Anna Blackburne

Anna Blackburne (1726, Orford Hall, Orford, Warrington - 1793, Warrington) was an English naturalist.

Anna Blackburne was the daughter of Jane (born Ashton) and John Blackburne. Her father was a wealthy Cheshire salt dealer, who studied natural history and had famous greenhouses admired by Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). Inspired by her father, she devoted herself to study natural history in a more systematic way. To better understanding the system developed by Carl von Linné (1707-1778), she learned Latin. She corresponded with Linné and Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798), who encouraged her to publish her entomological observations and devote herself to the museum of Oxford Hall. She enriched the collections by insect additions in particular thanks to specimens sent to her by Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811). Her brother Ashton, who had gone to live in the United States of America, sent her many specimens, in particular birds, which were described by Pennant. She sent Linné specimens of birds and insects which were not described in his Systema Naturae. Johan Christian Fabricius (1745-1808), the pupil of Linné, dedicated the beetle "Geotrupes blackburnii" in 1781 to her. "Dendroica fusca" the Blackburnian Warbler, described by Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller (1725-1776) is also named in her honour.

References

*Wystrach, V. P. Anna Blackburne (1726–1793) — a neglected patroness of natural history. "JSBNH" 8 (2): 148–168 (May 1977).

External links

* [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v092n03/p0607-p0610.html Ashton Blackburn and American Onithology]