- John George Children
John George Children (
18 May 1777 –1 January 1852 in Halstead/Kent) was a Britishchemist ,mineralogist andzoologist .Children studied at
Queen's College, Cambridge . In 1822 he was working as a librarian in the Department of Antiquities at theBritish Museum when he was appointed assistant keeper of the Natural History Department in succession toWilliam Elford Leach . The appointment was controversial as he was less qualified than another applicant,William John Swainson . After the division of the Department into three sections in 1837 he became keeper of the Department of Zoology, retiring in 1840 and succeeded by his assistantJohn Edward Gray .Children was made a fellow of the
Royal Society in 1807, and served as the society's secretary in 1826, and from 1830 to 1837.In 1833, he was founding president of what became the
Royal Entomological Society of London .His name is commemorated in the Australian Children's python, "
Antaresia childreni ", the Australian stick insect [http://miller.emu.id.au/pmiller/books/stick-insects/phasmatodea/phasmatidae/tropidoderinae/tropidoderus/childrenii/index.html "Tropidoderus childrenii"] ,and the mineralchildrenite .John James Audubon named a warbler after him, but the specimen turned out to be a juvenileYellow Warbler .His daughter was
Anna Atkins , a botanist, and who is best-known for her book ofcyanotype photogram s ofalgae , the first book of exclusivelyphotograph ic images ever made.
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