The William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize has been instituted in honour of the late William T. Stearn, a scholar whose work contributed much to the field and to this Society. William T. Stearn, CBE, was born in Chesterton, Cambridge, and developed an early interest in books and natural history. He became an outstanding botanical […]
Read more
SHNH international summer meeting and AGM Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK Thursday 25th and Friday 26th June 2020 This two-day international meeting will explore the history and role of naturalists (and others) as pioneers in biological, geological and landscape conservation, protection, environmental advocacy and engagement in its broadest sense. Environmental awareness is not […]
Read more
Please help our Society in its continued effort to celebrate excellence in the study of the history of natural history by nominating a deserving recipient by 19 January 2020.
Read more
We are delighted to announce that the 2019 Society for the History of Natural History’s William T. Stearn Essay prize has been awarded to Nathan Smith for his entry ‘It takes a village: The life of Henry Thomas Soppitt and the attempts by provincial mycologists to navigate their scientific legacy’ which focuses on the discovery […]
Read more
The Thackray Medal was instituted in 2000 to commemorate the life and work of John Thackray, a past President and Secretary of the Society. It is awarded for significant achievement in the field of the history and/or bibliography of natural history. The Adjudicators of the Society’s Thackray Medal awarded the prize to David Mabberley for […]
Read more
A great deal has been recorded about those collecting and studying the natural world over the past 400 years. Much less is known about those who helped supply them. Often underplayed and viewed as peripheral and sometimes even shady figures, the endeavours, contributions and motivations of these ‘middle-men and women’ are often overlooked. The boundaries […]
Read more
Rebecca Jewell grew up in Nigeria and North London and spent a year aged 18 in Papua New Guinea, where she encountered Birds of Paradise, Cockatoos, and Parrots. This was to have a huge impact on her life as an artist. After studying anthropology at Cambridge, she went on to do her PhD on Feather […]
Read more
SHNH summer meeting and AGM in association with the Geological Curators Group The King’s Manor, University of York Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th June 2019 This two day international meeting held in association with the Geological Curators’ Group will examine the role of agents, dealers and commercial enterprises in the history of natural history. A […]
Read more
The year is 1768, and Britain is in the throes of the Age of Enlightenment. As a group of artists agrees to found the Royal Academy, Captain James Cook sets sail on a voyage of discovery to track the transit of Venus and search for terra australis incognita – the unknown southern continent, as Europeans […]
Read more
Editor: Arthur MacGregor Interposed between the natural world in all its diversity and the edited form in which we encounter it in literature, imagery and the museum, lie the multiple practices of the naturalists in selecting, recording and preserving the specimens from which our world view is to be reconstituted. The factors that weigh at […]
Read more