Home > William Swainson

Swainson was born in St Mary Newington, London. At the age of fourteen he became a customs clerk in Liverpool. He developed an interest in natural history by studying his father's shell and insect collections. He was drafted into the army and sent to Sicily, but he was forced to retire due to ill health.

Swainson travelled in Brazil from 1816 to 1818, returning to England with a collection of over 20,000 insects, 1,200 species of plants, drawings of 120 species of fish, and about 760 birdFor other meanings of bird see bird (disambiguation). Many see text Birds are bipedal, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrates characterized primarily by feathers, forelimbs modified as wings, and hollow bones. There are almost 9000 known species of birds in skins. His friend William Elford LeachWilliam Elford Leach ( February 2, 1790 August 26, 1836) was an English zoologist and marine biologist. Leach was born in Plymouth, the son of a solicitor. At the age of twelve he went to school in Exeter, studying anatomy and chemistry. By this time he w encouraged him to experiment with lithography for his book Zoological Illustrations (1820-23).

When Leach was forced to resign from the British MuseumThe British Museum is one of the world's greatest and most famous museums. It was established in 1753 by Sir Hans Sloane, a physician and scientist who collected lots of literature and art, on its present site at Montague House in London, United Kingdom, due to ill health, Swainson applied to replace him, but the post was given to John George ChildrenJohn George Children ( May 18, 1777 January 1, 1852) was a British chemist, mineralogist and zoologist. Children studied at Queen's College, Cambridge. In 1822 he was working as a librarian in the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum when he wa. 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 RichardsonSir John Richardson ( 1787 1865) was a Scottish naval surgeon, naturalist and arctic explorer. Richardson was born at Dumfries. He travelled with John Franklin between 1819 and 1822 in search of the Northwest Passage. Richardson wrote the sections on geol. He also produced a second series of Zoological Illustrations (1832-33), three volumes of JardineSir William Jardine, seventh baronet of Applegirth ( February 23, 1800 November 21, 1874) was a Scottish naturalist. Jardine made natural history available to all levels of Victorian society by editing and issuing the hugely popular forty volumes of The N's Naturalist's Library and eleven volumes of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia.

In 1841 he emigrated to New ZealandFor alternative meanings, see New Zealand (disambiguation). New Zealand is a country formed of two major islands and a number of smaller islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. A common Mori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa popularly translated as Land, but his attempt to become a farmer failed, partly due to the opposition from local MaoriMori is the name of the indigenous people of New Zealand, and their language. It is also the name of the people and language of the Cook Islands, referred to as Cook Islands Mori . The word maori means "normal" or "ordinary" in the Mori language and is wis. In 1851 he sailed to Sydney and he took the post of Botanical Surveyor with the Victoria Government. This also failed, apparently due to his lack of knowledge of botany. He returned to New Zealand in 1855, where he died.

Swainson's friend John James Audubon named Swainson's Warbler after him, Charles Lucien Bonaparte named Swainson's Hawk for him, and Swainson's Thrush was named for him by Thomas Nuttall.