Francis Willughby - London, England, UK
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Metro2
N 51° 31.131 W 000° 07.573
30U E 699376 N 5711441
Francis Willughby was a prominent 17th century natural scientist in England.
Waymark Code: WMDKXH
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/28/2012
Views: 5
This life-sized terracotta bust of Francis Willughby is located in the British Museum which does not charge an admission fee...and DOES permit non-flash photography.
This bust is by Louis Francois Roubiliac and is dated c. 1751. It depicts Willughby as a young man, staring ahead with long hair. He wears a wide-collared button-down shirt with large tassels peaking out from under the collar.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Francis Willughby (sometimes spelt Willoughby) (22 November 1635 – 3 July 1672) was an English ornithologist and ichthyologist.[2] He was a student, friend and colleague of the naturalist John Ray at Cambridge University, and shared some of his expeditions and interests. Ray saw Willughby's Ornithologia libri tres through the press after Willughby's sudden death...
At Cambridge Francis Willughby was taught by the naturalist John Ray. In 1662 they travelled to the west coast of England to study the breeding seabirds. Between 1663 and 1666 they toured Europe together, travelling through the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. They separated at Naples and Willoughby returned home via Spain. On returning to England they made plans to publish the results of their studies. Willughby died from pleurisy during the preparation of this work, but Ray published Willughby's Ornithologia libri tres in 1676, with an English edition two years later. This is considered the beginning of scientific ornithology in Europe, revolutionizing ornithological taxonomy by organizing species according to their physical characteristics. Willughby and Ray were among the first to dismiss the older inaccuracies of Aristotle. Aristotle had claimed that swallows hibernated but Willughby and Ray (1678:212, quoted in Raven 1942:328) wrote: “To us it seems more probable that they fly away into hot countries, viz. Egypt, Ethiopia etc.” Ray also published Willughby's De Historia piscium (1686)."