CfP now closed: Pioneer Naturalists: Champions of Conservation and Environmental Engagement, Cambridge, June 2020

December 16, 2019

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 […]

Nominate someone for the SHNH Founders Medal awarded for making a substantial contribution to the study of the history or bibliography of #NaturalHistory

November 18, 2019

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.

SHNH William T. Stearn Essay Prize 2019 awarded to Nathan Smith (Cambridge)

October 13, 2019

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 […]

SHNH congratulates its medal winners Professor David Mabberley & Dr Henry Noltie

June 17, 2019

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 […]

Last chance to register for meeting on #TradingNature in York on 4-5 June 2019

May 13, 2019

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 […]

Rebecca Jewell Exhibition at the Catto Gallery Thursday 7 – Monday 25 February

January 30, 2019

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 […]

CfP Trading Nature. Joint Meeting of SHNH & Geological Curators Group in York, 4-5 June 2019

November 7, 2018

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 […]

Oceania exhibition at the Royal Academy London, marking 250 years since Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific. 29 September — 10 December 2018

October 15, 2018

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 […]

New Publication: Naturalists in the Field Collecting, Recording and Preserving the Natural World from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century

May 31, 2018

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 […]

ABA Rare Book Fair London on 24 May 2018 at Battersea Evolution to be opened by Sir David Attenborough.

April 30, 2018

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association are delighted that Sir David Attenborough will open the 61st edition of ABA Rare Book Fair London on 24 May 2018 at Battersea Evolution. Over 170 leading booksellers from around the world will gather for the 61st edition of ABA Rare Book Fair London from 24 – 26 May which will […]

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