Oreotrochilus Chimborazo. [Ecuadorian Hillstar]

Biography:

William John Swainson (1789-1855)

John Swainson was the eldest son of John Timothy Swainson, an original fellow of the Linnean Society. William, formal education was curtailed because of an impediment in his speech, joined the Liverpool Customs as a junior clerk at the age of 14. He joined the Army Commissariat and toured Malta and Sicily. He studied the ichthyology of western Sicily and in 1815, was forced by ill health to return to England where he subsequently retired on half pay. William followed in his father’s footsteps to become a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1815. In 1806 he accompanied the English explorer Henry Koster to Brazil. Koster had lived in Brazil for some years and had become famous for his book Travels in Brazil (1816). There he met Dr Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff, also an explorer of Brazil, and Russian Consul General. Swainson returned to England in 1818 in his words “a bee loaded with honey“, with a collection of over 20,000 insects, 1,200 species of plants, drawings of 120 species of fish, and about 760 bird skins. As with many Victorian scientists, Swainson was also a member of many learned societies, including the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society after his return from Brazil on 14 December 1820, and married his first wife Mary Parkes in 1823, with whom he had four sons (William John, George Frederick, Henry Gabriel and Edwin Newcombe) and a daughter (Mary Frederica). Mary died in 1835. Swainson remarried in 1840 to Ann Grasby, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. Swainson was involved in property management and natural history-related publications from 1841 to 1855, and forestry-related investigations in Tasmania, New South Wales, and Victoria from 1851 to 1853.

Swainson died at Fern Grove, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, on 6 December 1855.

William Home Lizars (1788–1859)

Lizars was born at Edinburgh in 1788. He was an artist and engraver, the son of Daniel Lizars, and brother of the surgeon John Lizars.

His sister Jean (Jane) Home married Sir William Jardine.His father was a publisher and an engraver and Lizars was apprenticed to his father. He furthered his studies at the Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh. Lizars took over his fathers business on his death. Lizars met J. J. Audubon in Edinburgh in October 1826  and agreed to publish Audubo Lizars perfected a method of etching which performed the functions of wood-engraving, for illustration of books. He died in Edinburgh on 30 March 1859, leaving a widow and family. Lizars took an active part in the foundation of the Royal Scottish Academy.