William MacGillivray

William MacGillivray FRSE MWS (25 January 1796 – 4 September 1852) was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist.

MacGillivray was born in Old Aberdeen and brought up on the island of Harris. He returned to Aberdeen where he attended King's College, graduating MA in 1815. He studied medicine, but did not complete the course. In 1823 he became assistant to Robert Jameson, the Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. He was curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1831, resigning in 1841 to become Professor of Natural History at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died in Aberdeen and was buried in Edinburgh's New Calton cemetery.

MacGillivray was a friend of American bird expert John James Audubon, and wrote a large part of Audubon's Ornithological Biographies from 1830-1839. Audubon named MacGillivray's Warbler for him.

MacGillivray's eldest son, John MacGillivray (1822-1867), published an account of the voyage round the world of HMS Rattlesnake, on board of which he was naturalist. Another son, Paul, published an Aberdeen Flora in 1853. He donated 214 of his father's paintings to the Natural History Museum.

Legacy

A detailed version of MacGillivray's life was written by another William MacGillivray, which book was published 49 years after the ornithologist MacGillvray's death. The book details the life of the ornithologist. MacGillivray is noted for his keen insights in species distinctions; for example, in his works he made a clear distinction between the Hooded Crow and Carrion Crow, which distinction was muddled for the next one and a half centuries. Then in 2002, his insights were vindicated by DNA research and the Hooded Crow was awarded species status.

Works

His works include:

• Lives of Eminent Zoologists from Aristotle to Linnaeus (1830)
• A Systematic Arrangement of British Plants (1830)
• The Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt. (1832)
• A History of British Quadrupeds (1838)
• A Manual of Botany, Comprising Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology (1840)
• A History of the Molluscous Animals of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine (1843)
• A Manual of British Ornithology (1840 – 1842)
• A History of British Birds, indigenous and migratory, in five volumes (1837-1852)
• Natural History of Deeside and Braemar (1855), published posthumously

He also illustrated Henry Witham's 1833 The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of Great Britain. The Conchologist's Text-Book was edited by him through several editions.

References

• Biography at Natural History Museum
• C. Michael Hogan. 2009. Hooded Crow: Corvus cornix, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed, N. Stromberg
• William MacGillivray. 1901. A memorial tribute to William MacGillivray, ornithologist, Edinburgh
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "MacGillivray, William". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.