Richard William Coppinger, (11 October 1847 – 2 April 1910) was a British Navy surgeon and naturalist. (The entry for Coppinger erroneously gives his place of death as

Farnham, Surrey Farnham ( /ˈfɑːnəm/) is a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around southwest of London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, close to the county border with Hampshire. The town is on the north branch of the River Wey, a tribu ...

Biography

Richard William Coppinger was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

on 11 October 1847. He graduated M.D. from the Queen's University of Ireland in 1870. He was a surgeon on HMS ''Alert'', for the ship's Arctic expedition from 1875 to 1876 and the ship's expedition and Pacific cruise, including the Patagonian coast, Polynesia, and the

Mascarene Islands The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Their ...

, from 1878 to 1882. Whilst on HMS ''Alert'', he collected botanical specimens from

Magellan Straits The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...

landfalls, Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, the

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, Singapore, and the

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, in addition to extensive zoological collections. In 1889 he was appointed instructor in hygiene at the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

's Royal Hospital Haslar at Gosport. In 1901 he was appointed Inspector-General of Hospitals and Ships. He married in 1884 and had three sons and one daughter. He died in Wallington on 2 April 1910.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coppinger, Richard William 1847 births 1910 deaths Royal Navy Medical Service officers British naturalists