The Stamford Raffles Lecture

'Stuffed, mummified and pickled: the work of some outstanding early naturalists' presented by Adam Hart-Davis writer, photographer and broadcaster

Adam Hart-Davis writer, photographer and broadcaster Throughout history animals have stimulated inspiration and curiosity. The ancient Egyptians worshipped and mummified cats, Aristotle made extraordinary observations on the development of chicken embryos, and Wild Bill Buckland, Reader in Geology at the University of Oxford, boasted that he had eaten his way through most of the animal kingdom.

In this talk, writer, photographer and broadcaster Adam Hart-Davis will serve up an eclectic dish of animal enthusiasts, from 17th century microscopists Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to 18th century proto-environmentalists Gilbert White and Charles Waterton, the man who wrestled with a crocodile and shared a house with a colony of vampire bats. Dr Hart-Davis will unravel the reasons why Wild Bill Buckland strutted about during his lectures at Oxford and crawled around in mud in a cave in Yorkshire. He will tell of Charles Darwin’s discovery that earthworms are intelligent despite being deaf to the bassoon, and of John Stringfellow’s and George Cayley’s respective studies of rooks and crows. He will also explain why the world has beaten a path to the door of Colin Pullinger, Clerk to the Selsey Sparrow Club.