Robert Jameson

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For other people named Robert Jameson, see Robert Jameson (disambiguation).

Robert Jameson
Prof Robert Jameson by Sir John Steell
Prof Robert Jameson's grave, Warriston Cemetery

Robert Jameson

mineralogist
.

As

Natural History at the University of Edinburgh for fifty years, developing his predecessor John Walker's concepts based on mineralogy into geological theories of Neptunism
which held sway into the 1830s. Jameson is notable for his advanced scholarship, and his museum collection. The minerals and fossils collection of the Museum of Edinburgh University became one of the largest in Europe during Jameson's long tenure at the university.

Early life

Jameson was born in

Leith Grammar School, after which he became the apprentice of the Leith surgeon John Cheyne (father of John Cheyne), with the aim of going to sea. He made his first trip to Shetland to study its geology in 1789, aged only 15, publishing his findings in 1793.[2]

He attended classes at the University of Edinburgh (1792–93), studying medicine, botany, chemistry, and natural history. His father's brother Robert Jameson, was also a physician and lived with them on Rotten Row.[3]

By 1793, influenced by the Regius Professor of Natural History,

John Walker (1731–1803), Jameson abandoned medicine and the idea of being a ship's surgeon, and focused instead on science, particularly geology and mineralogy. It is worth noting that Walker was a presbyterian Minister who had actually combined the Regius Professorship with a period of service as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
in 1790.

In 1793, Jameson was given the responsibility of looking after the University's Natural History Collection. During this time his geological field-work frequently took him to the

Freiberg, Saxony, where he studied under the noted geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner
(1749 or 1750–1817).

As an undergraduate, Jameson had several noteworthy classmates at the

Robert Brown, Joseph Black, and Thomas Dick
.

In 1799 he was elected a Fellow of the

Andrew Duncan.[4]

Regius Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh

21,22 Royal Circus Edinburgh

In 1804, Jameson succeeded

uniformitarian deistic concept of Plutonism, that features of the Earth's crust were endlessly recycled in natural processes powered by magmatic
molten rocks.

Later, Jameson was willing to join forces with the proponents of Hutton, in 1826 writing that "the Wernerian geognostical views and method of investigation, combined with the theory of Hutton; the experiments and speculations of Hall; the illustrations of Playfair", had taken root in Edinburgh and spread to give Britain unsurpassed success in geology.[6]

In the April–October 1826 edition of the quarterly

Giambattista Brocchi.[12][13]

As a teacher, Jameson had a mixed reputation for imparting enthusiasm to his students. Thomas Carlyle, who gave serious attention to Natural History, described Jameson's lecturing style as a "blizzard of facts". Charles Darwin attended Robert Jameson's natural history course at the University of Edinburgh in Darwin's teenage years. Darwin found the lectures boring, saying that they determined him "never to attend to the study of geology". The detailed syllabus of Jameson's lectures, as drawn up by him in 1826, shows the range of his teaching. The course in zoology began with a consideration of the natural history of human beings, and concluded with lectures on the philosophy of zoology, in which the first subject was Origin of the Species of Animals. (The Scotsman, 29 October 1935: p. 8).

Over Jameson's fifty-year tenure, he built up a huge collection of mineralogical and geological specimens for the Museum of Edinburgh University, including fossils, birds and insects. By 1852 there were over 74,000 zoological and geological specimens at the museum, and in Britain the natural history collection was second only to that of the

Royal Museum, in Edinburgh's Chambers Street. He was also a prolific author of scientific papers and books, including the Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles (1800), his System of Mineralogy (1804), which ran to three editions, and Manual of Mineralogy (1821). In 1819, with Sir David Brewster (1781–1868), Jameson started the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal[14]
and became its sole editor in 1824.

He died at his home, 21 Royal Circus in Edinburgh,[15] on 19 April 1854 after two years of illness, and was interred at Warriston Cemetery.[16] He lies on the north side of the main east–west path near the old East Gate. He was succeeded in his post at Edinburgh University by Prof Edward Forbes.

Publications

Students of note

Artistic recognition

A portrait of Robert Jameson is housed by the

National Portrait Gallery in London, and a bust of him is in the Old College of the University of Edinburgh
.

Family

Jameson never married and had no children.

He was the uncle of Robert William Jameson, Writer to the Signet and playwright of Edinburgh, and therefore also the great-uncle of Sir Leander Starr Jameson, Bt, KCMG, British colonial statesman.

His sister Janet Jameson (1776-1853) married Patrick Torrie (1763-1810). They were parents to

FRSE a geologist.[17]

A further nephew was

FRSE
who rose to fame in India.

A

Dendroaspis jamesoni, is named in honor of Robert Jameson.[18]

A geological landmark in Newfoundland, Canada is named in his honour - Jameson Hills - named by a former student of his Wm. Eppes Cormack - the first European to traverse the interior of the island of Newfoundland

References

  1. ^ "Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002" (PDF). Royal Society of Edinburgh. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2006. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
  2. ^ Kay's Originals vol.2 p.453
  3. ^ Edinburgh and Leith Post OfficeV directory 1775-6
  4. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  5. ^ "1808 - Wernerian Natural History Society = History of Scholarly Societies". Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
  6. ^ The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. Constable. 1826. p. 2.
  7. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, A. and C. Black, Edinburgh, pp. 296–297
  8. OCLC 26502431
    .
  9. ISBN 1-84413-314-1
    .
  10. ^
    PMID 26498767
    .
  11. ^ Secord, James A. (1991). "Edinburgh Lamarckians: Robert Jameson and Robert E. Grant". Journal of the History of Biology 24: 1–18.
  12. ^ a b Georges Cuvier (1827). Robert Jameson (ed.). Essay on the Theory of the Earth. W. Blackwood. pp. 12–13, 431.
  13. doi:10.1007/s12052-010-0280-7
    .
  14. ^ http://www.thoemmes.com/reference/edin_phil.htm#pub
  15. ^ "Edinburgh, Post Office annual directory, 1832-1833". National Library of Scotland. 1833. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
  16. ^ The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. Constable. 1854. pp. 3–4.
  17. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  18. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5
    . ("Jameson", p. 133).

Further reading

External links

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