JEFFREYS
,
JOHN GWYN
(
1809
-
1885
),
conchologist
;
b.
18 Jan. 1809
at
Swansea
, of a long line of
solicitors
, and educated at
Swansea grammar school
. He was himself a
solicitor
, but from boyhood had been attracted to
conchology
, and at 19 had had a paper on molluscs published by the
Linnean Society
. As he had a good partner in his firm, he was enabled to devote more and more time to his researches, and to purchase a yacht for dredging. He removed to
London
in
1856
and was
called to the Bar
, but in
1866
totally
abandoned the law. Meantime, he had begun to produce a standard work on
British
shells; the first volume appeared in
1862
, and the fifth and last in
1869
. Afterwards, he began dredging at depths hitherto deemed unapproachable, and in this way greatly enlarged our knowledge of conchology (
1869
,
1870
,
1880
). He d. suddenly,
24 Jan. 1885
, in
London
. He had been elected
F.R.S.
in
1840
, and was honorary
LL.D.
of
S. Andrews
.
Bibliography:
-
T. Iorwerth Jones
in
The Transactions of the Honourable Society
of Cymmrodorion
,
1932-3
, with a list of 108 of his papers.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D.,
F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor
