Richard Owen

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Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria (meaning “Terrible Reptile” or “Fearfully Great Reptile”) and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. He agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but thought it was more complex than outlined in Darwin’s Origin. Owen’s approach to evolution can be seen as having anticipated the issues that have gained greater attention with the recent emergence of evolutionary developmental biology. He was the driving force behind the establishment, in 1881, of the British Museum (Natural History) in London. Bill Bryson argues that, “by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for”.

Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804, one of six children of a West Indian Merchant named Richard Owen (1754–1809). His mother, Catherine Parrin, was descended from Huguenots and he was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School. In 1820, he was apprenticed to a local surgeon and apothecary and, in 1824, he proceeded as a medical student to the University of Edinburgh. He left the university in the following year and completed his medical course in St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, where he came under the influence of the eminent surgeon, John Abernethy.