Zoologist, born at Lancaster, July 20, 1804, studied medicine at Edinburgh and at St. Bartholomew’s; became curator in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, where he produced a marvellous series of descriptive catalogues; and in 1834–55 he lectured as professor of Comparative Anatomy, for two years at Bartholomew’s, and afterwards at the College of Surgeons. Meanwhile he helped to give new life to the Zoological Society of London, and was a commissioner of health (1843–46), and for the Great Exhibition of 1851. In 1856 he became superintendent of the natural history department of the British Museum, but continued to teach at the Royal Institution and elsewhere. F.R.S. (1834), president of the British Association (1857), Associate of the French Institute (1859), C.B. (1873), K.C.B. (1883), recipient of many scientific medals, degrees, and honorary titles from many nations, he gained the immortality of a true worker, and died 18th December 1892. Owen’s anatomical and palæontological researches number towards four hundred, and concern almost every class of animals from sponge to man. He greatly advanced morphological inquiry by his clear distinction between analogy and homology, and by his concrete studies of the nature of limbs, on the composition of the skull and on other problems of vertebrate morphology; while his essay on “Parthenogenesis” was a pioneer work. A pre-Darwinian, he maintained a cautious attitude to detailed evolutionist theories. See Life by his grandson (1894).

Personal

  The day before yesterday, in the evening, I had fallen asleep on the sofa; a loud door-knock woke me; in the twilight, the tea standing on the table, a man entered in white trousers, whom Helen (not the servant) named—Œdipus knows what! some mere mumble. In my dim condition I took him for Mackintosh: “he was empowered to call on me by Miss Fox, of Falmouth.” He got seated; disclosed himself as a man of huge, coarse head, with projecting brow and chin, like a cheese in the last quarter, with a pair of large protrusive glittering eyes, which he did not direct to me or to anybody, but sate staring into the blue vague. There he sate and talked in a copious but altogether vague way, like a man lecturing, like a man hurried, embarrassed, and not knowing well what to do. I thought with myself, “Good heavens! can this be some vagrant Yankee, lion-hunting insipidity, biped perhaps escaped from Bedlam, coming in upon me by stealth?” He talked a minute longer. He proved to be Owen, the geological anatomist, a man of real faculty, whom I had wished to see. My recognition of him issued in peals of laughter, and I got two hours of excellent talk out of him—a man of real ability, who could tell me innumerable things.

  A seafaring man brought a piece of bone, about three or four inches in length,—as he said, from New Zealand,—and offered it for sale at one or two museums, and, amongst others, at the College of Surgeons. We shall not here detain the reader by telling all that happened. These things are often brought with intent to deceive and with false allegations. Most of those to whom the bone was submitted dismissed it as worthless, or manifested their incredulity; among other guesses, some insinuated that they had seen bones very like it at the London Tavern, regarding it, in fact, as part of an old marrow-bone, to which it bore, on a superficial view, some resemblance. At length it was brought to Professor Owen, who, having looked at it carefully, thought it right to investigate it more narrowly; and, after much consideration, he ventured to pronounce his opinion. This opinion from almost anybody else would have been, perhaps, only laughed at; for, in the first place, he said that the bone (big enough, as we have seen, to suggest that it belonged to an ox) had belonged to a bird; but, before people had had time to recover from their surprise or other sensation created by this announcement, they were greeted by another assertion yet more startling,—namely, that it had been a bird without wings. Now, we happen to know a good deal of this story, and that the incredulity and doubt with which the opinion was received was too great for a time even for the authority of Professor Owen entirely to dispel. But mark the truthfulness of a real science! contemplate the exquisite beauty and accuracy of relation in nature! By-and-bye, a whole skeleton was brought over to this country,—when the opinion of the Professor was converted into an established fact.

  I cannot but think, that this arrangement would be beneficial in the highest degree to the Museum. I am sure that it would be popular. I must add that I am extremely desirous that something should be done for Owen. I hardly know him to speak to. His pursuits are not mine. But his fame is spread over Europe. He is an honor to our country, and it is painful to me to think that a man of his merit should be approaching old age amidst anxieties and distresses. He told me that eight hundred a year without a house in the Museum, would be opulence to him. He did not, he said, even wish for more. His seems to me to be a case for public patronage. Such patronage is not needed by eminent literary men or artists. A poet, a novelist, an historian, a painter, a sculptor, who stood in his own line as high as Owen stands among men of science, could never be in want except by his own fault. But the greatest natural philosopher may starve, while his countrymen are boasting of his discoveries, and while foreign Academies are begging for the honor of being allowed to add his name to their list.

  I never heard so thoroughly eloquent a lecture as that of yesterday; and I can assure you that I have not in the course of my life been more gratified than by the proofs which Owen gave of his admirable qualifications for carrying out those higher behests which, as a Trustee of the British Museum, it has been my pride to have warmly assisted in promoting. It is the first time I have had the pleasure of seeing our British Cuvier in his true place, and not the less delighted to listen to his fervid and convincing defense of the principle laid down by his great precursor. Every one was charmed, and he will have done more (as I felt convinced) to render our institution favorably known than by any other possible event.

  Professor Owen, whom I like most hugely—we met him, if you remember, at the Bates’s at Sheen—a tall, thin, cadaverous, lantern-jawed, bright-eyed, long-chinned, bald-headed old man, full of talk on his own subject of the animal creation, a great friend and admirer of Agassiz—an immense man, I humbly think, and ever ready to be pumped on scientific matters.

  One useful and rare quality he, like the late historian Green, possessed in an eminent degree. His innate modesty, or his art concealed by art, enabled him, when speaking upon his own subjects, so to let himself down to the level of ordinary listeners that they not only felt quite at their ease with him, but fancied for the moment that they were experts like himself.

  A keen chess-player himself, Sir Richard was always ready for a game in the evenings, and until very recent years played exceedingly well. His chief relaxation, however, was music, of which he had always been passionately fond. He was never tired of listening to his favorite compositions, although as he grew older his taste in music became much narrower, and he could only listen with pleasure to the music admitted to be “classical” in his younger days. Wagner, Grieg, and more modern composers were to his mind “tolerable and not to be endured.” The keys of his little old-fashioned piano had been touched by many of his musical friends—Moscheles, John Ella, and Hallé, and had served many a time to accompany Jenny Lind and his own famous ’cello by Forster. The love of his home and of his beautiful garden only grew stronger with his declining years. Every day he would go round his garden—no small distance—supported by his favorite curiously-carved stick; then he would generally make his way to an extraordinary specimen of a garden-seat, made out of the vertebra of a whale, which he himself had put up. There are many such curiosities to be seen in that picturesque piece of ground.

  Despite the prodigious amount of work that Owen did in his special subjects, he found time for many other occupations or relaxations. He was a great reader of poetry and romance, and, being gifted with a wonderful memory, could repeat by heart, even in his old age, page after page of Milton and other favourite authors. For music he had a positive passion; in the busiest period of his life he might constantly be seen at public concerts, listening with rapt attention, and in his earlier days was himself no mean vocalist, and acquired considerable proficiency in playing the violoncello and flute…. Owen’s was a very remarkable personality, both physically and mentally. He was tall and ungainly in figure, with massive head, lofty forehead, curiously round, prominent and expressive eyes, high cheek bones, large mouth and projecting chin, long, lank, dark hair, and during the greater part of his life, smooth-shaven face, and very florid complexion. Though in his general intercourse with others usually possessed of much of the ceremonial courtesy of the old school, and when in congenial society a delightful companion, owing to his unfailing flow of anecdote, considerable sense of humour, and strongly developed faculty of imagination, he was not only an extremely adroit controversialist, but no man could say harder things of an adversary or rival. Unfortunately, he grew so addicted to acrimonious controversy that many who followed kindred pursuits held somewhat aloof from him, and in later life his position among scientific men was one of comparative isolation.

  From the very outset of his career he came in contact with distinguished personages, and, winning his way rapidly among them, the circle of his friendly and familiar acquaintance widened, until seemingly it embraced every notable character from the heads of the Royal House down through the various ranks of inherent and acquired nobility. He bore himself through it all with the quiet, simple grace of one born to the purple, or, better still, of one unconscious of worldly honors and successes, intent solely upon the accomplishment of the work he was given to do.

  Owen I saw frequently, and, though my scientific education was, and is, superficial, he interested me greatly; for he had, like Agassiz, the gift of making his knowledge accessible to those who only understood the philosophy and not the facts of science, and I knew enough of the former to profit by his knowledge. Then he was a warm friend of Agassiz, and we used to talk of his theories and studies, of which I knew more than of any other scientific subject.

General

  It would not be fair to Blumenbach and Cuvier to compare this work with theirs, for science advances with such rapid strides, that they have become antiquated…. In the present day there is no work with which to compare Owen’s “Lectures,” except the classical work of Siebold. Owen has the superiority of philosophical grasp, which gives life and purpose to otherwise dry details. Vast as his knowledge is, careful as his mind is, Owen of course is not infallible. Probably no man has dissected so many animals, and to such purpose; yet it is certain that his industry has not carried the scalpel into every corner of every organism described by him…. In short, the work is not unapproachable from the trenches of criticism; but whatever lynx-eyed eagerness may discover in it, he is a bold man who will look down upon it from the height of his mole-hill. We cannot here attempt a detailed criticism of such a work, but we may earn the gratitude of philosophic readers by directing their attention to it.

  The ablest comparative anatomist of his time, Owen ranks with Darwin and Lyell as one of the greatest naturalists that England has yet produced…. Richard Owen was a giant, both in stature and in intellect, and the best monument that can be raised to his memory already exists in the Palæontological Galleries of the British Museum. Label after label calls to mind that Owen first studied and described the remains exhibited, and though he was not free from the errors of the early investigators, and was very jealous of his contemporaries, his triumphs will linger in our memories longer than his weaknesses or mistakes. Few students realise the magnitude of Owen’s work, and it is only those who search in many fields that can comprehend the genius of the man who has now passed to his rest.

  It is now more than sixty years since the Zoological Society published the earliest of those anatomical papers on the Anthropoid Apes, among the later of which was the first thorough and detailed description of the skulls of the Chimpanzee and Gorilla. These together with the skilful restorations of the extinct birds of New Zealand and many other anatomical papers well-known to zoologists, will cause the name of Owen long to live in the grateful memory of all men who have the cause of Natural Science at heart. It seems, indeed, that the fame of our veteran Comparative Anatomist is likely rather to augment than decline. As time goes on and the disputes which formerly arose about the precise definition of “corpus callosum,” and the presence of the “hippocampus minor” fade from memory, the many merits of the greatest English Zoologist of the first half of the nineteenth century will, we think, be more and more generally recognised. The esteem in which he has continued to be held during recent years is clearly shown by the award to him by the Council of the Linnean Society of their first Zoological Medal.

  Owen’s archetypal theory may be said to have died with him. It was little more than a quasi-theological adaptation of Platonism; and it affords a striking confirmation of Comte’s hypothesis that every science, between its early and its final condition, has to pass through a chrysalis stage—an unsightly and impotent stage of metaphysical abstractions. But in such a mind as Owen’s, even if errors crop up, a fine quality of wheat is sure to be mingled with the tares. Indeed, he seems to have been among the first to anticipate a modification of Darwinism which is now coming to the front.

  Obvious as are the merits of Owen’s anatomical and palæontological work to every expert, it is necessary to be an expert to discern them; and endless pages of analysis of his memoirs would not have made the general reader any wiser than he was at first. On the other hand, the nature of the broad problems of the “Archetype” and of “Parthenogenesis” may easily be stated in such a way as to be generally intelligible; while from Goethe to Zola, poets and novelists have made them interesting to the public. I have, therefore, permitted myself to dwell upon these topics at some length; but the reader must bear in mind that, whatever view is taken of Sir Richard Owen’s speculations on these subjects, his claims to a high place among those who have made great and permanently valuable contributions to knowledge remain unassailable.

  So far as the permanent forces of civilization are concerned, he was one of the leading Englishmen of the middle part of this century…. The memoir upon the Pearly Nautilus gave Owen a world-wide reputation, and from this time forward he worked over the broad field of living and extinct fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals with marvellous rapidity and accuracy, producing from fifteen to thirty memoirs or papers annually until he was over eighty…. Owen laid the foundation of our modern work upon the fossil reptilia, especially the dinosaurs, and monographed the marsupials of Australia. From New Zealand he procured and finally restored the giant bird Dinornis, and one of his triumphs was the restoration of the great South American sloth, Mylodon. He was also an enthusiastic student of the microscope, discovering and tracing the life-history of the trichina as the cause of trichinosis, studying and speculating upon the phenomena of parthenogenesis, and being elected the first President of the Royal Microscopical Society. It is safe to say that no living naturalist is covering one-fourth the ground represented by these researches. We can hardly overestimate Owen’s public services in spreading natural science through his facts and imparting his own enthusiasm.

  At a public dinner given in June, 1838, on behalf of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, it happened that the attention of the chairman, Lord Glengall, was called to one of the guests whom he did not know. On asking “Who’s that?” he received for answer, “Oh, nobody in particular—only the first anatomist of the age!” The person so distinguished was Robert Owen, at that time not quite thirty-four years old. Somewhat later we find him described by Carlyle as a “tall man with great glittering eyes:” one of the few who was “neither a fool nor a humbug.” In 1859 a brother of Mr. John Blackwood, the publisher, meeting Owen accidentally speaks of him as “a deuced clever-looking fellow, with a pair of eyes in his head!” and suspects that he may be the then unrevealed author of the “Scenes of Clerical Life”—a somewhat less extravagant supposition than that which had ascribed the “Vestiges” to Thackeray. On the continent his fame stood not less high than in England. Humboldt salutes in him “le plus grand anatomiste du siècle.”… Owen seems to have enjoyed a celebrity which extended far beyond the scientific world, and which before the advent of Darwin surpassed that of every other English scientist.

  Acknowledged to be the greatest anatomist of the century, he was also a man of wide and generous culture, as might be expected of the friend and associate of the greatest thinkers, poets, novelists, musicians, and statesmen of the time. He was never a convert to Darwinism. He was not convinced that the origin of species by natural selection had been made out; and he deprecated the materialistic trend of this theory, clinging to the last to the belief in an immaterial spirit, and the hope of continuing in a future life the researches intermitted here.