George Brettingham Sowerby I (12 August 1788 – 26 July 1854) was a British naturalist, illustrator and

conchologist Conchology () is the study of mollusc shells. Conchology is one aspect of malacology, the study of molluscs; however, malacology is the study of molluscs as whole organisms, whereas conchology is confined to the study of their shells. It includ ...

Life

He was the second son of

James Sowerby James Sowerby (21 March 1757 – 25 October 1822) was an English naturalist, illustrator and mineralogist. Contributions to published works, such as ''A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland'' or ''English Botany'', include his detailed and app ...

. George was educated at home under private tutors, and afterwards assisted his father in the production of illustrated works on natural history. On the latter's death in 1822, he and his brother

James De Carle Sowerby James De Carle Sowerby (5 June 1787 – 26 August 1871) was a British mineralogist, botanist, and illustrator. He received an education in chemistry. Sowerby was born in London, the son of botanical artist James Sowerby (1757–1822), and his ...

continued their father's work on

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

shells, publishing the latter parts of the ''Mineral Conchology of Great Britain''. He published about 50 papers on

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

s and started several comprehensive, illustrated books on the subject, the most important the ''Thesaurus Conchyliorum'', a work that was continued by his son,

George Brettingham Sowerby II George Brettingham Sowerby II (1812 – 26 July 1884) was a British naturalist, illustrator, and conchologist. Together with his father, George Brettingham Sowerby I, he published the ''Thesaurus Conchyliorum'' and other illustrated works o ...

and his grandson

George Brettingham Sowerby III George Brettingham Sowerby III (16 September 1843 – 31 January 1921) was a British conchologist, publisher, and illustrator. He, too, worked (like his father George Brettingham Sowerby II and his grandfather George Brettingham Sowerby I) on the ...

. One of his first works was the cataloguing of the collection of the

Earl of Tankerville Earl of Tankerville is a noble title drawn from Tancarville in Normandy. The title has been created three times: twice in the Peerage of England, and once (in 1714) in the Peerage of Great Britain for Charles Bennet, 2nd Baron Ossulston. His f ...

. He also dealt in shells and natural history objects, his place of business being first in King Street, Covent Garden, from which he removed to Regent Street, and finally to Great Russell Street. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society on 5 March 1811. He died at Hanley Road, Hornsey, on 26 July 1854 and is buried on the west side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Grave of George Brettingham Sowerby in Highgate Cemetery

Family

By his wife Elizabeth (second daughter of Nicholas and Mary Meredith), whom he married on 16 April 1811, he had two sons, George Brettingham II and Henry (1825–1891), and a daughter, Charlotte Caroline, who became a botanical illustrator. George's son Henry was born in Kensington on 28 March 1825. He was educated at Bickerdike's school, Kentish Town, and University College, Gower Street. From 1843 to 1852 he was assistant curator/librarian to the Linnean Society. He went out to Australia in 1854, and became draughtsman at the Melbourne University, and subsequently teacher of drawing in the state schools. During the last twenty years of his life he devoted himself to gold mining. He died near Melbourne on 15 Sept. 1891, having married, in April 1847, Miss Annie Faulkner. He wrote for Reeve's popular handbooks 'Popular Mineralogy,' London, 1850, and illustrated various books such as ''Flora Homoeopathica'' of Edward Hamilton which appeared in 1852–53.

Works

Partial list *
''A Conchological Manual''
(1839) * ''Thesaurus Conchyliorum'' * ''Illustrated Index of British Shells'' (1859) * ''A descriptive catalogue of the species of Leach's genus Margarita''. Malacological and Conchological Magazine 1: 23–27 (1838). Henry A. Pilsbry did not think much of this work and said: "His monograph of ''Margarita'' in Reeve's Iconica contains more blunders than any work I have ever seen, unless some other papers by the same author prove to be exceptions."Tryon (1889), Manual of Conchology XI, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; p. 295
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Determined species by Sowerby I

Many species were first described by Sowerby I, for example *''

Lottia gigantea ''Lottia gigantea'', common name the owl limpet, is a species of sea snail, a true limpet, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Lottiidae. Its genome has beesequencedat the Joint Genome Institute. Distribution The owl limpet is found on the ...

'' *''

Diodora calyculata ''Diodora calyculata'' is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Fissurellidae, the keyhole limpets and slit limpets.Rosenberg, G. (2012). ''Diodora calyculata'' (Sowerby I, 1823). Accessed through: World Register of Ma ...

'' *''

Diodora ruepellii ''Diodora rueppellii'', common name the Rüppell's keyhole limpet, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Fissurellidae, the keyhole limpets. Description ''Diodora ruppellii'' has a shell with a whitish exterior m ...

References

External links