Johann Reinhold Forster

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Johann Reinhold Forster

Johann Reinhold Forster (October 22, 1729 – December 9, 1798) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals....
of partial Scottish

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
descent who made contributions to the early ornithology

Ornithology

Ornithology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of birds. Several aspects of the study of ornithology differ from closely related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds....
of Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
and North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
.

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Johann Reinhold Forster (October 22, 1729 – December 9, 1798) was a German

Germany

Natural history

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
descent who made contributions to the early ornithology

Ornithology

Europe

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
. He is best known as the naturalist on James Cook

James Cook

Captain James Cook Royal Society Royal Navy was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy....
's second Pacific

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
voyage, when he was accompanied by his son Georg Forster

Georg Forster

Johann Georg Adam Forster was a Germany natural history, ethnology, travel literature, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific Ocean....
.

Biography

Forster's family originated in the Lords Forrester

Lord Forrester

The title Lord Forrester was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1633 for George Forrester, 1st Lord Forrester who had already been created a baronet in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia in 1625....
in Scotland

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
from where his great-grandfather had emigrated after losing most of his property during the rule of Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English people Military history of the United Kingdom and Politics of England leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
along with many other Scots. Forster himself was born in the city of Dirschau (Tczew)

Tczew

Tczew [] is a town on the Vistula River in Eastern Pomerania, Kociewie, northern Poland with 60,128 inhabitants . It is an important junction with a classification yard dating to the Prussian Eastern Railway ....
in the Polish

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous countries in 16th and 17th-century Europe, formed by a Union of Lublin of Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1569....
province of Royal Prussia

Royal Prussia

Royal Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Poland from 1466 and then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1772. Royal Prussia included Pomerelia, Chelmno Land, Malbork Voivodeship, Gdansk, Torun, and Elblag....
. He studied theology at the University of Halle, afterwards serving as a Lutheran pastor in Nassenhuben (Mokry Dwór)

Mokry Dwór

Mokry Dw?r may refer to the following places in Poland:*Mokry Dw?r, Lower Silesian Voivodeship *Mokry Dw?r, Pomeranian Voivodeship ...
, where his son Georg was born. In 1766 he traveled to England

England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
with Georg (the eldest of eight children, seven of which survived childhood). He spent three years teaching at the Dissenter's Academy in Warrington

Warrington

Warrington is a large town, borough status in the United Kingdom and unitary authority area in Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley....
, succeeding Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley was an 18th-century British theologian, English Dissenters clergyman, Natural philosophy, educator, and Political philosophy who published over 150 works....
. Forster then moved to London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, where he became known as a natural historian. When Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, Order of the Bath, President of the Royal Society was an England Natural history, Botany and patron of the natural sciences....
withdrew at the last moment as naturalist on Cook's second voyage, Forster and his son were appointed to fill the vacant position. In July 1772 they set sail on the Resolution
HMS Resolution (Cook)

HMS Resolution was a sloop-of-war of the Royal Navy, and the ship in which Captain James Cook made his second and third voyages of exploration in the Pacific....
, returning to England in July 1775. During a stop in Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, forming part of the metropolitan municipality of the City of Cape Town. It is the provincial Capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislature capital of South Africa, where the Parliament of South Africa and many government offices are located....
, Forster engaged Anders Sparrman

Anders Sparrman

Anders Erikson Sparrman was a Sweden Natural history and an abolitionist.Sparrman was the son of a clergyman. At the age of nine he enrolled at Uppsala University, beginning medical studies at fourteen and becoming one of the outstanding pupils of Carolus Linnaeus....
to act as his assistant.

Both the Forsters kept detailed diaries of everything they saw on the voyage, and made extensive collections of both natural history specimens and artifacts. On his return Forster published Observations Made during a Voyage round the World (1778). However the income from the book was insufficient to clear his debts, and the bulk of Georg's drawings from the voyage had to be sold to Joseph Banks. During the next few years Forster undertook a variety of writing work, including a German translation of Thomas Pennant

Thomas Pennant

Thomas Pennant was a Wales natural history and antiquary.The Pennants were a Welsh gentry family from the parish of Whitford, Flintshire, who had built up a modest estate at Bychton by the seventeenth century....
's Arctic Zoology.

In November 1779 Forster was appointed Professor

Professor

The meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the Academic department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual....
of Natural History

Natural history

Mineralogy

Mineralogy is an Earth Science focused around the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization....
at the University of Halle, where he remained until his death. His Descriptiones animalium, completed within a month of returning to England with Cook, was eventually edited by Hinrich Lichtenstein and published in 1844.

Forster's Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1772–73) on zoology, ornithology, and ichthyology established him as one of the earliest authorities on North American zoology.

External links

at the Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum
Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum

The Center for Retrospective Digitization in G?ttingen is an online system for archiving academic journals....
at the Australian Dictionary of Biography
Australian Dictionary of Biography

The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a multi-volume project published by Melbourne University Press.The ADB project has been operating since 1957 with staff located at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University....