Birds from Sumatra given by Sir Stamford Raffles to Lord Stanley: links to names, types and drawings

Abstract

After escaping from the burning East Indiaman Fame, but losing all of his possessions, Sir Stamford Raffles, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen, hastily re-collected as many natural history specimens and drawings as he could before leaving Sumatra in April 1824. On his return to England Raffles was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society and, with Lord Edward Smith Stanley and others, founded the Zoological Society of London. In 1825 Raffles gave 21 Sumatran birds to Stanley. Upon his death in 1851, Stanley (then 13th Earl of Derby) bequeathed his collection to the people of Liverpool, founding what is now the World Museum, National Museums Liverpool. Here I record these birds, 11 of which are still extant in the collection, including links to: the names and types from Raffles' (1822) ‘descriptive catalogue' of a zoological collection from Sumatra; Raffles' post-Fame zoological drawings; and Nicholas Aylward Vigors' catalogue of Raffles' specimens in the Zoological Society Museum, published in Lady Sophia Raffles’ memoir in 1830.