Thomas Pennant ( 1726 - 1798)

Naturalist, antiquary, traveller and geographer.

Pennant of Downing, Flintshire, was a leading c.18th naturalist and travel writer: his notable works of natural history include British Zoology (1766) and Synopsis of Quadrupeds (1771), whilst his published tours of Scotland and Wales have been credited with establishing the ‘domestic tour’ as a fashionable genre.

His most ambitious literary undertaking was Outlines of the Globe in twenty-two volumes which was never full published and only exists in manuscript form as he only published four of the volumes. The four volumes published, two by himself, and two by his son, David Pennant. As for the rest, they remained in the custody of the inheritors of the Downing property, the Feilding family, till 1938, when they were sold with many other books and manuscripts which belonged to Thomas Pennant and his son, by Christie’s, instructed by the executors of the late viscount Feilding, lord Denbigh, for £300, the purchasers being Maggs Brothers, booksellers, London. The twenty-two volumes of the Outlines are now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.