Oldfield Thomas

Oldfield Thomas
FRS FZS
Oldfield Thomas FRS FZS
	Painting by John Ernest Breun
Born	Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas; 21 February 1858; Millbrook, Bedfordshire, England
Died	16 June 1929 (aged 71)
Known for	Mammalogy
	Scientific career
Fields	Zoology
Institutions	Natural History Museum
Author abbrev. (zoology)	Thomas

Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas FRS FZS (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Career

Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appointed to the museum secretary's office in 1876, transferring to the zoological department in 1878.

In 1891, Thomas married Mary Kane, daughter of Sir Andrew Clark, heiress to a small fortune, which gave him the finances to hire mammal collectors and present their specimens to the museum.^[4] He also did field work himself in Western Europe and South America. His wife shared his interest in natural history, and accompanied him on collecting trips.^[2] In 1896, when William Henry Flower took control of the department, he hired Richard Lydekker to rearrange the exhibitions,^[5] allowing Thomas to concentrate on these new specimens.^[6]^[7]

Thomas viewed his taxonomy efforts from the scope of British imperialism. "You and I in our scientific lives have seen the general knowledge of Mammals of the world wonderfully advanced – there are few or no blank areas anymore", he said in a letter to Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.^[4]

Officially retired from the museum in 1923, he continued his work without interruption. Although popular rumours suggested he died by shooting himself with a handgun while sitting at his museum desk,^[8] he actually died at home^[9] in 1929, aged 71, about a year after the death of his wife, "a severe blow from which he never recovered."^[2]

Taxonomic descriptions

Higher ranks

Genera

Species

References

^ "Thomas, Oldfield". Who's Who. Vol. 59. A & C Black. 1907. p. 1737.
^ ^a ^b ^c Haddon, Alfred Cort (1929). "MR. M. R. Oldfield Thomas, F.R.S". Nature. 124 (3116): 101–102. Bibcode:1929Natur.124..101M. doi:10.1038/124101a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
^ Haddon, Albert Cort (9 May 1901). "M. R. Oldfield Thomas". Nature. 64 (1645): 37–38. doi:10.1038/064038a0. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
^ ^a ^b Driskell, Jay (19 January 2016). "Between Science and Empire: Oldfield Thomas and Anglo-American Zoology". Smithsonian Institution Archives. Archived from the original on 24 June 2019. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
^ The Natural History Museum at South Kensington, William T. Stearn ISBN 0-434-73600-7
^ Oldfield Thomas, Catalogue of the Marsupialia and Monotremata in the Collection of the British Museum (Natural History) Dept of Zoology (1888), Taylor and Francis, London Catalogue of the Marsupialia... full text
^ Oldfield Thomas F. R. S., The History of the Collections Contained in the Natural History Departments of the British Museum Vol. II, Separate Historical accounts of the Historical Collections included in the Department of Zoology, I. Mammals,(1906) William Clowes and Sons Ltd. London. retrieved 21 March 2007 The History of the Collections..." full text Archived 29 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine
^ Flannery, T. (6 November 2012). Among the Islands: Adventures in the Pacific. Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-8021-9404-6. OCLC 793838823. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
^ Portch, Lorraine (18 November 2015). "Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas – a resolved ending to a suicide mystery". London: Blogs from the Natural History Museum. Archived from the original on 4 February 2018. Retrieved 17 May 2017.

External links

Scholia has a profile for Michael Roger Oldfield Thomas (Q318207).

Works by or about Michael Roger Oldfield Thomas at Wikisource

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