Richard Owen

Sir Richard Owen (July 20, 1804, Lancaster - December 18, 1892, London) - British zoologist and paleontologist. He was major driving force of the creation of the British Museum of Natural History in London.

Owen is probably best known for the presenting of the word dinosaur (meaning "Terrible reptile" or "terrible huge reptile") and for his outspoken fight against Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Richard Owen was born in Lancaster and was educated in the Royal Lancaster High School. In 1820 he became a student of a local doctor and pharmacist, and in 1824, he entered as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh. He left the university in the next year and completed his medical education at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, where he came under the influence of the famous surgeon, John Abernethy.

In 1827-1856 he worked at the Royal College of Surgeons (since 1836 - professor of anatomy and physiology).

He was a member of the Royal Society from 1834 and Professor of the Royal Association.

He was starting interesting in the paleontology after they met with Georges Cuvier in 1830. Owen took up the study of fossil mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds.

In 1856 - 1883 years was in charge of the British Museum of Natural History.

Sir Richard Owen performed the first full-scale reconstruction of the dinosaur. Known model sculpture iguanodon in 1854 and the image of the marine reptiles by the artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1809-1889) with assistants Richard Owen. Costavil well as several monographs on the disappeared species of mammals and birds.

Owen was the anti-Darwinists, indirectly participated in the famous dispute Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley.

In 1884 Owen was knighted by the Order of Bath.