THOMAS

See also:

• THOMAS PENNANT (1726-1798)

PENNANT (1726-1798)  , British naturalist and antiquary, was descended from an old Welsh family, for many generations resident at Downing, Flintshire, where he was born on the 14th of June 1726 . He received his early education at Wrexham, and afterwards entered Queen's College, Oxford, but did not take a degree . At twelve years of age he was inspired with a passion for natural history through being presented with Francis Willughby's Ornithology; and a tour in Cornwall in 1746–1747 awakened his strong interest in minerals and fossils . In 1750 his account of an earthquake at Downing was inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, where there also appeared in 1756 a paper on several coralloid bodies he had collected at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire . In the following year, at the instance of Linnaeus, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Upsala . In 1766 he published the first part of his British Zoology, a work meritorious rather as a laborious compilation than as an original contribution to science . During its progress he visited the continent of Europe and made the acquaintance of Buffon, Voltaire, Haller and Pallas . In 1767 he was elected F.R.S . In 1771 was published his Synopsis of Quadrupeds, afterwards extended into a History of Quadrupeds . At the end of the same year he published A Tour in Scotland in 1769, which proving remarkably popular was followed in 1774 by an account of another journey in Scotland, in two volumes . These works have proved invaluable as preserving the record of important antiquarian relics which have now perished . In 1778 he brought out a similar Tour in Wales, which was followed by a Journey to Snowdon (pt. i .

1781; pt. ii . 1783), afterwards forming the second

volume of the Tour . In 1782 he published a Journey from Chester to London . He brought out Arctic Zoology in 1785-1787 . In 1790 appeared his Account of London, which went through a large number of editions, and three years later he published the Literary Life of the late T . Pennant, written by himself . In his later years he was engaged on a work entitled Outlines of the Globe, vols. i. and ii. of which appeared in 1798, and vols. iii. and iv., edited by his son David Pennant, in 1800 . He was also the author of a number of minor works, some of which were published posthumously . He died at Downing on the 16th of December 1798 .