Philip Henry Gosse

Philip Henry Gosse FRS (/ɡɒs/; 6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888), known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, prolific author, "Father of the Aquarium", scientific illustrator, lecturer, entrepreneur, and pioneer in the study of marine biology and ornithology. Gosse created and stocked the world's first public marine aquarium at London Zoo in 1853, and coined the term "aquarium". His 1854 work The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea was the catalyst for the aquarium craze in mid-Victorian England. Over thirty years later, Gosse co-authored a three-volume work on Rotifera (microscopic aquatic animals) considered at the time "the most complete and exhaustive history of the Rotifera in any language", with drawings of "extreme minuteness, accuracy, and beauty". In addition, Gosse was one of the chief figures among Brethren (British evangelical Christians frequently referred to by the misnomer "Plymouth Brethren"). For over half his life, he advanced his religious outlook by lecturing, evangelising, teaching, preaching, and watching for the Second Advent, as well as helping to spread the movement across the world. After his death in 1888, the popular image of Gosse was shaped by his son, Edmund W. Gosse, the poet and critic, in his 1890 Life of Philip Henry Gosse F.R.S. and most notably in his 1907 memoir, Father and Son. In the latter work, among other things Gosse was portrayed as an overbearing father of uncompromising religious views. Edmund Gosse mythologized the reception given to Gosse’s Omphalos (1857), an attempt to reconcile the geological ages of uniformitarian geology with the biblical account of creation. Following new research, most aspects of Edmund Gosse's characterization of his father's life and career in religion and science have been challenged by Douglas Wertheimer in Philip Henry Gosse: A Biography (2024) and elsewhere, though the older view persists.