3-057-072 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Professor Thomas Henry Huxley, 1880. Between the years 1847-1850 Huxley was the assistant surgeon aboard HMS Rattlesnake off the eastern and northern coasts of Australia. In 1855 he was appointed Professor of Natural History at the Royal School of Mines, and was an authority in the study of fossils, particularly fish and reptiles. He was a supporter of Darwinism, and was in direct opposition to Richard Owen. His work "Man's Place in Nature", which was published in 1863, caused much interest in Europe and America. It was Huxley who devised the word agnostic, to describe his religious beliefs.