Sir 'Richard Owen'
KCB (
July 20 1804–
December 18 1892) was an
English biologist,
comparative anatomist and
palaeontologist. He was widely regarded as malicious and dishonest but he was also one of the most brilliant and influential biologists of his time.
Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word ''
Dinosauria'' and for his outspoken opposition to
Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution by
natural selection. He was the driving force behind the establishment, in 1881, of the
British Museum of Natural History in
London.
Bill Bryson argues that, "by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for".
[1]
Early life and career
Owen was born in
Lancaster and educated at
Lancaster Royal Grammar School. In 1820, he was apprenticed to a local
surgeon and
apothecary and, in 1824, he proceeded as a medical student to the
university of Edinburgh. He left the university in the following year and completed his medical course in
St Bartholomew's Hospital,
London, where he came under the influence of the eminent surgeon,
John Abernethy.
He then contemplated the usual professional career but his bent was evidently in the direction of anatomical research. He was induced by Abernethy to accept the position of assistant to
William Clift, conservator of the museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons. This congenial occupation soon led him to abandon his intention of medical practice and his life henceforth was devoted to purely scientific labours. He prepared an important series of catalogues of the Hunterian collection, in the Royal College of Surgeons and, in the course of this work, he acquired the unrivalled knowledge of comparative anatomy, which enabled him to enrich all departments of the science and especially facilitated his researches on the remains of
extinct animals. In 1836, he was appointed Hunterian professor, in the Royal College of Surgeons and, in 1849, he succeeded Clift as conservator. He held the latter office until 1856, when he became superintendent of the natural history department of the
British Museum. He then devoted much of his energies to a great scheme for a National Museum of Natural History, which eventually resulted in the removal of the natural history collections of the British Museum to a new building at
South Kensington: the British Museum of Natural History (now the
Natural History Museum). He retained office until the completion of this work, in 1884, when he was made a knight of the
Order of the Bath. He lived quietly in retirement at Sheen Lodge,
Richmond Park, until his death in 1892.
His career was tainted by accusations that he failed to give credit to the work of others and even tried to appropriate it in his own name. This came to a head in 1846, when he was awarded the
Royal Medal for a paper he had written on
belemnites. Owen had failed to acknowledge that the belemnite had been discovered by Chaning Pearce, an amateur biologist, four years earlier. As a result of the ensuing scandal, he was voted off the councils of the
Zoological Society and the
Royal Society.
Owen always tended to support orthodox men of science and the status quo. His somewhat fawning elitism attracted elite conservative patrons. The royal family presented him with the cottage in Richmond Park and
Robert Peel put him on the
Civil List.
Work on invertebrates
While occupied with the cataloguing of the Hunterian collection, Owen did not confine his attention to the preparations before him but also seized every opportunity to dissect fresh subjects. He was especially favoured with the privilege of investigating the animals which died in the
Zoological Society's gardens and, when that society began to publish scientific proceedings, in 1831, he was the most voluminous contributor of anatomical papers. His first notable publication, however, was his ''Memoir on the Pearly
Nautilus'' (London, 1832), which was soon recognized as a classic. Henceforth, he continued to make important contributions to every department of comparative anatomy and
zoology, for a period of over fifty years. In the sponges, Owen was the first to describe the now well-known
Venus' Flower Basket or ''Euplectella'' (1841, 1857). Among Entozoa, his most noteworthy discovery was that of ''Trichina spiralis'' (1835), the parasite infesting the muscles of man in the disease now termed
trichinosis (see also, however,
Sir James Paget). Of
Brachiopoda he made very special studies, which much advanced knowledge and settled the classification, which has long been adopted. Among
Mollusca, he not only described the pearly nautilus, but also
Spirula (1850) and other
Cephalopoda, both living and extinct and it was he who proposed the universally-accepted subdivision of this class into the two orders of Dibranchiata and Tetrabranchiata (1832). The problematical
Arthropod Limulus was also the subject of a special memoir by him, in 1873.
Work on fish, reptiles and birds
Owen's technical descriptions of the
Vertebrata were still more numerous and extensive than those of the
invertebrate animals. His ''Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates'' (3 vols., London, 1866-1868) was indeed the result of more personal research than any similar work since
Georges Cuvier's ''Leçons d'anatomie comparée''. He not only studied existing forms but also devoted great attention to the remains of
extinct groups and immediately followed Cuvier, as a pioneer in
vertebrate paleontology. Early in his career, he made exhaustive studies of
teeth, both of existing and extinct animals and published his profusely illustrated work on
Odontography (1840-1845). He discovered and described the remarkably complex structure of the
teeth of the extinct animals which he named
Labyrinthodonts. Among his writings on
fishes, his memoir on the African lungfish, which he named ''
Protopterus'', laid the foundations for the recognition of the
Dipnoi by
Johannes Muller. He also later pointed out the serial connection between the
teleostean and
ganoid fishes, grouping them in one sub-class, the
Teleostomi.
Most of his work on
reptiles related to the
skeletons of extinct forms and his chief memoirs, on British specimens, were reprinted in a connected series in his ''History of British Fossil Reptiles'' (4 vols., London, 1849-1884). He published the first important general account of the great group of
Mesozoic land-reptiles, to which he gave the now familiar name of
Dinosauria. He also first recognized the curious early Mesozoic land-reptiles, with affinities both to
amphibians and
mammals, which he termed Anomodontia. Most of these were obtained from
South Africa, beginning in 1845 (''
Dicynodon'') and eventually furnished materials for his ''Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia of South Africa'', issued by the
British Museum, in 1876. Among his writings on
birds, his classical memoir on the
kiwi (1840-1846), a long series of papers on the extinct
dinornithidae of
New Zealand, other memoirs on
aptornis, the
takahe, the
dodo and the
Great Auk, may be especially mentioned. His monograph on ''
Archaeopteryx'' (1863), the long-tailed, toothed bird from the
Bavarian lithographic stone, is also an epoch-making work.
With
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Owen helped create the first life-size sculptures depicting dinosaurs as they may have appeared. Some models were initially created for the
Great Exhibition of 1851 but 33 were eventually produced, when
the Crystal Palace was relocated to
Sydenham, in south London. Owen famously hosted a dinner for 21 prominent men of science inside the hollow concrete ''
Iguanodon'' on
New Year's Eve, 1853.
Work on mammals
With regard to living mammals, the more striking of Owen's contributions relate to the
monotremes,
marsupials and the anthropoid
apes. He was also the first to recognize and name the two natural groups of typical Ungulate, the odd-toed (
Perissodactyla) and the even-toed (
Artiodactyla), while describing some fossil remains, in 1848. Most of his writings on mammals, however, deal with extinct forms, to which his attention seems to have been first directed by the remarkable fossils collected by
Charles Darwin, in
South America.
Toxodon, from the
pampas, was then described and gave the earliest clear evidence of an extinct generalized hoof animal, a pachyderm with affinities to the
Rodentia,
Edentata and
herbivorous Cetacea. Owen's interest in South American extinct mammals then led to the recognition of the giant
armadillo, which he named
Glyptodon (1839) and to classic memoirs on the giant
ground-sloths,
Mylodon (1842) and
Megatherium (1860), besides other important contributions.
At the same time, Sir
Thomas Mitchell's discovery of fossil bones, in
New South Wales, provided material for the first of Owen's long series of papers on the extinct mammals of
Australia, which were eventually reprinted in book-form in 1877. He discovered Diprotodon and Thylacoleo, besides extinct
kangaroos and
wombats, of gigantic size. While occupied with so much material from abroad, Owen was also busily collecting facts for an exhaustive work on similar fossils from the British Isles and, in 1844-1846, he published his ''History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds'', which was followed by many later memoirs, notably his ''Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia of the Mesozoic Formations'' (Palaeont. Soc., 1871). One of his latest publications was a little work entitled ''Antiquity of Man as deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton during Excavations of the Docks at Tilbury'' (London, 1884).
Owen and Darwin's theory of evolution
Following
the voyage of the ''Beagle'',
Darwin had at his disposal a considerable collection of specimens and, on
29 October 1836, he was introduced by
Charles Lyell to Owen, who agreed to work on fossil bones collected in
South America. Owen's subsequent revelations, that the extinct giant creatures were rodents and sloths, showed that they were related to current species in the same locality, rather than being relatives of similarly sized creatures in
Africa, as Darwin had originally thought. This was one of the many influences which lead Darwin to later formulate his own ideas on the concept of
natural selection.
At this time, Owen talked of his theories, influenced by
Johannes Peter Müller, that living matter had an ''"organising energy"'', a life-force that directed the growth of tissues and also determined the lifespan of the individual and of the species. Darwin was reticent about his own thoughts, understandably, when, on
19 December 1838, as secretary of the
Geological Society of London, he saw Owen and his allies ridicule the
Lamarckian 'heresy' of Darwin's old tutor,
Robert Edmund Grant. In 1841, when the recently married Darwin was ill, Owen was one of the few scientific friends to visit; however, Owen's opposition to any hint of
Transmutation made Darwin keep quiet about his hypothesis.
During the
development of Darwin's theory, his investigation of barnacles showed, in 1849, how their segmentation related to other crustaceans, showing how they had diverged from their relatives. To Owen such "homologies" in comparative anatomy showed "archetypes" in the Divine mind but to Darwin this was evidence of Descent. Owen demonstrated fossil evidence of an evolutionary sequence of horses, as supporting his idea of development from archetypes in ''"ordained continuous becoming"'' and, in 1854, gave a
British Association talk on the impossibility of bestial apes, such as the recently discovered
gorilla, standing erect and being transmuted into men. Working class militants were trumpeting man's monkey origins. To crush these ideas, Owen, as President-elect of the Royal Association, announced his authoritative anatomical studies of primate brains, claiming that the human brain had structures that apes brains did not, and that therefore humans were a separate sub-class. Darwin wrote that ''"I cannot swallow Man [being that] distinct from a Chimpanzee".'' The combative
Thomas Henry Huxley used his March 1858
Royal Institution lecture to deny Owen's claim and that, structurally, gorillas are as close to humans as they are to
baboons. He believed that the ''"mental & moral faculties are essentially... the same kind in animals & ourselves".'' This was a clear denial of Owen's claim for human uniqueness, given at the same venue.
On the
publication of Darwin's theory, in ''
The Origin of Species'', he sent a complimentary copy to Owen, saying "it will seem 'an abomination'". Owen was the first to respond, courteously claiming that he had long believed that "existing influences" were responsible for the "ordained" birth of species. Darwin now had long talks with him and Owen said that the book offered the best explanation "ever published of the manner of formation of species", although he still had the gravest doubts that transmutation would bestialize man. It appears that Darwin had assured Owen that he was looking at everything as resulting from designed laws, which Owen interpreted as showing a shared belief in "Creative Power".
In his lofty position at the head of Science, Owen received numerous complaints about the book. His own position remained unknown: when emphasising to a Parliamentary committee the need for a new Natural History museum, he pointed out that ''"The whole intellectual world this year has been excited by a book on the origin of species; and what is the consequence? Visitors come to the British Museum, and they say, "Let us see all these varieties of pigeons: where is the tumbler, where is the pouter?" and I am obliged with shame to say, I can show you none of them".... As to showing you the varieties of those species, or of any of those phenomena that would aid one in getting at that mystery of mysteries, the origin of species, our space does not permit; but surely there ought to be a space somewhere, and, if not in the British Museum, where is it to be obtained?"''
However, Huxley's attacks were making their mark. When Owen's ''Edinburgh'' review of the ''Origin'' appeared, in April 1860, he showed his anger at what he saw as Darwin's caricature of the creationist position and his ignoring Owen's ''"axiom of the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things".'' To him, new species appeared at birth, not through natural selection. As well as attacking Darwin's ''"disciples",'' Hooker and Huxley, for their ''"short-sighted adherence",'' he thought that the book symbolised the sort of ''"abuse of science... to which a neighbouring nation, some seventy years since, owed its temporary degradation"'' in a reference to the
French Revolution. Darwin thought it ''"Spiteful, extremely malignant, clever, and... damaging"'' and later commented that ''"The Londoners say he is mad with envy because my book is so talked about. It is painful to be hated in the intense degree with which Owen hates me."''
During the
reaction to Darwin's theory, Huxley's arguments with Owen continued. Owen tried to smear Huxley, by portraying him as an ''"advocate of man's origins from a transmuted ape"'' and one of his contributions to the ''Athenaeum'' was titled ''"Ape-Origin of Man as Tested by the Brain".'' In 1862 (and on other occasions) Huxley took the opportunity to arrange demonstrations of ape brain anatomy (e.g. at the BA meeting, where
William Flower performed the dissection). Visual evidence of the supposedly missing structures (
posterior cornu and
hippocampus) was used, in effect, to indict Owen for perjury. The campaign ran over two years and was devastatingly successful, with each ''"slaying"'' being followed by a recruiting drive for the Darwinian cause. The spite lingered. When Huxley joined the Zoological Society Council, in 1861, Owen left and, in the following year, Huxley moved to stop Owen from being elected to the Royal Society Council, accusing him ''"of wilful & deliberate falsehood".'' (See also Wiki
Thomas Henry Huxley page)
In January 1863, Owen bought the
archaeopteryx fossil for the
British Museum. It fulfilled Darwin's prediction, that a proto-bird with unfused wing fingers would be found, although Owen described it unequivocally as a bird.
The feuding between Owen and Darwin's supporters continued. In 1871, Owen was found to be involved in a threat to end government funding of
Joseph Dalton Hooker's botanical collection, at
Kew, possibly trying to bring it under his
British Museum. Darwin commented that ''"I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred & contempt to the last days of my life".''
Legacy
Owen's detailed memoirs and descriptions require laborious attention in reading, on account of their complex terminology and ambiguous modes of expression. The fact that very little of his terminology has found universal favour causes them to be more generally neglected than they otherwise would be. At the same time, it must be remembered that he was a pioneer in concise anatomical nomenclature and, so far at least as the vertebrate skeleton is concerned, his terms were based on a carefully-reasoned philosophical scheme, which first clearly distinguished between the now-familiar phenomena of
analogy and
homology. Owen's theory of the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton (1848), subsequently illustrated also by his little work ''On the Nature of Limbs'' (1849), regarded the vertebrate frame as consisting of a series of fundamentally identical segments, each modified according to its position and functions. Much of it was fanciful and failed when tested by the facts of
embryology, which Owen systematically ignored, throughout his work. However, though an imperfect and distorted view of certain great truths, it possessed a distinct value at the time of its conception.
To the discussion of the deeper problems of biological philosophy, he made scarcely any direct and definite contributions. His generalities rarely extended beyond strict comparative anatomy, the phenomena of adaptation to function and the facts of geographical or geological distribution. His lecture on virgin reproduction or
parthenogenesis, however, published in 1849, contained the essence of the
germ plasm theory, elaborated later by
August Weismann and he made several vague statements concerning the geological succession of genera and species of animals and their possible derivation one from another. He referred, especially, to the changes exhibited by the successive forerunners of the
crocodiles (1884) and
horses (1868) but it has never become clear how much of the modern doctrines of organic evolution he admitted. He contented himself with the bare remark that "the inductive demonstration of the nature and mode of operation of the laws governing life would henceforth be the great aim of the philosophical naturalist."
Controversy
Owen has been described by some as a malicious, dishonest and hateful individual. He has been described in one biography as being a ''"social experementer with a penchant for sadism. Addicted to controversy and driven by arrogance and jealousy."''
Deborah Cadbury stated that Owen possessed an ''"almost fanatical egoism with a callous delight in savaging his critics."'' Indeed, an
Oxford University professor once described Owen as ''"a damned liar. He lied for God and for malice."''
[2] Gideon Mantell claimed it was ''"a pity a man so talented should be so dastardly and envious."''
A ''Vanity fair'' cartoon depicting Owen riding a
Megatherium skeleton.
Owen famously credited himself and
Georges Cuvier with the discovery of the ''
Iguanodon'', completely excluding any credit for the original discoverer of the dinosaur,
Gideon Mantell. This was not the first or last time Owen would deliberately claim a discovery as his own, when in fact it was not.
It has been suggested by some authors, including
Bill Bryson in ''
A Short History of Nearly Everything'', that Owen even used his influence in the
Royal Society to ensure that many of Mantell’s research papers were never published.
Despite originally starting out on good terms with Darwin, he turned on him savagely at the first opportunity, despite knowing enough anatomy to understand the explanatory power of Darwin’s theory. The reason for this, some historians claim, was that Owen felt upstaged by Darwin and supporters such as Huxley, and his judgment was clouded by jealousy. That’s what Darwin himself believed: Owen in his opinion was ''"Spiteful, extremely malignant, clever."'' ; ''"The Londoners say he is mad with envy because my book is so talked about."''
[3] ''"It is painful to be hated in the intense degree with which Owen hates me."''
[4]
He was also involved in a threat to end government funding of Joseph Dalton Hooker's botanical collection, at Kew, out of what appears to be a mixture of wanting it under his control at the British Museum and pure spite.
When Mantell suffered an accident that left him permanently crippled, Owen exploited the opportunity by renaming several dinosaurs which had already been named by Mantell, even having the audacity to claim credit for their discovery himself. When Mantell finally died in 1852, an obituary carrying no byline derided Mantell as little more than a mediocre scientist, who brought forth few notable contributions. The obituary’s authorship was universally attributed to Owen, by every local geologist. The president of the Geological society claimed that it ''"Bespeaks of the lamentable coldness of the heart of the writer."'' He was subsequently denied the presidency of the society for his repeated and pointed antagonism towards Gideon Mantell.
Even more extraordinary was the way Owen ignored the genuine scientific content of Mantell's work. For example, despite the paucity of finds Mantell had worked out that some dinosaurs were bipedal, including ''
Iguanodon''. This remarkable insight was totally ignored by Owen, whose instructions for the Crystal Palace models by Waterhouse Hawkins portrayed ''Iguanodon'' as grossly overweight and quadrupedal, with its misidentified thumb on its nose. Mantell did not live to witness the discovery in 1878 of articulated skeletons in a Belgium coal-mine that showed ''Iguanodon'' was mostly bipedal (and in that stance could use its thumb for defence). Owen made no comment or retraction; he never did. Moreover, since the earliest known dinosaurs were bipedal, Mantell's idea was indeed perspicacious.
Owen was finally dismissed from the Royal Society's Zoological Council for
plagiarism.
However, the portrayal of Owen as a villain was fostered and encouraged by his rivals, particularly Huxley, and may be somewhat undeserved. He was clearly one of the greatest scientific figures of the age. Despite his feuding his brilliant career continued until his official retirement at the age of 79, and he then continued with his work and observations.
[5]
"Owen: the most distinguished vertebrate zoologist and palaeontologist... but a most deceitful and odious man"
Richard Broke Freeman (''Charles Darwin: a Companion''. Dawson 1978)
"No one fact tels so strongly against Owen... as that he has never reared one pupil or follower." Charles Darwin to
Asa Gray, 1860. (''More Letters of C.D'' p153)
Citations
1. Bryson (2003), p. 81.
2. Rocky Road: Sir Richard Owen
3. Darwin 1887, p.149
4. Darwin & Seward 1903, p.300
5. Sir Richard Owen: the archetypal villain
References
★
A Short History of Nearly Everything, , Bill, Bryson, Doubleday, ,
★
Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science, , Deborah, Cadbury, Henry Holt, ,
★ Desmond, Adrian &
Moore, James [1911]. ''Darwin''. London: Michael Joseph, the Penguin Group. ISBN 0-7181-3430-3.
★
Darwin, Francis, editor [1887]. ''The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter'' (7th Edition). London:
John Murray.
★ Darwin, Francis & Seward, A. C., editors [1903]. ''More letters of Charles Darwin: A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters''. London: John Murray.
★ Owen, Richard (Owen's grandson) [1894]. ''The Life of Richard Owen''. London, A. S. Wo.
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