Ramsay H Traquair papers

The papers include correspondence; photographs; manuscript copy of publication; and drawings of fossils by Ramsay H. Traquair and his wife, Phoebe Anna Traquair.

Ramsay Heatley Traquair was born on 30 July 1840 in Rhynd, Perthshire, Scotland. He studied medicine and later fish anatomy at the University of Edinburgh from 1857 to 1862, graduating with a medical degree in August 1862. He was presented with a gold medal for his thesis on the "Asymmetry of the Pleuronectidae". Traquair then worked as an anatomy demonstrator at the University of Edinburgh from 1863 to 1866, before taking the post of Professor of Natural History at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester.

He moved to Dublin in 1867, to become Professor of Zoology at the Royal College of Science for the next six years. On 5 June 1873 he married the artist Phoebe Anna Moss. That same year, Traquair transferred to Edinburgh to become the first Keeper of the Natural History Collections at the Museum of Science and Art (later the Royal Scottish Museum), a post he would hold for the next 33 years until he retired in 1906.

In 1881, Traquair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1874.

He died on 22 November 1912, survived by his wife and three children.

Please make an appointment with the library beforehand. Email library@nms.ac.uk

A Finding List of the archive is available at http://www.nms.ac.uk/media/269224/miscellaneous_correspondence.pdf