In 1804 Richard Owen, the Dinosaur Man, was born to a West Indies merchant of the same name and a headmistress of a ladies boarding school, Catherine Owen.  He was born in the house that used to stand at the corner of Thurnham Street and Brock Street in Lancaster. 

Owen went to the local Grammar school and then successful became an apprentice to several doctors.  He studies anatomy using the bodies of the prisoners who had been hanged at the local prison.  He completed his training at Edinburgh University and then at St Bartholomew’s Hospital London.  In 1826 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and set up a practice in Lincoln.  His career progressed at a rapid rate and he lectured in Anatomy and Physiology and became a Assistant Conservator at the Hunterian Museum.  It was at the Hunterian Museum that he met Caroline Cliff whom he married in 1834.

The early 19th century was a time of discovery and innovation.  Owen did not stand still and his love of anatomy cause him to take up the study of fossilised bones.  It was Owen that coined the term ‘Dinosaurs’.  In 1840 he described in journals the fossils of an ichthyosaur and in 1854 he reconstructed dinosaur skeletons from fossils for display in the gardens of Crystal Palace.  In 1856 Owen left the Hunterian Museum for a role as Superintendent of the Natural History Department at the British Museum.He retired from this role in 1883, but still today you can see a statue of him on the main stairs of the Natural History Museum.

Owen died in 1892. The contribution Owen gave to science over what was at the time an large life span, cannot be underestimated.

You’ll find more information on Richard Owen at the Lancaster City Museum.