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35-514: Robert Jameson FRS FRSE (11 July 1774 – 19 April 1854) was a Scottish naturalist and mineralogist . As Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh for fifty years, developing his predecessor John Walker 's concepts based on mineralogy into geological theories of Neptunism which held sway into the 1830s. Jameson is notable for his advanced scholarship, and his museum collection. The minerals and fossils collection of

70-515: A "blizzard of facts". Charles Darwin attended Robert Jameson's natural history course at the University of Edinburgh in Darwin's teenage years. Darwin found the lectures boring, saying that they determined him "never to attend to the study of geology". The detailed syllabus of Jameson's lectures, as drawn up by him in 1826, shows the range of his teaching. The course in zoology began with a consideration of

105-735: A Chair (all of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society ). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigate in-group bias . Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including: New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote

140-461: A double series, and in a gradual manner." – this was the first use of the word "evolved" in a modern sense, and was the first significant statement to relate Lamarckism to the geological record of living organisms of the past. Attribution has been disputed, the concepts point to Jameson as the author, combining the directional geological history of Earth proposed by Neptunism with progressive transformism ( transmutation of species ) shown by fossils. It

175-524: A geologist. A further nephew was William Jameson FRSE who rose to fame in India. A species of venomous snake , Dendroaspis jamesoni , is named in honor of Robert Jameson. A geological landmark in Newfoundland, Canada is named in his honour - Jameson Hills - named by a former student of his Wm. Eppes Cormack - the first European to traverse the interior of the island of Newfoundland Fellow of

210-531: A later chapter described how "like the formation of rocks, we observe a regular succession of organic formations, the later always descending from the earlier, down to the present inhabitants of the earth, and to the last created being who was to exercise dominion over them", summarising elements of the ideas of Giambattista Brocchi . As a teacher, Jameson had a mixed reputation for imparting enthusiasm to his students. Thomas Carlyle , who gave serious attention to Natural History, described Jameson's lecturing style as

245-499: A primaeval ocean, initially pitted him against James Hutton (1726–1797), a fellow Scot and eminent geologist also based in Edinburgh (but not in the university), who argued for the uniformitarian deistic concept of Plutonism , that features of the Earth's crust were endlessly recycled in natural processes powered by magmatic molten rocks. Later, Jameson was willing to join forces with

280-1321: Is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955), Satyendra Nath Bose (1958), and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), Bai Chunli (2014), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018 , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates. Fellowship of

315-725: Is confirmed by the Council in April, and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting. An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and

350-724: Is housed by the National Portrait Gallery in London, and a bust of him is in the Old College of the University of Edinburgh . Jameson never married and had no children. He was the uncle of Robert William Jameson , Writer to the Signet and playwright of Edinburgh , and therefore also the great-uncle of Sir Leander Starr Jameson , Bt, KCMG, British colonial statesman. His sister Janet Jameson (1776-1853) married Patrick Torrie (1763-1810). They were parents to Thomas Jameson Torrie FRSE

385-421: Is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old boy network and elitist gentlemen's club . The certificate of election (see for example ) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which

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420-545: Is possible that the article was written by one of his students, Ami Boué or Robert Edmond Grant . Jameson's references to the Deluge in notes to his translation of Georges Cuvier 's Essay on the Theory of the Earth had done much to foster Catastrophism , but his 1827 edition referred to a "succession of variations" caused by environmental conditions having "gradually conducted the classes of aquatic animals to their present state". and

455-530: The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal and became its sole editor in 1824. He died at his home, 21 Royal Circus in Edinburgh , on 19 April 1854 after two years of illness, and was interred at Warriston Cemetery . He lies on the north side of the main east–west path near the old East Gate. He was succeeded in his post at Edinburgh University by Prof Edward Forbes . A portrait of Robert Jameson [1]

490-488: The University of Edinburgh including Robert Brown , Joseph Black , and Thomas Dick . In 1799 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . His proposers were Andrew Coventry , Thomas Charles Hope and Andrew Duncan . In 1804, Jameson succeeded Dr Walker as the third Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh, a post which he held for fifty years. During this period he became

525-426: The post-nominal letters FRS . Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 , there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS . Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to

560-497: The Leith surgeon John Cheyne (father of John Cheyne ), with the aim of going to sea. He made his first trip to Shetland to study its geology in 1789, aged only 15, publishing his findings in 1793. He attended classes at the University of Edinburgh (1792–93), studying medicine, botany , chemistry , and natural history . His father's brother Robert Jameson, was also a physician and lived with them on Rotten Row. By 1793, influenced by

595-561: The Museum of Edinburgh University became one of the largest in Europe during Jameson's long tenure at the university. Jameson was born in Leith on 11 July 1774, the son of Catherine Paton (1750–94) and Thomas Jameson (c.1750–1802), a soap manufacturer on Rotten Row (now Water Street). They lived on Sherrif Brae. His early education was spent at Leith Grammar School , after which he became the apprentice of

630-661: The Regius Professor of Natural History, John Walker (1731–1803), Jameson abandoned medicine and the idea of being a ship's surgeon, and focused instead on science, particularly geology and mineralogy. It is worth noting that Walker was a presbyterian Minister who had actually combined the Regius Professorship with a period of service as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1790. In 1793, Jameson

665-536: The Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society ( FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ". Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence,

700-439: The Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar " with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of

735-655: The Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future". Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which allows wider re-use. In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal Society Research Fellows . In addition to

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770-837: The award of Fellowship (FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and the Research Fellowships described above, several other awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society are also given. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal was published by Archibald Constable and Company, then in 1826 publication of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal was taken on by Adam Black , later A & C Black of Edinburgh. The journal covered emerging scientific developments in chemistry, optics, electricity, magnetism, and natural history, as well as related topics including practical mechanics, inventions, and scientific instruments. As well as articles by

805-597: The cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (2022), Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008), Onora O'Neill (2007), John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015). Honorary Fellows are entitled to use

840-478: The editors, it published contributions by many of the leading scientists at the time, including Charles Babbage , John Herschel , Robert Stevenson , William Scoresby , Alexander Humboldt and Humphry Davy . It was one of the publishing options for the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and after 1839 it published proceedings of the Wernerian Natural History Society . This article about

875-515: The fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations , and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use

910-579: The first eminent exponent in Britain of the Wernerian geological system, or Neptunism , and the acknowledged leader of the Scottish Wernerians, founding the Wernerian Natural History Society in 1808 and presiding from 1808 until around 1850, when his health began to decline, together with the fortunes of the Society. Jameson's support for Neptunism, a theory that argued that all rocks had been deposited from

945-530: The good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from

980-431: The most sagacious naturalists of our day" for having "expressed himself in the most unambiguous manner. He admits, on the one hand, the existence of the simplest infusory animals; on the other, the existence of the simplest worms, by means of spontaneous generation, that is, by an aggregation process of animal elements; and maintains, that all other animals, by the operation of external circumstances, are evolved from these in

1015-974: The museum, and in Britain the natural history collection was second only to that of the British Museum . Shortly after his death, the University Museum was transferred to the British Crown and became part of the Royal Scottish Museum, now the Royal Museum , in Edinburgh's Chambers Street. He was also a prolific author of scientific papers and books, including the Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles (1800), his System of Mineralogy (1804), which ran to three editions, and Manual of Mineralogy (1821). In 1819, with Sir David Brewster (1781–1868), Jameson started

1050-513: The natural history of human beings, and concluded with lectures on the philosophy of zoology, in which the first subject was Origin of the Species of Animals . ( The Scotsman , 29 October 1935: p. 8). Over Jameson's fifty-year tenure, he built up a huge collection of mineralogical and geological specimens for the Museum of Edinburgh University, including fossils, birds and insects. By 1852 there were over 74,000 zoological and geological specimens at

1085-509: The post nominal letters HonFRS . Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991). The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British royal family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society . As of 2023 there are four royal fellows: Elizabeth II

Robert Jameson - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-522: The proponents of Hutton, in 1826 writing that "the Wernerian geognostical views and method of investigation, combined with the theory of Hutton; the experiments and speculations of Hall; the illustrations of Playfair", had taken root in Edinburgh and spread to give Britain unsurpassed success in geology. In the April–October 1826 edition of the quarterly Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal edited by Jameson, an anonymous paper praised "Mr. Lamarck, one of

1155-546: The proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates

1190-727: Was given the responsibility of looking after the University's Natural History Collection. During this time his geological field-work frequently took him to the Isle of Arran , the Hebrides , Orkney, the Shetland Islands and the Irish mainland. In 1800, he spent a year at the mining academy in Freiberg, Saxony , where he studied under the noted geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749 or 1750–1817). As an undergraduate, Jameson had several noteworthy classmates at

1225-421: Was not a Royal Fellow, but provided her patronage to the society, as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership

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