Robert Jameson - Regius Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh

Regius Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh

In 1804, Jameson succeeded Dr Walker as the third Regius Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh University, a post which he held for fifty years. During this period he became the first eminent exponent in Britain of the Wernerian geological system, or Neptunism, and the acknowledged leader of the Scottish Wernerians, founding and presiding over the Wernerian Natural History Society in 1808 until around 1850, when his health began to decline, together with the fortunes of the Society. Jameson's support for Neptunism, a theory that argued that all rocks had been deposited from a primaeval ocean, initially pitted him against James Hutton (1726–1797), a fellow Scot and eminent geologist also based in Edinburgh (but not in the university), who argued for uniformitarianism, a theory that saw the features of the Earth's crust being caused by natural processes over geologic time. Later in life, Jameson renounced Neptunism when he found it untenable and converted to the views of his opponent, Hutton.

As a teacher, Jameson had a mixed reputation for imparting enthusiasm to his students; Thomas Carlyle, who gave serious attention to Natural History, described Jameson's lecturing style as a "blizzard of facts" and Charles Darwin apparently found the lectures boring, saying that they determined him "never to attend to the study of geology" . The detailed syllabus of Jameson's lectures, as drawn up by him in 1826, shows the range of his teaching. The course in zoology began with a consideration of the natural history of human beings, and concluded with lectures on the philosophy of zoology, in which the first subject was Origin of the Species of Animals. (The Scotsman, 29th Oct., 1935: p. 8). Modern scholarship also suggests that, by 1826, Jameson was convinced of Lamarckian concepts of evolution, and that he could express this conviction only in anonymous terms.

Over Jameson's fifty year tenure, he built up a huge collection of mineralogical and geological specimens for the Museum of Edinburgh University, including fossils, birds and insects. By 1852 there were over 74,000 zoological and geological specimens at the museum, and in Britain the natural history collection was second only to that of the British Museum. Shortly after his death, the University Museum was transferred to the British Crown and became part of the Royal Scottish Museum, now the Royal Museum, in Edinburgh's Chambers Street. He was also a prolific author of scientific papers and books, including the Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles (1800), his System of Mineralogy (1808), which ran to three editions, and Manual of Mineralogy (1821). In 1819, with Sir David Brewster (1781–1868), Jameson started the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal and became its sole editor in 1824.

He died at 21 Royal Circus in Edinburgh on 19 April 1854, and was interred at Warriston Cemetery.

A portrait of Robert Jameson is housed by the National Portrait Gallery in London, and a bust of him is in the Old College of the University of Edinburgh. Robert Jameson was the uncle of Robert William Jameson, Writer to the Signet and playwright of Edinburgh, and therefore also the great-uncle of Sir Leander Starr Jameson, Bt, KCMG, British colonial statesman.