| Activity | Scientific illustrator, publisher, palaeontologist, mineralogist and botanist. Educated at home and trained in natural history by his father, James Sowerby, while pursuing independent studies in chemistry and mineralogy under the influence of Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday and William Hyde Wollaston. Assisted in the production of the Sowerby family's publications from an early age and, with his brother George Brettingham Sowerby I, completed the later volumes of The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain. Described and illustrated fossils and prepared scientific illustrations for many leading geologists, including Adam Sedgwick, Roderick Murchison, William Buckland and William Henry Fitton. Co-founder and Secretary of the Royal Botanic Society and Gardens, Regent's Park (1838-1869), and Librarian and Curator of the Geological Society (1846–1848). Sold the Sowerby natural history collection to the British Museum in 1861. Produced many of the illustrations and scientific descriptions represented within the Sowerby Archive. Fellow of the Linnean Society (1823), founder member of the Zoological Society (1826), and recipient of the Geological Society's Wollaston Fund (1840). |