Richard Bowdler Sharpe was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 zoologist.

Biography

Sharpe was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and studied at Brighton College

Brighton College

Brighton College is an institution divided between a Senior School known simply as Brighton College, the Prep School and the Pre-Prep School. All of these schools are co-educational independent schools in Brighton, England, sited immediately next to each another. The Senior School caters for...

, The King's School, Peterborough

The King's School, Peterborough

The King's School is a Voluntary Aided Church of England comprehensive secondary school in Peterborough, England. On the 1st January 2011, the School became an academy and changed its name from 'The King's School, Peterborough'...

 and Loughborough Grammar School

Loughborough Grammar School

Loughborough Grammar School founded in 1495 by Thomas Burton, is an independent school for boys in Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It is a day school for over 1100 pupils and a boarding school for nearly 100. It is one of three schools known as the Loughborough Endowed Schools, along with...

. At the age of sixteen he went to work for Smith & Sons in London. In 1864 he commenced his first ornithological work, the Monograph of the Kingfishers (1868–71).

In 1867 Sharpe was given the post of librarian of the Zoological Society, on the recommendation of Osbert Salvin

Osbert Salvin

Osbert Salvin FRS was an English naturalist, best known for co-authoring Biologia Centrali-Americana with Frederick DuCane Godman. This was a 52 volume encyclopedia on the natural history of Central America....

 and Philip Sclater

Philip Sclater

Philip Lutley Sclater was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world...

. On the death of George Robert Gray

George Robert Gray

George Robert Gray FRS was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years...

 in 1872 he joined the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 as a Senior Assistant in the Department of Zoology, taking charge of the bird collection. He became Assistant Keeper in 1895, remaining there until his death from pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

.

Sharpe founded the British Ornithologists' Club

British Ornithologists' Club

The British Ornithologists' Club was founded in October 1892 to promote discussion between ornithologists and to produce a journal, their Bulletin, which has been published continuously since that year....

 in 1892 and edited its bulletin. He wrote thirteen and a half of the 27 volumes of the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum (1874–1898).

Publications

• Hand-book to the birds of Great Britain (1894) - see http://www.archive.org/stream/handbooktobirdso04shar/handbooktobirdso04shar_djvu.txt

British Museum catalogues

• Catalogue of the Accipitres
  Accipiter
  The genus Accipiter is a group of birds of prey in the family Accipitridae, many of which are named as goshawks and sparrowhawks. They can be anatomically distinguished from their relatives by the lack of a procoracoid foramen. Two small and aberrant species usually placed here do possess a large...
  
  , or diurnal birds of prey, in the collection of the British Museum. (1874).
• Catalogue of the Striges, or nocturnal birds of prey, in the collection of the British museum. (1875).
• Catalogue of the Passeriformes, or perching birds, in the collection of the British museum. Coliomorphae... (1877).
• Catalogue of the Passeriformes, or perching birds, in the collection of the British museum. Cichlomorphae, pt.I... (1879).
• Catalogue of the Passeriformes, or perching birds, in the collection of the British museum. Cichlomorphae, pt.III-[IV]... (1881–83).
• Catalogue of the Passeriformes, or perching birds, in the collection of the British museum. Fringilliformes, pt.I... (1885).
• A monograph of the Hirundinidae, (1894).
• A Monograph of The Alcedinidae, or Family of Kingfishers (1868–1871).
• Catalogue of the Passeriformes, or perching birds, in the collection of the British museum. Fringilliformes, pt.III... (1888).
• Catalogue of the Passeriformes, or perching birds, in the collection of the British museum. Sturniformes... (1890).
• Catalogue of the Picariae in the collection of the British museum. Coraciae... (1892).
• Catalogue of the Fulicariae... and Alectorides
  Alectoris
  Alectoris, is a genus of partridges with representatives in southern Europe, north Africa and Arabia, and across Asia in Pakistan to Tibet and western China. Members of the genus, notably the Chukar and Red-legged Partridge, have been introduced to the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Hawaii...
  
  ... in the collection of the British museum. (1894).
• Catalogue of the Limicolae
  Wader
  Waders, called shorebirds in North America , are members of the order Charadriiformes, excluding the more marine web-footed seabird groups. The latter are the skuas , gulls , terns , skimmers , and auks...
  
   in the collection of the British museum. (1896).
• Catalogue of the Plataleae, Herodiones
  Heron
  The herons are long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae. There are 64 recognised species in this family. Some are called "egrets" or "bitterns" instead of "heron"....
  
  , Steganopodes
  Pelecaniformes
  The Pelecaniformes is a order of medium-sized and large waterbirds found worldwide. As traditionally—but erroneously—defined, they encompass all birds that have feet with all four toes webbed. Hence, they were formerly also known by such names as totipalmates or steganopodes...
  
  , Pygopodes, Alcae, and Impennes in the collection of the British museum. (1898).

External links

• "Biography" at Genealogy and History of the Bowdler Family
• Images from the Monograph of The Alcedinidae
• Wonders of the bird world
• A hand-book to the birds of Great Britain (Volume 1)
• A hand-book to the birds of Great Britain (Volume 2)
• A hand-book to the birds of Great Britain (Volume 3)
• A hand-book to the birds of Great Britain (Volume 4)
• A review of recent attempts to classify birds (1891)
• A monograph of the Hirundidae (1885)