DOI: 10.25398/rd.northumbria.29723882
title: Clerical Naturalists in the Age of Enlightenment, 1625-1840: A Database

description: Although grounded in the work of the ancients, natural history entered a new phase in the seventeenth-century 'Age of Enlightenment' with a new emphasis on observation, description, and taxonomy. Perhaps surprisingly, in Great Britain and elsewhere an enormous amount of research into the natural world, as well as into agriculture and horticulture, was carried out by clergymen and their families. This phenomenon continued beyond the adoption of Darwinian evolution and into the twentieth century. By drawing attention to their local environments, clergymen of many denominations also helped lay the groundwork for the conservation movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The identity and career paths of these clergymen (and some women) has, however, been largely unexplored. This research aimed to reveal the lives, careers, and writings of clerical naturalists in the English-speaking world, with an emphasis on those active from the Restoration in 1660 to the publication between 1833 and 1836 of the Bridgewater Treatises: arguably the high-water mark of the clerical naturalist.This database was prepared as one of the outputs from the project <i>The Parish Revolution: Parochial Origins of Global Conservationism</i>. This research, carried out by Professor Brycchan Carey at Northumbria University, was generously funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the British Academy through a Wolfson Research Professorship. The initial aim of the project was to chart the relationship between parish natural history in the 'Age of Enlightenment' (approximately 1660-1850) and the early origins of British conservationism. As the project developed, it extended into a more general study of clerical naturalists between approximately 1660 and 1840. The project's conclusions will be disseminated through a monograph and a trade book, as well as the project web pages. This database contains core sources and key biographical information concerning 1189 individual clerical naturalists identified during the project's active period from 1 September 2022 to 31 August 2025.The dataset is organised into three main parts. The Database of Clerical Naturalists born from 1601-1800, which is the substantial part of this study, includes detailed personal and professional information about 445 individuals born between 1601 and 1800. This equates to clerical careers spanning the 1620s to the 1880s. In addition to the detailed data on the 445 individuals of the 'Age of Enlightenment', there are also two name lists with less complete data. These lists contain the names of 36 individuals born before 1600 and 708 born after 1800 who therefore fall outside the scope of this study but who might be the subject of future research. There is at least one source for each individual in the name lists, but note that a blank cell in the name lists does not mean that the individual concerned is missing from the named resource. simply that the resource has not yet been checked. The large number of Victorian and early twentieth-century individuals reflects the growing popularity of natural history in a rapidly expanding population, but can also be explained by the detailed membership records kept by the many local natural history societies that proliferated after 1800. Although there are more names in the post-1800 name list than in the earlier periods, future research may confirm the prima facie observation that the scientific contribution of many of these individuals was relatively slender in comparison with the earlier known clerical naturalists.This file contains the data that had been collected by the end of the funded period of the research on 31 August 2025. It is not intended to update this file further since the data covering the project period (1601-1800 births) are complete. Nevertheless, data on the earlier and later periods may still be collected as part of future studies. Any future updates will be published on the project website at https://www.brycchancarey.com/naturalists/The data have also been presented in a readable format on the project website which, as noted, will be regularly updated into the future. To see the latest updates and browse the readable format, please visit the project website at https://www.brycchancarey.com/naturalists/<br>