53 Facts About Thomas Pennant

Thomas Pennant was born and lived his whole life at his family estate, Downing Hall, near Whitford, Flintshire, in Wales.

Thomas Pennant wrote acclaimed books including British Zoology, the History of Quadrupeds, Arctic Zoology and Indian Zoology although he never travelled further afield than continental Europe.

Thomas Pennant knew and maintained correspondence with many of the scientific figures of his day.

Thomas Pennant travelled on horseback accompanied by his servant, Moses Griffith, who sketched the things they encountered and later worked these up into illustrations for the books.

Thomas Pennant was an amiable man with a large circle of friends and was still busily following his interests into his sixties.

Thomas Pennant enjoyed good health throughout his life and died at Downing at the age of seventy-two.

At the age of twelve, Thomas Pennant later recalled, he had been inspired with a passion for natural history through being presented with Francis Willughby's Ornithology.

Thomas Pennant married Elizabeth Falconer, the daughter of Lieutenant James Falconer of the Royal Navy, in 1759 and they had a son, David Thomas Pennant, born in 1763.

Thomas Pennant amassed a considerable collection of works of art, many of which had been commissioned and which were selected for their scientific interest rather than their connoisseur value.

Thomas Pennant had several works by Nicholas Pocock representing topographical landforms, mostly in Wales, and others by the artist Peter Paillou, probably commissioned, representing different climate types.

Also included in the "Thomas Pennant Collection", housed at the National Library of Wales, are many watercolours by Moses Griffith and John Ingleby, and some drawings by Thomas Pennant himself.

Thomas Pennant was employed full-time by Pennant and accommodated at Downing.

Many of these paintings are included in the Thomas Pennant Collection held by the National Museum of Wales.

Thomas Pennant was an improving landowner and active defender of the established order in church and state.

Thomas Pennant served as high sheriff of Flintshire in 1761, and actively opposed popular agitation for parliamentary reform.

Thomas Pennant felt very honoured by this and continued to correspond with Linnaeus throughout his life.

The observations Thomas Pennant recorded in British Zoology were sufficiently detailed and accurate that it was possible to use them to recreate a modern ecological study that had used a decade's worth of laboratory-based molecular data.

The book took several years to write and during that time, Thomas Pennant was struck by personal tragedy when his wife died.

Thomas Pennant later complained that the Comte used several of his communications on animals in his Histoire Naturelle without properly attributing them to Pennant.

Thomas Pennant's meeting with Pallas was significant, because it led Pennant to write his Synopsis of Quadrupeds.

At her request he led a "philosophical expedition" into her distant territories that lasted six years, so Thomas Pennant took over the project.

In 1767 Thomas Pennant was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

Thomas Pennant wrote an account of this bird, the king penguin, and all the other known species of penguin which was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Thomas Pennant visited the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast on the way and was much impressed by the breeding seabird colonies.

Thomas Pennant entered Scotland via Berwick-on-Tweed and proceeded via Edinburgh and up the east coast, continuing through Perth, Aberdeen and Inverness.

Thomas Pennant was unimpressed by the climate but was interested in all he saw and made enquiries about the local economy.

Thomas Pennant described in detail the scenery around Loch Ness.

Thomas Pennant enthused over the Arctic char, a fish new to him but did not mention a monster in the lake.

Thomas Pennant observed red deer, black grouse, white hares and ptarmigan.

Thomas Pennant saw the capercaillie in the forests of Glenmoriston and Strathglass and mentioned the pine grosbeak, the only occasion on which it has been recorded from Scotland.

Thomas Pennant enquired into the fisheries and commerce of the different places he passed through and visited the great houses, reporting on the antiquities he found there.

Thomas Pennant finished his journey by visiting Edinburgh again and travelling through Moffat, Gretna and Carlisle on his way back to Wales, having taken about three months on his travels.

Thomas Pennant was interested in the birds, frogs and molluscs and considered their distribution.

Thomas Pennant then travelled via Edinburgh, through Roxburghshire and beside the River Tweed to cross the border at Birgham.

Thomas Pennant seems to have been an unpretentious man of simple tastes, who was welcomed into the homes of strangers wherever he went.

Thomas Pennant made tours in Northamptonshire and the Isle of Man.

Thomas Pennant was interested in Owain Glyndwr and his struggle with Henry IV for supremacy in Wales.

Thomas Pennant includes tales of the strongwoman and harpist Marged ferch Ifan although he never met her.

In 1782, Thomas Pennant published his Journey from Chester to London.

Thomas Pennant had then intended to write a "Zoology of North America" but as he explained in the "Advertisement", since he felt mortified by the loss of British control over America, this was changed to Arctic Zoology.

The volumes were much acclaimed and Thomas Pennant was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Thomas Pennant is rarely thought of as a poet, but in 1782 he was moved to write an "elegant little poem", Ode to Indifference, as he explains "on account of a Lady speaking in praise of Indifference".

Thomas Pennant conceived the idea of publishing a work on a global scale and set to work on the first two volumes of what was planned to be a fourteen volume series.

Thomas Pennant met and corresponded widely over many years with other naturalists.

Thomas Pennant's manuscripts describe the birds that Banks saw on the voyage; and when he read John Latham's A General Synopsis of Birds, Thomas Pennant saw that Latham had omitted some of the land birds from Eastern Australia that Banks had collected, and wrote to Latham to fill in the gaps.

Thomas Pennant knew that Pennant, with little skill or inclination as a field naturalist, was gathering observations to publish in his books; he quickly determined that he would make his own use of the correspondence, and kept copies of every letter he sent to Pennant.

White was more careful than Thomas Pennant, and was sometimes critical; for example, in 1769 he objected that the goatsucker did not only make its sound while flying as Thomas Pennant asserted, so it was wrong to suppose that the noise must be made by the air beating against its "vastly extended mouth".

Thomas Pennant seems to have seen a great deal which we did not see.

For example, under "The Golden Eagle", Bewick writes that "Thomas Pennant says there are instances, though rare, of their having bred in Snowdon Hills".

Thomas Pennant says, they inhabit and breed in the fens near Spalding, in Lincolnshire, and that the female makes a nest not unlike that of the Crested Grebe, and lays four or five white eggs.

The naturalist Richard Mabey wrote that Thomas Pennant was "a doughty and open-minded traveller, and his various Tours were best-sellers in their time", adding Samuel Johnson's comment that Thomas Pennant was "the best traveller I ever read".

Thomas Pennant was the subject of the first in the eight part series.

Cymdeithas Thomas Pennant was formed in 1989, aiming to foster Pennant's memory.