Robert Gordon Latham FRS (24 March 1812 – 9 March 1888) was an ethnologist and philologist.

Born at Billingborough

Billingborough

Billingborough is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, about ten miles north of Bourne and ten miles south of Sleaford on the B1177 between Horbling and Pointon just south of the A52.-Village:...

, Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

, Latham studied philology in Scandinavia. He graduated from King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

 in 1833, becoming a Fellow of King's. After studying medicine he held appointments in the London hospitals, but meanwhile was attracted to philology and ethnology, appointed professor of English Language and Literature in University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

, 1839, and director of the ethnological department of The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

, 1852. As was common at the time for men and gentlement of science Latham had a strong history of publishing—see Partial bibliography below. One of his earlier books, "Circle of the Sciences: A series of Treatises on the Principles of Science, with their Application to Practical Pursuits" (Glasgow, 1860), written in collaboration with William Somerville Orr, Richard Owen

Richard Owen

Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...

, Edward Smith

Edward Smith

Captain Edward John Smith, RD, RNR was an English naval reserve officer, and ship's captain. He was the officer in command of the and died when the ship sank in 1912...

, and William Sweetland Dallas contained a strong discussion about sea unicorns (aka Narwahls) in Volume III, p. 441. He retired in 1863.

Partial bibliography

• English Language, 1841
• An Elementary English Grammar for the Use of Schools, 1843
• The Natural History of the Varieties of Mankind, 1850
• The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies, 1851
• Man and his Migrations, 1851
• The Ethnology of Europe, 1853
• The native races of The Russian empire, 1854
• Logic in its Application to Language, 1856
• Descriptive Ethnology, 1858
• OPUSCULA: Essays Chiefly Philological and Ethnographical, 1860
• Circle of the Sciences: A series of Treatises on the Principles of Science, with their Application to Practical Pursuits, 1860
• A Smaller English Grammar for the Use of Schools, 1861
• The Channel Islands, 1862
• A Dictionary of the English Language
  A Dictionary of the English Language
  Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language....
  
  , 1866

External links