THE VANQUISHER VANQUISHED

 

See Also: THE CANNIBAL DEAN; CHARLES DARWIN T.H. Huxley; PHYSIOLOGY The Hunterian Collection; MUSEUMS The Grant Museum; THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM; UNIVERSITIES Imperial College, T.H. Huxley

In 1800 the government had purchased John Hunter's collection of anatomical specimens. This had been lodged with the Royal College of Surgeons. The body had stated that it would produce a catalogue of the material so that its use could be facilitated.

In the mid-1820s Thomas Wakley and his progressive medical journal The Lancet set themselves against the College in its unreformed condition. The institution's failure to create a systematic description of the assemblage's contents furnished the publication with a clear instance of one of the organisation's failings. To address the criticism, the College committed resources to producing the reference work. Richard Owen, a physician by training, was appointed to act as an assistant conservator on the project.

Owen developed close links to the Zoological Society of London. In the early 1830s he was active as a comparative anatomist. His work was profoundly influenced by that of the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. Owen focused on vertebrates. He showed himself to be open to studying the new species of animals that were being discovered around the world.1 He fostered a relationship with the Rev Professor William Buckland.2 Under the don's influence, the lapsed doctor extended his range to palaeontology. This broadening of his interests was underscored in 1836 when H.M.S. Beagle completed her global circumnavigation. The specimens that Charles Darwin had collected during the voyage indicated new avenues for research that might be pursued.

The College promoted Owen to be its conservator in 1842. He was now a major figure in London s scientific circles. He appreciated that biology was changing. It was seeking to address the question of how species had originated. He felt a need to participate in the debate. However, he had limited abilities as a theorist and made no contributions that proved to be durable. Young British natural scientists were becoming receptive to the new physiological ideas that were emerging from Germany. The regard in which Owen's relatively inflexible Cuvierian approach was held began to decline.

During the course of the 1840s Owen had come to find his situation within the College to be increasingly restrictive. In 1851 he applied to be appointed as the head of the British Museum's geology department. He was passed over. The same year T.H. Huxley returned from his own extended sea voyage. He made adverse public criticisms of the conservator's work. However, within the government/scientific nexus Owen remained a prominent figure. In 1856 the superintendency of the Museum's natural history collection was conferred upon him.

In 1860 the Edinburgh Review published Owen's dyspeptic review of Darwin's Origin of Species. Huxley responded to this by attacking the superintendent's scholarship. Owen replied in kind. The exchange had the effect of sidelining the museum official from the biological community. His subsequent publications were overwhelmingly about palaeontological subjects. Just as Robert Grant had failed to keep up with scientific thought in the 1830s, so Owen had in the 1850s. He continued to be a culturally-f ted figure, however, he had become a scholar of marginal standing in the field in which he had forged his intellectual reputation.

During the 1860s and 1870s Owen played the leading role in creating the Natural History Museum.

Location: The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3PE (orange, brown)

1. It was Owen who proved that the platypus was a real animal and not an elaborate hoax.

2. Buckland's ecclesiastical career was aided by Tory politicians the 2nd Earl of Liverpool and Sir Robert Peel.

David Backhouse 2024