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George Shaw
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:''For the playwright, see
George Bernard Shaw.''
image:George_Kearsley_Shaw.jpg thumb|200px|George Shaw.
'''George Shaw''' (
December 10,
1751 -
July 22,
1813) was an
England English botanist and
zoologist.
Shaw was born at
Bierton,
Buckinghamshire and was educated at
Magdalen Hall, Oxford, receiving his M.A. in 1772. He took up the profession of medical practitioner. In 1786 he became the assistant lecturer in botany at
Oxford University. He was a co-founder of the
Linnean Society in 1788, and became a fellow of the
Royal Society in 1789.
In 1791 Shaw became assistant keeper of the natural history department at the
British Museum, succeeding
Edward Whitaker Gray as keeper in 1806. He found that most of the items donated to the museum by
Hans Sloane were in very bad condition. Medical and anatomical material was sent to the museum at the
Royal College of Surgeons, but many of the stuffed animals and birds had deteriorated and had to be burnt. The pay from the museum was so poor that Shaw had to spend much of his time writing, and thus neglected the upkeep of the collection. He was succeeded after his death by his assistant
Charles Konig.
Shaw published one of the first English descriptions with scientific names of several of the common Australian animals in his "Zoology of
New Holland (Australia) New Holland" (
1794). He was among the first scientists to examine a
platypus and published the first scientific description of it in ''The Naturalist's Miscellany'' in
1799.
His other publications included:
*''Museum Leverianum'', containing select specimens from the museum of the late Sir
Ashton Lever (
1792-
1796 6)
*''General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History'' (16 vol.) (
1809-
1826) (volumes IX to XVI by
James Francis Stephens)
*''The Naturalist's Miscellany: Or, Coloured Figures Of Natural Objects; Drawn and Described Immediately From Nature'' (
1789-
1813) with
Frederick Polydore Nodder (artist and engraver).
The standard
Binomial nomenclature#Authorship in scientific names botanical author abbreviation '''G.Shaw''' is applied to
species he described.
References
*Mullens and Swann - ''A Bibliography of British Ornithology'' (1917)
*William T. Stearn - ''The Natural History Museum at South Kensington'' ISBN 434736007
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de:George Shaw
fr:George Shaw
it:George Shaw
Category:1751 births Shaw, George
Category:1813 deaths Shaw, George
Category:English botanists Shaw, George
Category:Botanists with author abbreviations Shaw, George
Category:British mammalogists Shaw, George
Category:English zoologists Shaw, George
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Shaw, George
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