Alfred Newton - Career

Career

In 1854 he was elected Travelling Fellow of Magdalene College, and subsequently visited many parts of the world, including Lapland, Iceland, Spitsbergen, the West Indies and North America. In 1866 he became the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge, a position which he retained until his death. He was one of the few British Professors of Zoology in whose appointment Huxley did not have a hand. Both Darwin and Huxley declined to support his application, on the grounds that his interests and publications were too narrowly focussed on ornithology.

The procedure was for candidates to canvass for votes (presumably amongst the MAs of the University). Result of poll: Newton 110; Dr Drosier 82. Newton was one of the first zoologists to accept and champion the views of Charles Darwin, and his early lecture courses as professor were on evolution and zoogeography.

Newton was a leader in founding the British Ornithologists' Union in 1858, and its quarterly journal, the Ibis in 1859. He wrote books, including Ootheca Wolleyana (begun in 1864), Zoology (1872), and A Dictionary of Birds (1893–1896). He contributed memoirs to scientific societies, and edited the Ibis (1865–1870), the Zoological Record (1870–1872), and Yarrell's British Birds (1871–1882). His services to ornithology and zoogeography were recognized by the Royal Society in 1900, when it awarded him the Royal Medal.

Newton spent some time studying the vanishing birds of the Mascarene Islands, from where his brother Sir Edward Newton sent him specimens. These included the Dodo on Mauritius and the Solitaire on Rodrigues, both already extinct. In 1872 he was the first person to describe Newton's Parakeet which also lived on Rodrigues. This bird became extinct in 1875.