Everything about Swainson totally explained
William John Swainson FLS,
FRS (
8 October 1789 –
6 December 1855), was an
English ornithologist,
malacologist,
conchologist,
entomologist and
artist.
Swainson was born in Dover Place, St. Mary Newington,
London, the eldest son of
John Timothy Swainson, an original fellow of the
Linnean Society. He was cousin of the amateur botanist
Isaac Swainson. His father's family originated in Lancashire, and both grandfather and father held high posts in Her Majesty's Customs, the father becoming Collector at Liverpool. William, whose formal education was curtailed because of an impediment in his speech, joined the
Liverpool Customs as a junior clerk at the age of 14. He joined the Army Comissariat and toured Malta and Sicily He studied the
ichthyology of western
Sicily and in 1815, he was forced by ill health to return to England where he subsequently retired on half pay. William followed in his father's footsteps to become a fellow of the
Linnean Society in
1815.
In 1816 he went with the explorer Henry Koster to Brazil. Henry Koster had travelled to Brazil once before and became famous for his book
Travels in Brazil. There he met Dr
Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff, a Consul General of Russia and explorer of Brazil. They didn't spend a long time on shore because of a revolution, but Swainson returned to England in 1818 in his words “a bee loaded with honey”, with a collection of over 20,000
insects, 1,200
species of
plants, drawings of 120 species of
fishes, and about 760
bird skins.
As with many Victorian scientists, Swainson was also a member of many learned societies, including the
Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. He was elected a fellow to the
Royal Society after his return from Brazil on
14 December 1820, and married his first wife Mary Parkes in
1823, with whom he'd four sons and a daughter. Mary died in
1835. Swainson was at times quite critical of the works of others, and later in life others in turn became quite critical of his. .
Works on natural history
Apart from the common and scientific names of many species, it's the quality of his illustrations that he's best remembered for. His friend
William Elford Leach, head of zoology at the
British Museum encouraged him to experiment with
lithography for his book
Zoological Illustrations (1820-23). Swainson became the first illustrator and naturalist to use lithography, which was a relatively cheap means of production and didn't require an engraver. He began publishing many illustrated works, mostly serially. Subscribers received and paid for small sections of the books as they came out, so that the cash flow was constant and could be reinvested in the preparation of subsequent parts. As book orders arrived, the monochrome lithography prints were hand-coloured, according to colour reference images, known as ‘pattern plates’, which were produced by Swainson himself. It was his early adoption of this new technology and his natural skill of illustration that in large part led to his fame.
When Leach was forced to resign from the
British Museum due to ill health, Swainson applied to replace him, but the post was given to
John George Children. Swainson continued with his writing, the most influential of which was the second volume of
Fauna Boreali-Americana (1831) which he co-authored with
John Richardson. This series (1829-1837) was the first illustrated zoological study to be in-part funded by the British government. He also produced a second series of
Zoological Illustrations (1832-33), three volumes of
Jardine's
Naturalist's Library, and eleven volumes of
Lardner's
Cabinet Cyclopedia; he'd signed a contract with Longman to produce fourteen illustrated volumes of 300 pages in this series, one to be produced quarterly.
Classification of natural history
In 1819
William Sharp MacLeay had published his ideas of the
Quinarian system of biological classification, and Swainson soon became a noted and outspoken proponent. The Quinarian System later fell out of favour in favour of the mapmaking theory of
Hugh Edwin Strickland. Swainson was overworked by Lardner, and both Swainson and MacLeay became derided for their support of the Quinarian system. Both proponents left England; Swainson emigrated to New Zealand and MacLeay to Australia. An American visiting Australasia in the 1850s heard to his surprise that both MacLeay and Swainson were living there, and imagined that they'd been exiled to the Antipodes
'for the great crime of burdening zoology with a false though much laboured theory which has thrown so much confusion into the subject of its classification and philosophical study'.
New Zealand estate
In
1839 he became a member of the committee of the
New Zealand Company and of the
Church of England committee for the appointment of a bishop to New Zealand, bought land in Wellington, and gave up scientific literary work. He married his second wife Anne Grasby (housekeeper) in
1840. He was apparently the first Fellow of the Royal Society to move to New Zealand. He was later made an honorary Fellow of the
Royal Society of Tasmania.
Together with most of his children from his first marriage, they sailed for New Zealand in the
Jane, reaching Wellington, in the summer of
1841. The trip wasn't without incident, as the boat suffered damage en route and was in such a poor state that there was legal action on arrival. He purchased in the
Hutt Valley from the
New Zealand Company, and established his estate of "Hawkshead". Not coincidentally, this name was shared by an ancestral home in Hawkshead, Lancashire of the Swainson family, which was the birthplace of
Isaac Swainson. After a few months, this estate was claimed by a Maori chief
Taringakuri, which led to years of uncertainty and threat. He was an officer in a militia against in the Maoris in 1846. During these times he was largely dependent on his half pay.
Botanical studies in Australia
In 1851 Swainson sailed to
Sydney and he took the post of Botanical Surveyor in 1852 with the
Victoria Government, after being invited by the
Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe to study local trees. He finished his report in 1853 in which he claimed a grand total of 1520 species and varieties of
Eucalyptidae. He identified so many species of
Casuarina that he ran out of names for them.
While having quite some expertise in
zoology, his untrained foray into
botany wasn't well received.
William Jackson Hooker wrote to
Ferdinand von Mueller:
In my life I think I never read such a series of trash and nonsense. There is a man who left this country with the character of a first rate naturalist (though with many eccentricities) and of a very first-rate Natural History artist and he goes to Australia and takes up the subject of Botany, of which he's as ignorant as a goose.
Joseph Maiden described Swainson's efforts as
an exhibition of reckless species-making that, as far as I know stands unparalleled in the annals of botanical literature.
He had studied the flora of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania before his return to New Zealand in 1854 to live at Fern Grove in the Hutt, where he died the following year. In 1856, a poem was written by the New Zealand poet William Golder in his memory.
Common confusions regarding William Swainson
- William Swainson is frequently credited with having the genus Swainsona named after him, and specifically Sturt's Desert Pea the official floral emblem of South Australia. Although he did botanical work in this region, Swainsona is named after his cousin Isaac Swainson (1746-1812), who never travelled to this region.
- William Swainson is frequently confused with William Swainson (lawyer) (1809-1884). They are almost certainly related, both travelled to New Zealand in 1841 and ultimately died there, and both published books. However, the latter had a legal background, was the second Attorney-General of the Crown Colony of New Zealand, and his publications were limited to books concerning Auckland and the early colonization of New Zealand.
Common names of species named after William Swainson
Many birds retain a common name after Swainson, several of which were named by famous naturalists of the period. Many species or subspecies retain his name, although many of his own species were later discredited or merged with others.
John James Audubon named Swainson's Warbler Limnothlypis swainsonii
Charles Lucien Bonaparte named Swainson's Hawk Buteo swainsoni
Thomas Nuttall named Swainson's Thrush Catharus ustulatus
Swainson's Francolin Francolinus swainsonii
Swainson's Sparrow Passer swainsonii
Swainson's Antcatcher Myrmeciza longipes
Swainson's Fire-eye Pyriglena atra
Swainson's Flycatcher Myiarchus swainsoni
Swainson's Toucan Ramphastos SwainsoniiFurther Information
Get more info on 'Swainson'.
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