John Latham

Who was John Latham?

John Latham was an English physician, naturalist and author. He was born in Eltham in South East London, and was the eldest son of John Latham, a surgeon there, and his mother was a descendant of the Sothebys, in Yorkshire.

Latham has been called the "grandfather" of Australian ornithology. He was able to examine specimens of Australian birds which reached England in the last twenty years of the 18th century, and was responsible for naming many of them. These included the emu, sulphur-crested cockatoo, wedge-tailed eagle, superb lyrebird and Australian magpie. He was also the first to describe the hyacinth macaw. Latham practiced as a physician at Dartford in Kent, where he collected the Dartford warbler. He retired in 1796 and settled in Hampshire. His main works were A General Synopsis of Birds and General History of Birds.

A General Synopsis of Birds was Latham's first ornithological work and contained 106 illustrations by the author. It described many new species which Latham had discovered in various museums and collections. In this work, like Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, he did not attach importance to the names of the species which he described.