William MacGillivray

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For the Canadian film director and screenwriter, see William D. MacGillivray.
William MacGillivray
William MacGillivray.jpg
William MacGillivray in middle age,
probably in 1841
Collection of the University of Aberdeen
Born (1796-01-25)25 January 1796
Old Aberdeen
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Aberdeen
Resting place Edinburgh
Nationality Scottish
Fields Ornithology
Institutions University of Aberdeen
File:William MacGillivray's grave, New Calton Cemetery.JPG
William MacGillivray's grave, New Calton Cemetery

William MacGillivray FRSE MWS (25 January 1796 – 4 September 1852) was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist.

Life and work

MacGillivray was born in Old Aberdeen and brought up on the island of Harris. He returned to Aberdeen where he attended King's College, graduating MA in 1815.[1] He studied medicine, but did not complete the course. In 1823 he became assistant to Robert Jameson, the Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. He was curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1831, resigning in 1841 to become Professor of Natural History at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died in Aberdeen and was buried in Edinburgh's New Calton Cemetery.

MacGillivray was a friend of American bird expert John James Audubon, and wrote a large part of Audubon's Ornithological Biographies from 1830-1839. Audubon named MacGillivray's warbler for him.

MacGillivray's eldest son, John MacGillivray (1822-1867), published an account of the voyage round the world of HMS Rattlesnake, to which he was the onboard naturalist. Another son, Paul, published an Aberdeen Flora in 1853, and donated 214 of his father's paintings to the Natural History Museum.

Legacy

A detailed version of MacGillivray's life, written by a namesake, was published 49 years after the ornithologist's death.[2]

MacGillivray correctly distinguished between the hooded crow and carrion crow, but they were considered only to be subspecies for the next one and a half centuries until, in 2002, on DNA evidence, the hooded crow was awarded species status.[3]

Works

MacGillivray's works include:

  • Lives of Eminent Zoologists from Aristotle to Linnaeus (1830)
  • A Systematic Arrangement of British Plants (1830)
  • The Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt. (1832)
  • A History of British Quadrupeds (1838)
  • A Manual of Botany, Comprising Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology (1840)
  • A History of the Molluscous Animals of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine (1843)
  • A Manual of British Ornithology (1840–1842)
  • A History of British Birds, indigenous and migratory, in five volumes (1837-1852)
  • Natural History of Deeside and Braemar (1855), published posthumously

MacGillivray illustrated Henry Witham's 1833 The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of Great Britain, and edited The Conchologist's Text-Book through several editions.

The standard author abbreviation W.MacGill. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[4]

See also

References

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External links

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  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ MacGillivray , William. A Memorial Tribute to William MacGillivray. Privately published, 1901.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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