George Kearsley Shaw (10 December 1751 – 22 July 1813) was an
English botanist
Botany, also called plant science (or plant sciences), plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "bo ...
and
zoologist.
Life
Shaw was born at
Bierton,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
, and was educated at
Magdalen Hall, Oxford, receiving his M.A. in 1772. He took up the profession of medical practitioner. In 1786 he became the assistant lecturer in botany at the
University of Oxford. He was a co-founder of the
Linnean Society in 1788, and became a fellow of the
Royal Society in 1789.
In 1791 Shaw became assistant keeper of the natural history department at the
British Museum, succeeding
Edward Whitaker Gray as keeper in 1806. He found that most of the items donated to the museum by
Hans Sloane were in very bad condition. Medical and anatomical material was sent to the museum at the
Royal College of Surgeons, but many of the stuffed animals and birds had deteriorated and had to be burnt. He was succeeded after his death by his assistant
Charles Konig.
Works
Shaw published one of the first English descriptions with scientific names of several Australian animals in his "Zoology of
New Holland" (1794). He was among the first scientists to examine a
platypus and published the first scientific description of it in ''The Naturalist's Miscellany'' in 1799.
In the field of
herpetology
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and rept ...
he described numerous new species of
reptiles
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...
and
amphibians
Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...
.
His other publications included:
*''Musei Leveriani explicatio, anglica et Latina
', containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir
Ashton Lever (1792–96), which had been moved to be displayed at the
Blackfriars Rotunda.
*''General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History'' (16 vol.) (1809–1826) (volumes IX to XVI by
James Francis Stephens*''The Naturalist's Miscellany: Or, Coloured Figures of Natural Objects; Drawn and Described Immediately From Nature'' (1789–1813) with
Frederick Polydore Nodder (artist and engraver).
The standard
botanical author abbreviation
In botanical nomenclature, author citation is the way of citing the person or group of people who validly published a botanical name, i.e. who first published the name while fulfilling the formal requirements as specified by the ''International Cod ...
G.Shaw is applied to
species he described.
References
*Mullens and Swann - ''A Bibliography of British Ornithology'' (1917)
*William T. Stearn - ''The Natural History Museum at South Kensington''
External links
Zoologica Göttingen State and University Library Digitised 'The Naturalist's Miscellany'' and ''Musei Leveriani explicatio''
1751 births
1813 deaths
18th-century British botanists
English zoologists
British mammalogists
Botanists with author abbreviations
Fellows of the Royal Society
Fellows of the Linnean Society of London
Alumni of Magdalen Hall, Oxford
Employees of the British Museum
19th-century British botanists
{{UK-zoologist-stub