William Thompson (naturalist)

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William Thompson (1805–1852) was an Irish naturalist celebrated for his founding studies of the Natural History of Ireland. He was especially interested in ornithology.

The eldest son of a linen merchant, Thompson attended the newly formed Royal Belfast Academical Institution in the increasingly prosperous and vital maritime city of Belfast. Founded by, amongst others, John Templeton a close friend of fellow-botanist Sir Joseph Banks, the school had a strong natural history section and was to produce a cohort of prominent naturalists. Thompson's first scientific paper The Birds of the Copeland Islands (two islands just off the coast of Belfast Lough) was published in 1827 shortly after his joining the then prominent and influential Belfast Natural History Society.

Seemingly reliant on family resources and without academic or institutional connections, he gave himself over entirely to natural history. Thompson contributed the most up-to-date information on the birds of Ireland to Selby’s The Magazine of Zoology and Botany, The Annals of Natural History, The Magazine of Natural History, and the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. The first true list of Ireland's birds was prepared for the 1840 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Glasgow. Other work (mostly though not entirely on birds) was published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London and the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. These papers formed the basis of his seminal work—The Natural History of Ireland—published in three volumes between 1849 and 1851.

During his “bird years” Thompson corresponded extensively on all aspects of natural history with naturalists in both Britain and Ireland concerning his projected fourth volume, that on the remaining vertebrates and invertebrates. Of particular interest is his contact with Thomas Bell who was at the heart of the English scientific establishment.

Aside from his work in ornithology, Thompson also studied Irish botany, with a focus on algae. Dickie's Flora of Ulster records his frequent botanical contributions. His main algal collection in the Ulster Museum herbarium (the international code for the Ulster Museum herbarium is BEL), consists of five large albums with museum catalogue numbers: F7953 — F8151, F8182 — F8393, F8394 — F8595, F8580 — F8847 and F8848 — F8937. These contain specimens collected by many, among them: William Thompson himself, W. H. Harvey, Moon, D. Landsborough, Ball, Coulter, Hyndman, William McCalla, and many others. The 5th volume is of foreign specimens mostly collected by William Henry Harvey. His records are also reported by others such as Gifford (1853):- Griffithsia simplicifilum from "...Isle of Wight, in August, 1841, by Messers. R.Ball. and W. Thompson." ^[1]

As Thompson's reputation spread, he came to be regarded as an authority and information was passed to him by interested observers all over Ireland. However his health became poor around 1847 or 1848, when he was 42, and he suffered from heart trouble from 1847. It continued to deteriorate, and, in 1852, Thompson died of a heart attack in London^[2], where he had been tended by his friends William Yarrell, author of British Birds, Edward Forbes, Edwin Lankester, of the Ray Society and George Busk. His Natural History of Ireland., the first three volumes, all on birds, appeared in 1849, 1850 and 1851. With the exception of a short continental tour in 1826 and an Aegean voyage in 1841 (with Edward Forbes and under Captain Graves, on the H.M.S. Beacon) and his annual visits to London (mainly to attend meetings of the Zoological Society) and to the meetings of the British Association, Thompson had spent his entire life in the North of Ireland. He died unmarried.

What could be gleaned from Thompson's letters and his notes was edited and published by J. R. Garrett and Robert Patterson in 1856, four years after his death.

[edit] References

1. ^ Gifford, I. 1853. The Marine Botanist; an Introduction to the Study of the British Sea-weeds;... Third edition. Brighton, London.
2. ^ Fairley, J.S. 1975. An Irish Beast Book. A Natural History of Ireland's Furred Wildlife. Blackstaff Press, Belfast.

[edit] Works

• Thompson, William (1836). "Abstract of paper on Irish Algae, read before the Natural History Society of Belfast on January 20. 1836". The Magazine of Natural History 9: 147–151. 
• Thompson, William (1849). The Natural History of Ireland. Reeve, Benham and Reeve. 

[edit] Notes

• (1977) in Foster, J. W. and Chesney, H. C. G (eds.): Nature in Ireland: A Scientific and Cultural History. Lilliput Press. ISBN 0-7735-1817-7. 
• Rea, M. W. (1934). "The Wm. Thompson collection of British marine algae". Irish Naturalists' Journal 5 (4): 81–83. 
• Morton, O. 1980. Three algal collections in the Ulster Museum Herbarium. Ir. Nat. J. 20: 33 - 37