John Ray

John Ray
John Ray
Born	(1627-11-29)29 November 1627 Black Notley, Essex, England
Died	17 January 1705(1705-01-17) (aged 77) Black Notley, Essex, England
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Scientific career
Fields	Botany, Zoology, Natural history, Natural theology
Academic advisors	James Duport
Author abbrev. (botany)	Ray

John Ray

John Ray was born in the village of

After leaving Cambridge in 1663 he spent some time travelling both in Britain and the continent.[8] In 1673, Ray married Margaret Oakley of Launton in Oxfordshire; in 1676 he went to Middleton Hall near Tamworth, and in 1677 to Falborne (or Faulkbourne) Hall in Essex. Finally, in 1679, he removed to his birthplace at Black Notley, where he afterwards remained. His life there was quiet and uneventful, although he had poor health, including chronic sores. Ray kept writing books and corresponded widely on scientific matters, collaborating with his doctor and contemporary Samuel Dale.^[9] He lived, in spite of his infirmities, to the age of seventy-seven, dying at Black Notley. He is buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul where there is a memorial to him. He is widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists.^[10]

Work

At Cambridge, Ray spent much of his time in the study of natural history, a subject which would occupy him for most of his life, from 1660 to the beginning of the eighteenth century.^[7][8] When Ray found himself unable to subscribe as required by the Act of Uniformity 1662 he, along with 13 other college fellows, resigned his fellowship on 24 August 1662 rather than swear to the declaration that the Solemn League and Covenant was not binding on those who had taken it.^[11] Tobias Smollett quoted the reasoning given in the biography of Ray by William Derham:

The reason of his refusal was not (says his biographer) as some have imagined, his having taken the solemn league and covenant; for that he never did, and often declared that he ever thought it an unlawful oath: but he said he could not say, for those that had taken the oath, that no obligation lay upon them, but feared there might."^[12]

His religious views were generally in accord with

From this time onwards he seems to have depended chiefly on the bounty of his pupil Francis Willughby, who made Ray his constant companion while he lived. They travelled extensively, carrying out field observations and collecting specimens of botany, ornithology, ichthyology, mammals, reptiles and insects. Initially they agreed that Ray would take responsibility for the plants, and Willughby for birds, beasts, fishes, and insects. Willughby arranged that after his death, Ray would have 6 shillings a year for educating Willughby's two sons.^[13]

In the spring of 1663 Ray started together with Willughby and two other pupils (

In 1667 Ray was elected Fellow of the Royal Society,^[13] and in 1669 he and Willughby published a paper on Experiments concerning the Motion of Sap in Trees. In 1671, he presented the research of Francis Jessop on formic acid to the Royal Society.^[15]

Following Willughby's death in 1672, Ray took on the responsibility of bringing both Willughby's work and his own to publication. Ray was left with an ornithology and ichthyology to edit as well as his own work dealing with mammals, reptiles and insects. Although he presented the Ornithologia (1676) as Willughby's, he made extensive contributions to the work. His task became more difficult after the death of Lady Cassandra, Willughby's mother, on July 25, 1675. Lady Cassandra had supported Ray's continued work, but the widow Willughby had no interest in her late husband's scientific interests or his scientific friends. Ray was no longer allowed to instruct the children, and Ray and his wife Margaret Oakley were forced to leave the Willughby household in Middleton. Critically, Ray lost access to the Willughby collections, notes and manuscripts at this time. The plants gathered on his British tours had already been described in his Catalogus plantarum Angliae (1670), which formed the basis for later English floras. He had likely already used the botanical collections to lay much of the groundwork of his Methodus plantarum nova (1682), His great Historia generalis plantarum appeared in 3 vols. in 1686, 1688, 1704.^[13]

In the 1690s, he published three volumes on religion—the most popular being The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691), an essay describing evidence that all in nature and space is God's creation as in the Bible is affirmed. In this volume, he moved on from the naming and cataloguing of species like his successor

As outlined in his Historia Plantarum (1685–1703):^[21]

• Herbae (
  Herbaceous plants
  )
  • Imperfectae (
    Cryptogams
    )
  • Perfectae (
    Seed plants
    )
    • Monocotyledons
    • Dicotyledons
• Arborae (
  Trees
  )
  • Monocotyledons
  • Dicotyledons

Definition of species

Ray was the first person to produce a biological definition of species, in his 1686 History of Plants:

... no surer criterion for determining species has occurred to me than the distinguishing features that perpetuate themselves in propagation from seed. Thus, no matter what variations occur in the individuals or the species, if they spring from the seed of one and the same plant, they are accidental variations and not such as to distinguish a species... Animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently; one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa.^[22]

Publications

Ray published about 23 works, depending on how they are counted. The biological works were usually in Latin, the rest in English.^[23] His first publication, while at Cambridge, was the Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660), followed by many works, botanical, zoological,theological and literary.^[8] Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".^[24]

List of selected publications

Including the various editions, there are 172 works of Ray, of which most are rare. The only libraries with substantial holdings are all in England.[23]^p153 The list in order of holdings is:

The British Library, Euston, London. Holds over 80 of the editions.

The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

The University of Cambridge Library.

Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

The Natural History Museum Library, South Kensington, London.

The

John Rylands Library

, University of Manchester, Deansgate, Manchester

Legacy

Ray's biographer, Charles Raven, commented that "Ray sweeps away the litter of mythology and fable... and always insists upon accuracy of observation and description and the testing of every new discovery".^[15]p10 Ray's works were directly influential on the development of taxonomy by Carl Linnaeus.

The Ray Society, named after John Ray, was founded in 1844. It is a scientific text publication society and registered charity, based at the Natural History Museum, London, which exists to publish books on natural history, with particular (but not exclusive) reference to the flora and fauna of the British Isles. As of 2017, the Society had published 179 volumes.^[28]

The John Ray Society (a separate organisation) is the Natural Sciences Society at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. It organises a programme of events of interest to science students in the college.^[29]

In 1986, to mark the 300th anniversary of the publication of Ray's Historia Plantarum, there was a celebration of Ray's legacy in Braintree, Essex. A "John Ray Gallery" was opened in the Braintree Museum.^[30]

The John Ray Initiative (JRI) is an educational charity that seeks to reconcile scientific and Christian understandings of the environment. It was formed in 1997 in response to the global environmental crisis and the challenges of sustainable development and environmental stewardship. John Ray's writings proclaimed God as creator whose wisdom is "manifest in the works of creation", and as redeemer of all things. JRI aims to teach appreciation of nature, increase awareness of the state of the global environment, and to promote a Christian understanding of environmental issues.^[31]

See also

• Monocotyledons

Notes

References

1. ^ Historia plantarum generalis, in the volume published in 1686, Tome I, Libr. I, Chap. XX, page 40 (Quoted in Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The growth of biological thought: diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press: 256)
2. ^ Atran, Scott (1992). Cognitive Foundations of Natural History: Towards an Anthropology of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. ^ "Ray, John (RY644J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
4. ^ The wisdom of God manifested in the works of the Creation, Google Books
5. ^ Mullens, W.H. (1909). "Some early British Ornithologists and their works. VII. John Ray (1627-1705) and Francis Willughby (1635-1672)" (PDF). British Birds. 2 (9): 290–300.
6. ISBN 978-1-4088-7848-4
   .
7. ^ ^{a b c} Slaughter 1982, p. 62.
8. ^ ^{a b c} Vines 1913.
9. ^ Morris, A. D. (1974). Samuel Dale (1659-1739), Physician and Geologist. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 67, 120–124. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003591577406700215
10. ^ Armstrong 2000, pp. 45ff.
11. ^ ^{a b} s:Ray, John (DNB00)
12. ^ Tobias George Smollett (1761) The Critical review, or, Annals of literature, Volume 11 pp. 92–93
13. ^
    PMID 4617556
    . Retrieved 21 February 2023.
14. ISBN 9780713995039
    .
15. ^ ^{a b c d e} Raven 1950.
16. ^ Armstrong, 2000. p. 47
17. ^ Ray 1660.
18. ^ Jarvis 2012.
19. ^ ^{a b} Ray 1660, pp. 100–102.
20. ^ Slaughter 1982, pp. 62–63.
21. ^ Singh 2004, John Ray p. 302.
22. ^ Mayr Growth of biological thought p256; original was Ray, History of Plants. 1686, trans E. Silk.
23. ^ ^{a b c d} Keynes, Sir Geoffrey [1951] 1976. John Ray, 1627–1705: a bibliography 1660–1970. Van Heusden, Amsterdam.
24. ^ Gunther 1928, p. 16.
25. ^ Newton, Alfred 1893. Dictionary of birds. Black, London
26. ISBN 9780520236936.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
27. ^ Hooke, Robert 1705. The posthumous works of Robert Hooke. London. repr. 1969 Johnson N.Y.
28. ^ "The Ray Society". Retrieved 25 December 2017.
29. ^ "John Ray Society". St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
30. ^ "John Ray". Braintree Museum. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
31. ^ "Mission". The John Ray Initiative. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
32. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Ray.

Bibliography

Books

• Armstrong, Patrick (2000). The English Parson-naturalist: A Companionship Between Science and Religion. Gracewing Publishing.
  ISBN 978-0-85244-516-7
  .
• Birch, Thomas, ed. (1757). The History of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge from Its First Rise, in which the Most Considerable of Those Papers Communicated to the Society, which Have Hitherto Not Been Published, are Inserted as a Supplement to the Philosophical Transactions, Volume 3. London: Millar.
• Gunther, R.W.T., ed. (1928). Further Correspondence of John Ray. Ray Society.
• Lankester, Edwin, ed. (1848). The Correspondence of John Ray: Consisting of Selections from the Philosophical Letters Published by Dr. Derham, and Original Letters of John Ray in the Collection of the British Museum. London: Ray Society. (also here at Biodiversity Heritage Library)
• Oliver, Francis W., ed. (1913). Makers of British Botany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• ISBN 9781596919655. Retrieved 18 February 2015. See also ebook 2010
• ISBN 9780521310833
  . Retrieved 10 December 2015.
• ISBN 9781108016346
  .
• doi:10.5962/bhl.title.30585. Retrieved 13 December 2015., see also History of botany (1530-1860) at Google Books
• Singh, Gurcharan (2004). Plant Systematics: An Integrated Approach (3 ed.). Science Publishers.
  ISBN 1578083516
  . Retrieved 23 January 2014.
• Slaughter, M. M. (1982). Universal Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century.
  ISBN 978-0-521-24477-0
  .
• Vines, Sydney Howard. Robert Morison 1620–1683 and John Ray 1627–1705. pp. 8–43., in Oliver (1913)

Articles

• Jarvis, Charlie (December 2012). "John Ray's Cambridge Catalogue (1660) translated and edited by P.H.Oswald and C.D.Preston. London: The Ray Society. 2011. ix + 612 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978-0903874-43-4. £80".
  doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2012.01316.x
  .
• Thompson, Roger (July 1974). "Some newly discovered letters of John Ray". Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. 7 (1): 111–123.
  doi:10.3366/jsbnh.1974.7.1.111
  .

Websites

• "The Ray Society". Retrieved 30 December 2019., see also Ray Society
• John Ray's works at the Biodiversity Heritage Library

External links

• John Ray Biography (University of California Museum of Paleontology Berkeley)
• The first biological species concept (Evolving Thoughts)
• Memoir of John Ray by James Duncan
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• De Variis Plantarum Methodis Dissertatio Brevis at Europeana
• John Ray and taxonomy. King's College London
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Dictionary of Scientific Biography
• The John Ray Initiative: connecting Environment and Christianity

Wikisource has original works by or about:
John Ray

Wikiquote has quotations related to John Ray.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Ray.