Sherborn, Charles Davies, 1861-1942

Charles Davies Sherborn was born on June 30, 1861, in Chelsea, Middlesex, England, son of Charles William Sherborn (1831-1912), a metal-engraver and etcher.

He was an English geologist and scientific bibliographer. As a child, he was an enthusiastic collector of rocks, fossils, and freshwater shells. When his father ran into difficulties in business, he had to quit his studies at 14 and start working at a bookshop. In his free time, he studied at the Museum of Practical Geology, read at the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and developed a passionate interest in books, antiquities, and natural history. In 1883, he helped geologist Thomas Rupert Jones illustrate and complete his three papers on fossil Foraminifera. In 1888, he began his long association with the British Natural History Museum, served as an editor of the monthly Natural Science (1892-1899), and published his first bibliography, "A Bibliography of the Foraminifera". In 1890, he compiled "An Index to the Genera and Species of Foraminifera" and "A Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata". He was a cataloguer of the Geological Society of London. His magnum opus, “The Index Animalium, 1758–1850 “, compiled over forty-three years, was an 11-volume work that catalogued the 444,000 names of every living and extinct animal discovered between 1758 and 1850. Sherborn joined the Geologists' Association in 1883 and became a fellow of the Geological Society (1887) and the Zoological Society (1890) and an associate of the Linnean Society (1912). In 1822, he received the Foulerton Award from the Geological Society, and in 1831, an honorary D.Sc. from Oxford University. In 1836, he helped found the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History and became its first president.

He died unmarried on June 22, 1942, in Fulham, Middlesex, England.