| Administrative History | Following the resignation in 1842 of curator William Lonsdale, the Society received six applications for his job. One of these was from the palaeontologist Edward Charlesworth (1813-1893) who had held curator posts at the Ipswich Museum, British Museum and Zoological Society.
Unfortunately three years previously Charlesworth had engaged in various arguments with a number of the Society's eminent Fellows - which he then decided to publish in full in a special supplement of his own short lived journal. After a threat of legal action from one of these Fellows, Charlesworth disappeared off to South America for a few months until the fuss died down.
Members of Council, who remembered only too well the special supplement, decreed that Charlesworth was ineligible to apply for the job, which led to his publishing another pamphlet accusing them of acting illegally and rounding up support from Fellows to petition the Society for a Special General Meeting. In the end his efforts came to nothing, the post going instead to the more mild mannered Edward Forbes. |