Person PX602 Newton; Alfred (1829-1907); Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University Newton Alfred 1829-1907 Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University Male

Cambridge

Alfred Newton was the fifth son of William Newton of Elveden Hall in Suffolk, sometime MP for Ipswich and a Justice of the Peace for the County of Norfolk. In 1828 the Newton family, complete with children and servants, made a lengthy trip to Italy. On the way back Alfred was born on 11 June 1829 at Les Délices, a chateau near Geneva that had once been owned by Voltaire. Alfred had a lively childhood, but suffered an accident when about five or six, which left him somewhat lame in one leg. He went to school in 1844 to Mr Walker's school at Stetchworth near Newmarket, and was keeping birds in cages and looking after various other animals from quite a young age. In 1846 he went to a tutor in Biggleswade for a few months, and in 1848 Newton entered Magdalene College, Cambridge as a pensioner or commoner. In Cambridge jargon, this meant a student who paid for both his education and his lodgings. Newton graduated BA in 1853.[3] He spent the rest of his life at Magdalene, and never married. A fall later in life, when he was on a trip to Heligoland, further crippled him, and he then walked with the aid of two sticks, instead of one, as formerly. "From a three-legged, he has become a four-legged man" commented a friend. In 1854 he was elected Traveling Fellow of Magdalene College, and subsequently visited many parts of the world, including Lapland, Iceland, Spitsbergen, the West Indies and North America. In 1866 he became the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge, a position which he retained until his death. He was one of the few British Professors of Zoology in whose appointment Huxley did not have a hand. Newton was one of the first zoologists to accept and champion the views of Charles Darwin, and his early lecture courses as professor were on evolution and zoogeography. Newton was a leader in founding the British Ornithologists' Union in 1858, and its quarterly journal, the Ibis in 1859. He wrote books, including Ootheca Wolleyana (begun in 1864), Zoology (1872), and A Dictionary of Birds (1893–1896). He contributed memoirs to scientific societies, and edited the Ibis (1865–1870), the Zoological Record (1870–1872), and Yarrell's British Birds (1871–1882). His services to ornithology and zoogeography were recognized by the Royal Society in 1900, when it awarded him the Royal Medal. Newton spent some time studying the vanishing birds of the Mascarene Islands, from where his brother Sir Edward Newton sent him specimens. These included the Dodo on Mauritius and the Solitaire on Rodrigues, both already extinct.[8][9][10] In 1872 he was the first person to describe Newton's Parakeet which also lived on Rodrigues. This bird became extinct in 1875. Newton was a prominent member of the Society for the Protection of Birds (later, 1903, the RSPB), and carried on a long campaign to influence women against the fashion of adorning their hats with the flight feathers of raptors and other fine birds. His letters to The Times and addresses to the British Association for the Advancement of Science meetings on this subject were regularly reprinted as pamphlets by the Society. One of his most successful works was a series of investigations into the Desirability of establishing a 'Close-time' for the preservation of indigenous animals. These were instigated and published by the British Association between 1872 and 1903, leading towards the present-day legislation concerning the closed seasons for game fish, shell-fish, birds and mammals (Game laws). The basic concept, as is now well known, is to protect animals during their breeding season so as to prevent the stock from being brought close to extinction. Only four days after the publication of the famous 1858 paper Origin of Species, and one day after he read it, Newton started to apply Darwin and Wallace's idea to various problems in ornithology. Ornithologist. Tring correspondent. Yes Idealist Import 4namepers.txt 28/02/2004 NHM\laurb5 04/01/2019 12155ad0-8b9f-4feb-a869-42b6438f5133