Ipswich Museum - The Curatorship of Dr John Ellor Taylor FLS, FGS, 1872-1893

The Curatorship of Dr John Ellor Taylor FLS, FGS, 1872-1893

George Knights was succeeded by Dr John Ellor Taylor (1837-1895), FLS, FGS, botanist and geologist. With the help of Edward Packard, founder of the Packard and Fison fertiliser industry, Taylor created what Sir Ray Lankester considered to be the finest representative collections of local geology in the country. Dr Taylor was also editor of the national popular science journal Hardwicke's Science Gossip Magazine, and leading light of the Ipswich Science Gossip Society (1869), which under his guidance became the Ipswich Scientific Society (1875). He had founded the equivalent Society in Norwich in 1870 and was a co-founder of the Norfolk Geological Society.

Taylor advocated the possibilities of coal-mining in Suffolk, and gave lectures (free to the working classes) to audiences of up to 500, giving 20 lectures each season from 1872–1893. He also made a lecture-tour of Australia in 1885, and wrote several popular books including 'Half-Hours at the Seaside', 'Half-Hours in Green Lanes' and the celebrated title 'The Sagacity and Morality of Plants'. His work contributed very largely to public education in Ipswich.

Read more about this topic:  Ipswich Museum

Famous quotes containing the words john and/or taylor:

    Look Johnny, Spig just joined the Navy. I’m married to it. I run the mess hall. I swab the deck. I chip the rust. You’re afraid that they’ll kick Spig out of the Navy. I’m afraid that they won’t.
    Frank Fenton, William Wister Haines, co-scenarist, and John Ford. Minne Wead (Maureen O’Hara)

    Women have their heads in their hearts. Man seems to have been destined for a superior being; as things are, I think women generally better creatures than men. They have weaker appetites and weaker intellects but much stronger affections. A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head; but a corrupt woman is lost forever.
    —Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)