Edward Lhuyd

{{short description|Welsh natural historian and antiquary (1660–1709)}}

Edward Lhuyd {{post-nominals|FRS|country=GBR}} (1660{{nbsp}}– 30 June 1709), also known as Edward Lhwyd and by other spellings, was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, herbalist, alchemist, scientist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He was the second Keeper of the University of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, and published the first catalogue of fossils, the {{lang|la|Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia}}.

Name

Lhuyd{{sfnp|Lhuyd|1707}} ({{IPAc-en|l|ɔɪ|d}} {{respell|LOYD}}; {{IPA|cy|ˈɬʊid|lang}}) is an archaic spelling of the same Welsh surname now usually rendered as Lloyd or Llwyd,{{sfnp|Enc. Brit.|1911}} from {{lang|cy|{{linktext|llwyd}}}} ("gray"). It also appears frequently as Lhwyd;{{sfnp|Lhuyd|1698|p=179}}{{sfnp|Jahn|1972|p=86}}{{sfnp|OUMNS|2006}} less often as Lhwydd,{{sfnp|Conybeare & al.|1822|p=12}} Llhwyd,{{sfnp|Pulteney|1790|p=110}} Llwid{{sfnp|Lhuyd|1699b}} and Floyd;{{sfnp|Roos & al.|2018|p=5}} and latinized as ({{lang|la|Eduardus}}{{sfnp|Lhuyd|1693}}{{sfnp|Jones|1959}} or {{lang|la|Edvardus}}{{sfnp|Lhuyd|1699}}) {{lang|la|Luidius}}, frequently abbreviated {{lang|la|Luid.}}, and as {{lang|la|Lhuydus}} and {{lang|la|Lloydia}} in some scientific names. The English and Latin forms are also sometimes combined as Edward Luidius.{{sfnp|Lea|1823|p=280}}

Life

Lhuyd was born in 1660, in Loppington, Shropshire, England, the illegitimate son of Edward Llwyd{{sfnp|Rice|2006}} or Lloyd of Llanforda, Oswestry, and Bridget Pryse of Llansantffraid, near Talybont, Cardiganshire, in 1660. His family belonged to the gentry of southwest Wales. Though well established, the family was not wealthy. His father experimented with agriculture and industry in a manner that impinged{{fact|date=October 2022}} on the new science of the day. The son attended and later taught at Oswestry Grammar School, and in 1682 went up to Jesus College, Oxford, but dropped out before graduation. In 1684, he was appointed to assist Robert Plot, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum (which at that time was in Broad Street), and became the second Keeper himself in 1690,{{sfnp|Roos & al.|2018|p=2}} holding the post until his death in 1709.{{sfnp|Jones|1959}}

While working at the Ashmolean Museum, Lhuyd travelled extensively. A visit to Snowdonia in 1688 allowed him to compile for John Ray's {{lang|la|Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum}} a list of flora local to that region. After 1697, Lhuyd visited every county in Wales, then travelled to Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man. In 1699, it became possible through funding from his friend Isaac Newton for him to publish the first catalogue ever of fossils, his {{lang|la|Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia}}.{{sfnp|Lhuyd|1699}} These had been collected in England, mostly in Oxford, and are now held in the Ashmolean.

Lhuyd received a MA honoris causa from the University of Oxford in 1701 and a fellowship of the Royal Society in 1708.{{sfnp|Jones|1959}}

In 1696, Lluyd transcribed much of the Latin inscription on the 9th-century Pillar of Eliseg near Valle Crucis Abbey, Denbighshire.{{gbmapping|SJ 20267 44527}} The inscription subsequently became almost illegible due to weathering, but Lhuyd's transcript seems to have been remarkably accurate.[http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/pillartex.htm Robert M. Vermatt, "The text of the Pillar of Eliseg"]

Lhuyd was also responsible for the first scientific description and naming of what we would now recognize as a dinosaur: the sauropod tooth Rutellum impicatum.{{sfnp|Delair & al.|2002}}

File:Flatfish Lhwyd.jpg trilobite O. debuchii]]

The first written record of a trilobite was by Lhuyd in a letter to Martin Lister in 1688 and published (1869) in his Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia.R. M. Owens, 1984. Trilobites in Wales. Geological Series No. 7. 22 pp. (Geological publications of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff). It is a fleeting mention and he simply identifies his find as a "skeleton of some flat fish". The trilobite is nowadays identified as Ogygiocarella debuchii Brongniart, 1822.A. Brongniart, 1822, Les Trilobites, pp. 1–65, plates 1–4: A. Brongniart and A. G. Desmarest, Histoire Naturelle des Crustacés Fossiles, Paris.

Pioneering linguist

In the late 17th century, Lhuyd was contacted by a group of scholars led by John Keigwin of Mousehole, who sought to preserve and further the Cornish language. He accepted their invitation to travel there and study the language. Early Modern Cornish was the subject of a paper published by Lhuyd in 1702; it differs from the medieval language in having a considerably simpler structure and grammar.

In 1707, having been assisted in his research by a fellow Welsh scholar, Moses Williams, Lhuyd published the first volume of Archæologia Britannica. This has an important linguistic description of Cornish, which is noted all the more for the understanding of historical linguistics it shows. Some of the ideas commonly attributed to linguists of the 19th century have their roots in this work by Lhuyd, who was "considerably more sophisticated in his methods and perceptions than [William] Jones".{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Lyle |last2=Poser |first2=William J. |title=Language Classification. History and Method |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-521-88005-3 |pages=29}}

Lhuyd noted a similarity between two language families: Brythonic or P–Celtic (Breton, Cornish and Welsh) and Goidelic or Q–Celtic (Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic). He argued that both families were derived from the Continental Celtic languages; the Brythonic languages originated in the Gaulish language once spoken and written by the Gauls of Pre-Roman France and the Goidelic languages are derived from the Celtiberian language once spoken in the Pre-Roman Iberian Peninsula, which includes modern Spain and Portugal. He concluded that as these languages were of Celtic origin, those who spoke them were Celts. From the 18th century, peoples of Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales were known increasingly as Celts. They are seen to this day as modern Celtic nations.{{cite book |last=Davies |first=John |author-link=John Davies (historian) |title=A History of Wales |page=54 |publisher=Penguin |year=1994 |location=London |isbn=0-14-014581-8}}{{cite web |title=Who were the Celts? ... Rhagor |url=http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/1939/ |access-date=14 October 2009 |publisher=Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales |date=4 May 2007 |work=Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales website |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090917180311/http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/1939/ |archive-date=17 September 2009}}

Death and legacy

On his travels, Lhuyd developed asthma, which eventually led to his death from pleurisy in Oxford in 1709.{{sfnp|Jones|1959}} He died in his room in the Ashmolean Museum, aged just 49, and was buried in the Welsh aisle of the church of St Michael at the Northgate.{{cite web |url=https://britisharchaeology.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/collections/lhwyd.html. |title= Ashmolean Museum: British Archaeology Collections - Rationalisation and Enhancement Project - Collections - the Collectors Lhwyd|website=britisharchaeology.ashmus.ox.ac.uk |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804134018/https://britisharchaeology.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/collections/lhwyd.html |archive-date=4 August 2020}}

The Cretaceous bryozoan species {{lang|la|Charixa lhuydi}}{{Cite web |title=WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Charixa lhuydi (Pitt, 1976) † |url=https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1410469 |access-date=2023-09-28 |website=marinespecies.org}} (originally described as Membranipora lhuydi) is named in his honour.{{Cite journal |last=Pitt |first=L. J. |date=1976-01-01 |title=A new cheilostome bryozoan from the British Aptian |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016787876800351 |journal=Proceedings of the Geologists' Association |volume=87 |issue=1 |pages=65–IN1 |doi=10.1016/S0016-7878(76)80035-1 |issn=0016-7878}} The Snowdon lily (Gagea serotina) was for a time called Lloydia serotina after Lhuyd.

Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd, the National Naturalists' Society of Wales, is named after him. On 9 June 2001 a bronze bust of him was unveiled by Dafydd Wigley, a former Plaid Cymru leader, outside the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth, next to the National Library of Wales. The sculptor was John Meirion Morris; the inscription on the plinth, carved by Ieuan Rees, reads "{{small|EDWARD LHUYD 1660–1709 IEITHYDD HYNAFIAETHYDD NATURIAETHWR}}" ("linguist, antiquary, naturalist").{{Citation |url=http://www.pmsa.org.uk/pmsa-database/11836/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513190014/http://pmsa.org.uk/pmsa-database/11836/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=13 May 2016 |title=Edward Lhuyd Memorial |work=National Recording Project |publisher=Public Monuments and Sculpture Association |access-date=30 June 2016}}

References

=Citations=

=Bibliography=

{{citation |last=Lhuyd |first=Edward |author-mask=— |url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra1816roya/page/n309/mode/2up |title=Philosophical Transactions |date=May 1693 |contribution-url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra1816roya/page/746/mode/2up |contribution=III. Eduardi Luidii apud Oxonienses Cimeliarchae Ashmoleani ad Clariss. V.D. Christophorum Hemmer Epistola in qua Agit de Lapidibus Aliquot Perpetua Figura Donatis quas Nuperis Annis in Oxoniensi & Vicinis Agris Adinvenit |publisher=Royal Society of London |location=London |language=Latin |pages=746–754 |issue=100 |volume=XVIII}}.
{{citation |last=Lhuyd |first=Edward |author-mask=— |url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra2016roya/page/n293/mode/2up |title=Philosophical Transactions |date=August 1698 |issue=143 |volume=XX |contribution-url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra2016roya/page/278/mode/2up |contribution=IV. Part of a Letter from Mr. Edw. Lhwyd to Dr. Martin Lister, Fell. of the Coll. of Phys. and R.S. Concerning Several Regularly Figured Stones Lately Found by Him |pages=179–180 |publisher=Royal Society of London |location=London}}.
{{citation |last=Lhuyd |first=Edward |author-mask=— |contribution-url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra2116roya/page/186/mode/2up |contribution=Part of a Letter from Mr. Llwid to Dr. Tancred Robinson, F.R.S. Concerning a Figured Stone Found in Wales with a Note on It by Hans Sloane, M.D. |pages=187–188 |publisher=Royal Society of London |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaltra2116roya/page/n167/mode/2up |volume=XXI |issue=252 |title=Philosophical Transactions |date=May 1699 |ref={{harvid|Lhuyd|1699b}}}}.
{{citation |first=Edward |last=Lhuyd |author-mask=— |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oh6OmKw_oJsC |language=Latin |title=Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia sive Lapidum Aliorum Fossilium Britannicorum Singulari Figura Insignium, quotquot Hactenus vel Ipse Invenit vel ab Amicis Accepit Distributio Classica... |date=1699 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford}}.
{{citation |first=Edward |last=Lhuyd |author-mask=— |url=https://archive.org/details/archaeologiabrit00lhuy |date=1707 |title=Archaeologia Britannica, Giving Some Account Additional to What Has Been Hitherto Publish'd of the Languages, Histories and Customs of the Original Inhabitants of Great Britain from Collections and Observations in Travels through Wales, Cornwal, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland |publisher=Sheldonian Theater |location=Oxford}}.
{{citation |first=Edward |last=Lhuyd |author-mask=— |editor1-first=Dewi W. |editor1-last=Evans |editor2-first=Brynley F. |editor2-last=Roberts |display-editors=1 |title=Archaeologia Britannica: Texts and Translations |location=Aberystwyth |publisher=Celtic Studies Publications-Cymru |series=Celtic Studies Publications |volume=10 |year=2007 |isbn=9781891271144}}.
{{citation |last= |first= |editor=Hugh Chisholm |display-editors=0 |date=1911 |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. |location=New York |volume=XVI |title=Encyclopaedia Britannica |edition=11th |contribution=Llwyd, Edward |ref={{harvid|Enc. Brit.|1911}} |page=834}}.
{{citation |last= |first= |publisher=Oxford University Museum of Natural History |title=Learning More... Geology |contribution-url=https://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/pdfs/lhwyd.pdf |contribution=Edward Lhwyd |location=Oxford |date=2006 |ref={{harvid|OUMNS|2006}} |url=https://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/geology.htm}}.
{{citation |contribution-url=http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/lhwyd.html |contribution=Lhwyd [Llhwyd, Lhuyd, Llwyd, Lloyd, Floyd, Luidius], Edward |title=The Galileo Project |publisher=Rice University |location=Houston |last= |first= |year=2006 |ref={{harvid|Rice|2006}}}}.
{{citation |last=Conybeare |first=William Daniel |author2=William Phillips |display-authors=1 |url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=A757&viewtype=text |date=1822 |ref={{harvid|Conybeare & al.|1822}} |title=Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, with an Introductory Compendium of the General Principles of That Science and Comparative Views of the Structure of Foreign Countries |location=London |publisher=William Phillips}}.
{{citation |first1=Justin B. |last1=Delair |author2=William A.S. Sarjeant |display-authors=1 |ref={{harvid|Delair & al.|2002}} |contribution=The Earliest Discoveries of Dinosaurs: The Records Re-examined |title=Proceedings of the Geologists' Association |volume=113 |year=2002 |issue=3 |pages=185–197 |doi=10.1016/S0016-7878(02)80022-0 |bibcode=2002PrGA..113..185D}}.
{{citation |last=Jahn |first=Melvin E. |contribution=A Note on the Editions of Edward Lhwyd's Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia |title=Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History |date=1972 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=86–97 |publisher=Society for the History of Natural History |location=London}}.
{{citation |last=Jones |first=Thomas |date=1959 |contribution=Lhuyd, Edward (1660–1709), botanist, geologist, antiquary and philologist |contribution-url=https://biography.wales/article/s-LHUY-EDW-1660 |title=Dictionary of Welsh Biography |publisher=National Library of Wales |location=Aberystwyth}}.
{{citation |last=Lea |first=Isaac |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1If2782mmoC |title=The Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences... |editor=Nathaniel Chapman |display-editors=0 |volume=VII |location=Philadelphia |publisher=H.C. Carey & J. Lea |contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1If2782mmoC&pg=PA270 |date=1823 |contribution=Art. V. A Sketch of the History of Mineralogy |pages=270–289 |issue=14}}.
{{citation |last=Pulteney |first=Richard |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecco;cc=ecco;rgn=div2;view=toc;idno=004850386.0001.002;node=004850386.0001.002:13.1 |title=Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England from Its Origin to the Introduction of the Linnaean System |location=London |publisher=T. Cadell |date=1790 |contribution=Llhwyd |contribution-url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecco;cc=ecco;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=004850386.0001.002;node=004850386.0001.002:13 |pages=110–116}}.
{{citation |last=Roos |first=Anna Marie |author-link=Anna Marie Roos |author2=Edwin D. Rose |display-authors=1 |ref={{harvid|Roos & al.|2018}} |date=2018 |title=Nuncius |volume=33 |pages=1–32 |contribution-url=http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/33873/3/NUN_033_03_005_s005_Roos-Rose_proof-01%20(1).pdf |contribution=Lives and Afterlives of the Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia (1699), the First Illustrated Field Guide to English Fossils |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden}}.

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20040515043221/http://www.aber.ac.uk/gwydd-cym/english/edwardllwyd-e.htm Biography of Edward Lhuyd] from the Canolfan Edward Llwyd, a centre for the study of science through Welsh

Category:1660 births

Category:1709 deaths

Category:Scientists from Shropshire

Category:People educated at Oswestry School

Category:Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford

Category:Celtic studies scholars

Category:Welsh botanists

Category:17th-century botanists

Category:Welsh curators

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:People associated with the Ashmolean Museum

Category:Keepers and directors of the Ashmolean Museum