1-150-159 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Sir Richard Owen, English zoologist, c1860. Owen studied medicine at Edinburgh and at St Bartholomew's and became curator in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons where he produced a fine series of descriptive catalogues. In 1856, he became superintendant of the natural history departments of the British Museum, but continued to teach at the Royal Institution and elsewhere. A pre-Darwinian, he maintained a hostile attitude to detailed evolutionist theories.