Oxted and District History Society
Tuesday 8th January 2008.

Let Nature be Your Teacher

The romantic poets, Coleridge and Wordsworth, encouraged their contemporaries, like William Hazlitt, to study nature. In the 18th and 19th Centuries there were many people studying nature, writing poetry, stories and journals and collecting items of interest. James Thomson wrote poetry about nature in his ‘Seasons’. Gilbert White, the Vicar of Selborne, wrote ‘The Natural History of Selborne’, published in 1788. Thomas Pennant published his ‘British Zoology’ in 1766.

Thomas Bewick, living in Northumberland, published his ‘General History of Quadrupeds’ in 1790 and later his ‘History of British Birds’. He illustrated these books with excellent wood engravings. Sarah Trimmer and Priscilla Wakefield wrote nature books for children.

Mary Anning discovered fossils on the seashore at Lyme Regis and set up a fossil shop to support her family. In 1811, aged 12, she found an ichthyosaurus fossil, the first of many significant discoveries. Anna Thynne visited the fossil shop but also studied and collected corals on the North Devon coastline. She set up an early aquarium in 1849. Another naturalist, Margaret Gatty, published two volumes on ‘British Sea-weeds’ in 1863.

Lecture given by Betty Shearing
(helped by Brian and Sarah Shearing), at
Oxted United Reformed Church,
Bluehouse Lane, Oxted