George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

and author, and head of the

ornithological Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

section of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, now the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother of the zoologist

John Edward Gray John Edward Gray, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for ...

and the son of the botanist

Samuel Frederick Gray Samuel Frederick Gray (10 December 1766 – 12 April 1828) was a British botanist, mycologist, and pharmacologist. He was the father of the zoologists John Edward Gray and George Robert Gray. Background He was the son of Samuel Gray, a London s ...

. George Gray's most important publication was his ''Genera of Birds'' (1844–49), illustrated by

David William Mitchell David William Mitchell (4 August 1813 – 1 November 1859) was an English zoologist and illustrator. Life and work Mitchell was born in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, the eldest son of Alexander Mitchell of Gerard's Cross. He matricula ...

and

Joseph Wolf Joseph Wolf (22 January 1820 – 20 April 1899) was a German artist who specialized in natural history illustration. He moved to the British Museum in 1848 and became the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists including David Livi ...

, which included 46,000 references.

Biography

He was born in

Little Chelsea Little Chelsea was a hamlet, located on either side of Fulham Road, half a mile Southwest of Chelsea, London. The earliest references to the settlement date from the early 17th century, and the name continued to be used until the hamlet was surrou ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, to

, naturalist and pharmacologist, and Elizabeth (née Forfeit), his wife. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's School. Gray started at the

as Assistant Keeper of the

Zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...

Branch in 1831. He began by cataloguing insects, and published an ''Entomology of Australia'' (1833) and contributed the entomogical section to an English edition of Georges Cuvier's ''Animal Kingdom''. Gray described many

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of Lepidoptera. In 1833, he was a founder of what became the

Royal Entomological Society of London The Royal Entomological Society is devoted to the study of insects. Its aims are to disseminate information about insects and improving communication between entomologists. The society was founded in 1833 as the Entomological Society of Londo ...

. Gray's original description of

Gray's grasshopper warbler Gray's grasshopper warbler (''Helopsaltes fasciolatus''), also known as Gray's warbler, is a species of grass warbler in the family (biology), family Locustellidae; it was formerly included in the "Old World warbler" assemblage. The Sakhalin gra ...

, which was named for him, appeared in 1860. The specimen had been collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

. In a brief biography dealing with Gray's work on phasmids, BraggBragg, P.E. (2007) Biographies of Phasmatologists – 2. George Robert Gray. ''Phasmid Studies'', 15(1&2) 5–9. credits Gray with more than doubling the number of named species of phasmids with three publications (in 1833, 1835 and 1843); three species of phasmids were subsequently named after Gray.

Works

*1831 ''The Zoological Miscellany Zool. Miscell''. (1): 1–40 *1833 ''The Entomology of Australia, in a series of Monographs. Part I. The Monograph of the Genus Phasma''. London. *1835 ''Synopsis of the species of insects belonging to the family of Phasmidae.'' London, Longmans. 48pp. *1844 ''List of the specimens of birds in the collection of the British Museum.'' London, Trustees of the British Museum. *1846 ''Descriptions and Figures of some new Lepidopterous Insects chiefly from Nepal''. London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. *1843 ''Description of several species of the genus Phyllium. Zoologist,'' (1)1: 117–123. *1852 ''Catalogue of Lepidopterous Insects in the British Museum''. Part 1. Papilionidae. 853 Jan "1852" iii + 84pp., 13pls. *1871 ''A fasciculus of the Birds of China''. London, Taylor and Francis. *with

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his career he published several mo ...

, ''The Zoology of the Voyage of'' HMS Erebus & HMS Terror. ''Birds of New Zealand''., 1875. The revised edition of Gray (1846) (1875).

References

*''Biographies for Birdwatchers'', Mearns and Mearns,

External links

Plates and text from Gray's 1833 Monograph on PhasmidaeDigitised works by or about George Robert Gray
at Biodiversity Heritage Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, George Robert English taxonomists 1808 births 1872 deaths English ornithologists English lepidopterists Employees of the Natural History Museum, London Fellows of the Royal Society 19th-century British zoologists Scientists from London 19th-century English writers

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links