IT’S WILLIAM MacGILLIVRAY’S BIRTHDAY TOO

Whilst there are people all around the world celebrating Burns Night, it is worth mentioning that today is the birthday of another Scot of note.

William MacGillivray was the illegitimate son of a soldier. He was brought up by his uncle in Harris and said “the solitude of Nature was my school”.

He was enrolled in Aberdeen university at only the age of 12 and used to walk home to Harris every summer. Furthermore, he wished to see the natural history collections in the British Museum and walked all the way to London to see them. He said of the trip…

‘I felt my love of natural history very much increased by the inspection of the museum. At the same time I felt convinced that to study Nature I must have recourse to Nature alone, pure and free from human interference. . . I am afraid that my vanity will be too much increased by this visit.’

This trip may have informed much of his later work as the Natural History museum in London state on their site that one of the reasons that he is not more famous may be because

Although adored by his students, MacGillivray did not endear himself to everybody. With an absolute conviction in his own abilities, he tended to be provocative and outspoken. He often condemned scientists who examined specimens without ever seeing the creature in its natural habitat.

They also quote a letter to a colleague…

‘To those really desirous of information respecting our native species, I would say, let us betake ourselves to the fields and woods; let us traverse the hills and valleys together; let us there study our favourites, pursue them from brake to bush.’

MacGillivray later became the curator at the museum of Natural History in Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons. He later left this post to take up the post of Professor of Natural History at Aberdeen University. During this post he introduced the practice of taking students on field trips and according to one student he…

‘he could walk the most active of us into limp helplessness’.In amongst all this he had been writing prodigiously as well as becoming a renowned natural artist.

There is definitely more than one notable Scot with a birthday today.

 

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