Forbes, Edward, 1815-1854

Edward Forbes was born on February 12, 1815, in Douglas, Isle of Man.

He was a British natural historian and author. As a child, he was interested in collecting insects, shells, minerals, fossils, and plants. In 1831, Forbes moved to London to study drawing but was not admitted by the Royal Academy. In 1832, he went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. He attended the natural history lectures, collected plants and animals, and became deeply involved in student affairs and scientific societies. In 1836, he abandoned medicine and took up natural history as his full-time occupation. Between 1833 and 1837, he travelled to Norway, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Algeria to study their natural histories. In 1838, Forbes published his first volume, “Malacologia Monensis,” a synopsis of the mollusk species native to the Isle of Man and in 1841, “A History of British Starfishes.” In 1841, he joined a Royal Navy surveying and archaeological expedition to the eastern Mediterranean. He returned to England in 1842, and financial pressures forced him to take the curatorship of the Museum of the Geological Society of London. In 1843, he also became a professor of botany at King's College London. In 1844, Forbes resigned the curatorship and became palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1845. In 1853, he became president of the Geological Society of London, and in 1854, he was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh. A clubbable and humorous man, he had an active social life which revolved around several small dining societies of like-minded individuals, e.g., the Maga Club (Edinburgh), a Red Lions Club (Birmingham), and a Metropolitan Lions Club (London). Several of Forbes’ works were published posthumously, e.g., “On the Tertiary Fluviomarine Formation of the Isle of Wight“ (1856) and “The Natural History of the European Seas” (1859).

In 1848, he married Emily Marianne Ashworth (1825–1909). After contracting recurrent malaria in the Mediterranean, he died of kidney disease on November 18, 1854, in Edinburgh, Scotland.