler

• 2017  Mr Edward Dickinson

• 2016  Professor Tim Birkhead

• 2015  Professor James A. Secord

• 2014  Mr S. Peter Dance

• 2013  Dr E. Charles Nelson

• 2012  Dr Pat Morris

• 2011  Sir David Attenborough OM CH FRS

• 2009  Professor H. Walter Lack (Botany); Professor Hugh Torrens (Geology); and Dr Ray Williams (Zoology)

• 2005  Dr L. C. (Kees) Rookmaaker

• 2003  Professor Janet Browne

• 2001  Dr Gordon C. Sauer

• 2000 Professor Gordon L. Herries Davies

• 1998  Dr David E. Allen

• 1997  Dr Frederick Burkhardt & Ms Nina J. Root

• 1996  Mrs Christine E. Jackson

• 1995  Professor Arthur J. Cain

• 1994  Mr Ray G. C. Desmond

• 1993  Mr Adrian J. Desmond

• 1992  Mr Gavin D. R. Bridson

• 1991  Professor William A. S. Sarjeant

• 1990  Dr Richard S. Cowan

• 1989  Mr Harold B. Carter

• 1988  Professor Martin J. S. Rudwick

• 1986  Professor Joseph Ewan

• Mrs Joan M. Eyles

• Mr Richard B. Freeman

• Mr Francis J. Griffin

• Professor John L. Heller

• Dr Lipke B. Holthuis

• Professor Frans A. Stafleu

• Professor William T. Stearn

• Mr Alwyne Wheeler

• Sir Eric Smith