Henry Seebohm
{{Short description|English steel manufacturer, amateur ornithologist, oologist and traveller}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
File:Bay-crowned Brushfinch.JPG has its scientific name Atlapetes seebohmi from Henry Seebohm.]]
Henry Seebohm (12 July 1832 – 26 November 1895) was an English steel manufacturer, and amateur ornithologist, oologist and traveller.{{cite ODNB|last=Woodward | first=BB|chapter= Seebohm, Henry (1832–1895)|others=(Revised by Yolanda Foote)|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/25023 }}
Biography
Henry was the oldest son of Benjamin Seebohm (1798–1871) who was a wool merchant at Horton Grange, Bradford. The family had moved to England from Bad Pyrmont in Germany. Henry's mother Estther Wheeler (1798–1864) was a granddaughter of William Tuke. The Seebohms were active in the Society of Friends and Henry schooled within the community in York. He worked initially in a grocery as an assistant but moved to Sheffield where he became a steel manufacturer. He married Maria, daughter of George John Healey, a merchant in Manchester on 19 January 1859.
Natural history
Henry became interested in natural history at school and continued to spend his spare time studying birds on his journeys. He travelled widely visiting Greece, Scandinavia, Turkey, and South Africa. His expeditions to the Yenisey tundra of Siberia were described in his two books, Siberia in Europe (1880) and Siberia in Asia (1882), which were combined in the posthumous publication The Birds of Siberia (1901). His expeditions included the lower Pechora River in 1875 along with John Alexander Harvie-Brown as well as a visit to Heligoland at the home of Heinrich Gätke. In 1877 he joined Joseph Wiggins to Siberia.
He was one of the first European ornithologists to accept the American trinomial system to classify sub-species.
Seebohm's other publications included A History of British Birds (1883), The Geographical Distribution of the family Charadriidae (1887), The Birds of the Japanese Empire (1890) and A Monograph of the Turdidae (1902, completed by Richard Bowdler Sharpe).
Seebohm bequeathed his collection of bird-skins to the British Museum. The collection which was received in 1896 consisted of nearly 17,000 specimens.{{cite news|newspaper=Huddersfield Chronicle|date=8 February 1896|page=3|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000167/18960208/042/0003|via =British Newspaper Archive|url-access=subscription |title=An ornithologist's bequest to the nation}} A number of birds were named after Seebohm, including the grey emutail (Dromaeocercus seebohmi) by Bowdler Sharpe. A portrait of Seebohm in oil by Hugh Ford Crighton is held by Sheffield Museums.
Bibliography
- (1901) [https://archive.org/details/birdsofsiberiare00seeb The birds of Siberia; a record of a naturalist's visits to the valleys of the Petchora and Yenesei]. J. Murray. London.
- (1893) [https://archive.org/details/geographicaldist00seeb Geographical distribution of British birds]
- (1890) [https://archive.org/details/birdsofjapanesee00seeb The birds of the Japanese Empire]. R.H. Porter, London.
- (1890) Classification of Birds. R.H. Porter, London.
- (1888) [https://archive.org/details/cu31924000181366 The geographical distribution of the family Charadriidae, or, The plovers, sandpipers, snipes, and their allies]. H. Sotheran. London
- (1883) A history of British birds, with coloured illustrations of their eggs. R.H. Porter. London. [https://archive.org/details/historyofbritish01seeb Volume 1] [https://archive.org/details/historyofbritish02seeb Volume 2] [https://archive.org/details/historyofbritish03seeb Volume 3] [https://archive.org/details/historyofbritish04seeb Volume 4]
- (1880) [https://archive.org/details/cu31924026995963 Siberia in Europe: a visit to the valley of the Petchora, in north-east Russia]. J. Murray, London.
- (1880) [https://archive.org/details/contributionstoo00seeb Contributions to the ornithology of Siberia]
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite book | last1= Seebohm | first1=Henry | last2= Sharpe | first2= R. Bowdler | year=1896 | author2-link=Richard Bowdler Sharpe| title= Coloured figures of the eggs of British birds | publisher= Pawson and Brailsford | place= Sheffield | url= https://archive.org/stream/colouredfigureso00seeb#page/n9/mode/2up | pages=v-xiv }} The book was edited and published by RB Sharpe after Seebohm's death. Sharpe included a biography of Seebohm entitled Memoir at the beginning of the volume.
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External links
- [http://sites.google.com/site/mmslouis/seebohm,monographoftheturdidae Illustrations from Monograph of the Turdidae] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702004124/https://sites.google.com/site/mmslouis/seebohm,monographoftheturdidae |date=2 July 2016 }}
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Category:Businesspeople from Bradford
Category:English ornithologists
Category:English people of German descent
Category:Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society
Category:Fellows of the Zoological Society of London