Naming and Necessity: Sherborn's Context in the 19(th) Century

Abstract

By the late 19(th) Century, storms plaguing early Victorian systematics and nomenclature seemed to have abated. Vociferous disputes over radical renaming, the world-shaking clash of all-encompassing procrustean systems, struggles over centres of authority, and the issues of language and meaning had now been settled by the institution of a stable imperial museum and its catalogues, a set of rules for the naming of zoological objects, and a new professional class of zoologists. Yet, for all that tranquillity, the disputes simmered below the surface, re-emerging as bitter struggles over synonyms, trinomials, the subspecies category, the looming issues of the philosophy of scientific language, and the aggressive new American style of field biology - all pressed in upon the received practice of naming and classifying organisms and the threat of anarchy. In the midst rose an index. This paper will explore the context of CD Sherborn's Index Animalium and those looming problems and issues which a laborious and comprehensive "index of nature" was meant to solve.

Figure 1.

A Sir William Kirby, date and age uncertain B Robert Grant in 1852, aged 59.

Figure 2.

Hugh Edwin Strickland A age 26 B aged 42, when he died.

Figure 3.

Early draft of the Stricklandian Code with handwritten comments by Darwin and Ogilby.

Figure 4.

Stricklandian Code – discussion of the philosophy of language.

Figure 5.

John Edward Gray, the chief Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum (Bloomsbury).

Figure 6.

Charles Darwin and a plate from his work on barnacles.

Figure 7.

A Elliot Coues B Joel A. Allen

Figure 8.

Report of the meeting discussing trinomial nomenclature.

Figure 9.

Announcement of Sherborn’s plans for his hugely ambitious project.

Figure 10.

An iconographic picture of Sherborn in later years – staged, but revealing and taken at about the time of the final quote.