Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux

Who was Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux?

Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux was a French biologist and naturalist, noted for his seminal work with algae.

Lamouroux was born in Agen in the Aquitaine of southern France, the son of Claude Lamouroux, an intellectual who made his livelihood in manufacturing, but who was also a musician, a one term mayor of Agen, and a co-founder of the Academic Society of Agen. Jean Vincent Lamouroux studied botany at the Boudon de Saint-Amans school in Agen.

Lamouroux was particularly interested in marine organisms such as algae and hydrozoans. In 1805 he published a dissertation on several species of Fucus before settling in Paris in 1807, after his father went into bankruptcy.

In 1807 Lamouroux was appointed to the French Academy of Sciences and in 1808 he became assistant professor of natural history at the University of Caen, rising to full professorship by 1811. He joined and contributed to the Linnean Society of Calvados collaborating with his friend Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent. About this time he become director of the Caen Botanical Gardens. He contributed articles to the journal Annales générales des sciences physiques and to the Dictionnaire classique d'histoire naturelle.