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R. B. Freeman

October 29, 2023

Richard Broke Freeman (1 April 1915 – 1 September 1986) was a zoologist, historian of zoology, bibliographer of natural history and book collector.[1] Known professionally as R. B. Freeman, he compiled comprehensive reference works on Charles Darwin[2] and on P. H. Gosse.[3] He was “a meticulous scholar”[2] and a “brilliant bibliographer” who showed “a genuine modesty about his great erudition.”[4] "It is darkly rumored among antiquarian booksellers that R. B. Freeman once missed a completely unrecorded and absurdly rare 1859 second issue of the first edition of The Origin of Species", a reviewer wrote in the Times Literary Supplement, "but this is also said to be the only mistake he has made during a lifetime of persistent scholarship and imaginative detective work in libraries, bookshops, sale-rooms, the attics of country houses and the trunks of the great-aunts of great men."[5]

R. B. Freeman
Freeman in London, 1974.
Born(1915-04-01)1 April 1915
London, England
Died1 September 1986(1986-09-01) (aged 71)
London, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materMagdalen College, Oxford
Known forThe Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist; Charles Darwin: A Companion; Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography
Scientific career
FieldsZoology, natural history, bibliography
InstitutionsUniversity College London

Life edit

Freeman was born in London. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford (1935–38), he received his BA in 1938 (First Class honours in Zoology) and MA in 1950. He was reading for his doctor of philosophy degree with a Senior Demyship at Magdalen when World War II began. From 1939 to 1946, he was employed in pest control by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at the Bureau of Animal Population in Oxford.[4] He rose to the rank of Major with the 111th Rocket Anti-Aircraft Battery, 101st Oxford Home Guard in 1944,[6] and was awarded an MBE for meritorious service.[7]

Freeman was married to Dr. Mary Whitear,[8] a zoologist at the University of London,[9] and they had two sons. In 1946, he was appointed Lecturer in Zoology at University College London, and from 1951 to his retirement in 1982, he was University Reader in Taxonomy. At the time of his death from a sudden heart attack, he was Emeritus Reader.[4]

Natural history bibliographies and collections edit

Through regular contacts with booksellers (antiquarian and otherwise), by attending auctions (including at Sotheby's), visiting libraries, correspondence with scholars, his own studies, and through buying trips to the west country in England and elsewhere, Freeman built up an immense first-hand knowledge of his subjects. In the process, he also accumulated an imposing library of Darwin and natural history works.[10] In 1967, Freeman was persuaded by David Esplin, an associate librarian at the University of Toronto, to sell to that institution his Darwin collection – which included some 140 copies of The Origin of Species.[11] That purchase “became the core of what is now the most extensive collection of the published works of Darwin in the world.”[12]

Darwin edit

Freeman called The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist his first attempt to list “all the editions and issues [of works by Charles Darwin] which I have seen, or seen reliably recorded" no more than "a list" which is "far from complete."[13] That 1965 work contained some 541 items; 12 years later, a second edition numbered 1,805 entries, though it maintained the same title.[14] Citing another scholar's assertion that “it would be as hopeless a task to search out all the reprints [of Darwin’s Origin of Species] as it would be to discover those of its great – and almost as shattering – coeval, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám", Freeman wrote: “I have tried to do just that for all of Darwin’s works.”[15]

The second revised edition of The Works of Charles Darwin was “virtually a new book”[16] and “a required purchase for students of Darwin and of the history of evolutionary biology generally” which “stands second only to a facsimile of the first edition of The Origin of Species.”[17]

A "remarkable"[4] reader's guide to "Darwin's life, his ancestry, collaterals and descendants, his friends and a few enemies, and his scientific correspondents", Charles Darwin: A Companion appeared in 1978, and included information about what Darwin wrote and thought on politics and society.[18] By permission of Freeman's wife, Dr. Mary Whitear, an expanded edition, which included Freeman's own unpublished additions and corrections (plus that of others), went online in 2007.[19]

British Natural History Books edit

In 1980, Freeman published British Natural History Books 1495–1900: A Handlist, which "any self-respecting library and every calculating collector should possess."[5] The work listed some 4,206 items.[5]

Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Gosse edit

In 1972, the University of Toronto Library offered to buy Freeman's Gosse and natural history collection of some 1,000 volumes, a transaction completed in 1974.[20] In 1980, Freeman published Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography (co-authored with Douglas Wertheimer).[3] With 466 entries, the book superseded Peter Stageman's privately printed, limited-focus 1955 A Bibliography of the First Editions of Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S.[21] Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography was “an invaluable guide”,[22] one which “professes to be no more than a bibliography” but “the net result is to provide a fascinating account of Gosse’s career.”[23] Another reviewer described the book as an "indispensable tool for studying the sectarian faith and non-Darwinian science of a notable Victorian naturalist."[24]

In 1974, Freeman had Entomologia Alabamensis, an unpublished manuscript volume of insects of Alabama drawn by P.H. Gosse while he lived there in 1838, photographed in color. At the same time, he enlisted K.G.V. Smith to oversee an "Annotated Index to Insects Mentioned in [Gosse's] Letters from Alabama (1859)." That project drew on Smith's expertise and that of 18 others who were also at the British Museum of Natural History, as well as two experts from the US Department of Agriculture. They gave modern scientific names to the insects in Gosse's Letters from Alabama, co-ordinating those identifications with the illustrations in Entomologia Alabamensis. The project included a bibliography but was never published, and fell from view after Freeman's death.[25]

In 2021, a posthumously-published collaboration with Wertheimer appeared as “Emily Gosse: A Bibliography.” This first-ever attempt at an inventory of the writing of Gosse’s first wife had been completed in 1975 but remained in manuscript. The work was revised by Wertheimer.[26]

Selected works edit

Articles edit

  • ”Properties of poisons used in rodent control”, in D. Chitty (editor), Control of rats and mice, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954), pp. 25–146
  • Notes on Robert E. Grant, M.D. and on the Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University College London (Produced by the Department, 1964)
  • "Charles Darwin on the routes of male humble bees", Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, Vol. 3, No. 6 (May 1968), pp. 179–189[27]
  • ”Children’s natural history books before Queen Victoria”, History of Education Society Bulletin Nos. 17–18 (Spring, August 1976), 7–21; 6–34

Books edit

  • The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (London: Dawson, 1965) (Second edition: 1977)
  • Classification of the Animal Kingdom: An Illustrated guide (London: English Universities Press, 1972)
  • Charles Darwin: A Companion (London: Dawson, 1978)
  • British Natural History Books 1495–1900: A Handlist (London: Dawson, 1980)
  • Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography, with Douglas Wertheimer (London: Dawson, 1980)
  • Darwin Pedigrees (London: R.B. Freeman, 1984)[28]
  • The Works of Charles Darwin, edited by Paul H. Barrett and R. B. Freeman (New York University Press, 1987–9), vols. 1–10

References edit

  1. ^ "Mr Richard Broke Freeman", Archives of Natural History, Vol. I, Part 3, October 1986, p. 338.
  2. ^ a b John van Wyhe, "Preface to the second online edition (2007)", Charles Darwin: A Companion – The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, November 2007.
  3. ^ a b R. B. Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer, Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography (London: Dawson, 1980).
  4. ^ a b c d W.A. Smeaton, “Obituary: Richard Broke Freeman”, The British Journal for the History of Science vol. 21, March 1988, p. 101.
  5. ^ a b c Redmond O'Hanlon, review of R. B. Freeman, British Natural History Books 1495–1900: A Handlist, in Times Literary Supplement, 20 February 1981, p. 191.
  6. ^ Supplement, London Gazette, 15 December 1944, p. 5745.
  7. ^ "MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire – Military Division)." Accessed 29 May 2012.
  8. ^ R. B. Freeman, Darwin Pedigrees, London, 1984, p. viii.
  9. ^ J.S. Alexandrowicz and Mary Whitear, “Receptor elements in the coxal region of Decapoda Crustacea”, Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 1957, pp. 603–628.
  10. ^ R.B. Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (London: Dawsons, 1965), Preface.
  11. ^ Richard G. Landon, Notes on Collections of the University of Toronto Library. No 2: Charles Darwin. Species of Origin; a bibliographical exposition of the works of Charles Darwin at the University of Toronto (Toronto: University of Toronto Library, 1971), p. 4.
  12. ^ Richard G. Landon, “Case VIII: Charles Darwin”, in David G. Esplin: a commemorative exhibition (Toronto: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, 28 March – 11 May 1984), p. 30.
  13. ^ Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, p. ix.
  14. ^ R. B. Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, second edition, revised and enlarged (London: Dawson, 1977).
  15. ^ Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, second edition, p. 9.
  16. ^ H.A. Feisenberger, review of The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, second edition, in Times Literary Supplement, 9 December 1977, p. 1455.
  17. ^ Sandra Herbert, review of The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, second edition, in Isis, Vol. 69, June 1978, pp. 305–6.
  18. ^ R. B. Freeman, Charles Darwin: A Companion (London: Dawson, 1978), p. 7.
  19. ^ R.B. Freeman, Charles Darwin: A Companion (Online edition, 2007), compiled by Sue Asscher and edited by John van Wyhe, p.7.
  20. ^ Elizabeth Hulse, "A Victorian Natural History Collection", Victorian Studies Association Newsletter (Ontario), Number 14, November 1974, pp. 19–21.
  21. ^ Peter Stageman, A Bibliography of the First Editions of Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S. (Cambridge: Golden Head Press, Ltd., 1955), 480 copies in commerce.
  22. ^ P.J. Miller, review of Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography, in Archives of Natural History, Vol. 10, April 1981, p. 179.
  23. ^ Anthony Payne, “Gosse v. Darwin”, review of Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography and British Natural History Books 1495–1900, in Antiquarian Book Monthly Review, Vol. 8, August 1981, p. 310; also The Library, 6th series, Vol. 2, 1980, pp. 478–9.
  24. ^ James R. Moore, review of Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography, in Isis, Vol. 72, June 1981, pp. 288–9.
  25. ^ Douglas Wertheimer, Philip Henry Gosse: Science and Revelation in the Crucible, University of Toronto, PhD thesis, 1977, pp. 87, 103fn139. In 2010, Gary R. Mullen and Taylor D. Littleton reproduced the Alabama manuscript in color as Philip Henry Gosse: Science and Art in Letters from Alabama and Entomologia Alabamensis (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2010). There is no indication that the authors were aware of Freeman’s project.
  26. ^ R. B. Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer, “Emily Gosse: A Bibliography,” Brethren Historical Review 17, 2021, pp. 25-78. (ISSN 1755-9383).
  27. ^ This is a second edition of the English translation which first appeared in R. B. Freeman, The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (1965), pp. 70–3. A reviewer referred to this Darwin item as “a precious pearl” hidden in the “delicate bibliographical flesh” of Freeman’s book (“Where the Bee Buzzes”, Times Literary Supplement, 15 July 1965, p. 604.)
  28. ^ Review by Eric Korn, Times Literary Supplement, 4 November 1988, p. 1231.

External links edit

October 29, 2023
freeman, richard, broke, freeman, april, 1915, september, 1986, zoologist, historian, zoology, bibliographer, natural, history, book, collector, known, professionally, compiled, comprehensive, reference, works, charles, darwin, gosse, meticulous, scholar, bril. Richard Broke Freeman 1 April 1915 1 September 1986 was a zoologist historian of zoology bibliographer of natural history and book collector 1 Known professionally as R B Freeman he compiled comprehensive reference works on Charles Darwin 2 and on P H Gosse 3 He was a meticulous scholar 2 and a brilliant bibliographer who showed a genuine modesty about his great erudition 4 It is darkly rumored among antiquarian booksellers that R B Freeman once missed a completely unrecorded and absurdly rare 1859 second issue of the first edition of The Origin of Species a reviewer wrote in the Times Literary Supplement but this is also said to be the only mistake he has made during a lifetime of persistent scholarship and imaginative detective work in libraries bookshops sale rooms the attics of country houses and the trunks of the great aunts of great men 5 R B FreemanFreeman in London 1974 Born 1915 04 01 1 April 1915London EnglandDied1 September 1986 1986 09 01 aged 71 London EnglandNationalityBritishAlma materMagdalen College OxfordKnown forThe Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist Charles Darwin A Companion Philip Henry Gosse A BibliographyScientific careerFieldsZoology natural history bibliographyInstitutionsUniversity College London Contents 1 Life 2 Natural history bibliographies and collections 2 1 Darwin 2 2 British Natural History Books 2 3 Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Gosse 3 Selected works 3 1 Articles 3 2 Books 4 References 5 External linksLife editFreeman was born in London Educated at Magdalen College Oxford 1935 38 he received his BA in 1938 First Class honours in Zoology and MA in 1950 He was reading for his doctor of philosophy degree with a Senior Demyship at Magdalen when World War II began From 1939 to 1946 he was employed in pest control by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at the Bureau of Animal Population in Oxford 4 He rose to the rank of Major with the 111th Rocket Anti Aircraft Battery 101st Oxford Home Guard in 1944 6 and was awarded an MBE for meritorious service 7 Freeman was married to Dr Mary Whitear 8 a zoologist at the University of London 9 and they had two sons In 1946 he was appointed Lecturer in Zoology at University College London and from 1951 to his retirement in 1982 he was University Reader in Taxonomy At the time of his death from a sudden heart attack he was Emeritus Reader 4 Natural history bibliographies and collections editThrough regular contacts with booksellers antiquarian and otherwise by attending auctions including at Sotheby s visiting libraries correspondence with scholars his own studies and through buying trips to the west country in England and elsewhere Freeman built up an immense first hand knowledge of his subjects In the process he also accumulated an imposing library of Darwin and natural history works 10 In 1967 Freeman was persuaded by David Esplin an associate librarian at the University of Toronto to sell to that institution his Darwin collection which included some 140 copies of The Origin of Species 11 That purchase became the core of what is now the most extensive collection of the published works of Darwin in the world 12 Darwin edit Freeman called The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist his first attempt to list all the editions and issues of works by Charles Darwin which I have seen or seen reliably recorded no more than a list which is far from complete 13 That 1965 work contained some 541 items 12 years later a second edition numbered 1 805 entries though it maintained the same title 14 Citing another scholar s assertion that it would be as hopeless a task to search out all the reprints of Darwin s Origin of Species as it would be to discover those of its great and almost as shattering coeval The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Freeman wrote I have tried to do just that for all of Darwin s works 15 The second revised edition of The Works of Charles Darwin was virtually a new book 16 and a required purchase for students of Darwin and of the history of evolutionary biology generally which stands second only to a facsimile of the first edition of The Origin of Species 17 A remarkable 4 reader s guide to Darwin s life his ancestry collaterals and descendants his friends and a few enemies and his scientific correspondents Charles Darwin A Companion appeared in 1978 and included information about what Darwin wrote and thought on politics and society 18 By permission of Freeman s wife Dr Mary Whitear an expanded edition which included Freeman s own unpublished additions and corrections plus that of others went online in 2007 19 British Natural History Books edit In 1980 Freeman published British Natural History Books 1495 1900 A Handlist which any self respecting library and every calculating collector should possess 5 The work listed some 4 206 items 5 Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Gosse edit In 1972 the University of Toronto Library offered to buy Freeman s Gosse and natural history collection of some 1 000 volumes a transaction completed in 1974 20 In 1980 Freeman published Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography co authored with Douglas Wertheimer 3 With 466 entries the book superseded Peter Stageman s privately printed limited focus 1955 A Bibliography of the First Editions of Philip Henry Gosse F R S 21 Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography was an invaluable guide 22 one which professes to be no more than a bibliography but the net result is to provide a fascinating account of Gosse s career 23 Another reviewer described the book as an indispensable tool for studying the sectarian faith and non Darwinian science of a notable Victorian naturalist 24 In 1974 Freeman had Entomologia Alabamensis an unpublished manuscript volume of insects of Alabama drawn by P H Gosse while he lived there in 1838 photographed in color At the same time he enlisted K G V Smith to oversee an Annotated Index to Insects Mentioned in Gosse s Letters from Alabama 1859 That project drew on Smith s expertise and that of 18 others who were also at the British Museum of Natural History as well as two experts from the US Department of Agriculture They gave modern scientific names to the insects in Gosse s Letters from Alabama co ordinating those identifications with the illustrations in Entomologia Alabamensis The project included a bibliography but was never published and fell from view after Freeman s death 25 In 2021 a posthumously published collaboration with Wertheimer appeared as Emily Gosse A Bibliography This first ever attempt at an inventory of the writing of Gosse s first wife had been completed in 1975 but remained in manuscript The work was revised by Wertheimer 26 Selected works editArticles edit Properties of poisons used in rodent control in D Chitty editor Control of rats and mice vol 1 Oxford Clarendon 1954 pp 25 146 Notes on Robert E Grant M D and on the Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy University College London Produced by the Department 1964 Charles Darwin on the routes of male humble bees Bulletin of the British Museum Natural History Historical Series Vol 3 No 6 May 1968 pp 179 189 27 Children s natural history books before Queen Victoria History of Education Society Bulletin Nos 17 18 Spring August 1976 7 21 6 34Books edit The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist London Dawson 1965 Second edition 1977 Classification of the Animal Kingdom An Illustrated guide London English Universities Press 1972 Charles Darwin A Companion London Dawson 1978 British Natural History Books 1495 1900 A Handlist London Dawson 1980 Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography with Douglas Wertheimer London Dawson 1980 Darwin Pedigrees London R B Freeman 1984 28 The Works of Charles Darwin edited by Paul H Barrett and R B Freeman New York University Press 1987 9 vols 1 10References edit Mr Richard Broke Freeman Archives of Natural History Vol I Part 3 October 1986 p 338 a b John van Wyhe Preface to the second online edition 2007 Charles Darwin A Companion The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online November 2007 a b R B Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography London Dawson 1980 a b c d W A Smeaton Obituary Richard Broke Freeman The British Journal for the History of Science vol 21 March 1988 p 101 a b c Redmond O Hanlon review of R B Freeman British Natural History Books 1495 1900 A Handlist in Times Literary Supplement 20 February 1981 p 191 Supplement London Gazette 15 December 1944 p 5745 MBE Member of the Order of the British Empire Military Division Accessed 29 May 2012 R B Freeman Darwin Pedigrees London 1984 p viii J S Alexandrowicz and Mary Whitear Receptor elements in the coxal region of Decapoda Crustacea Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1957 pp 603 628 R B Freeman The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist London Dawsons 1965 Preface Richard G Landon Notes on Collections of the University of Toronto Library No 2 Charles Darwin Species of Origin a bibliographical exposition of the works of Charles Darwin at the University of Toronto Toronto University of Toronto Library 1971 p 4 Richard G Landon Case VIII Charles Darwin in David G Esplin a commemorative exhibition Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library University of Toronto 28 March 11 May 1984 p 30 Freeman The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist p ix R B Freeman The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist second edition revised and enlarged London Dawson 1977 Freeman The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist second edition p 9 H A Feisenberger review of The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist second edition in Times Literary Supplement 9 December 1977 p 1455 Sandra Herbert review of The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist second edition in Isis Vol 69 June 1978 pp 305 6 R B Freeman Charles Darwin A Companion London Dawson 1978 p 7 R B Freeman Charles Darwin A Companion Online edition 2007 compiled by Sue Asscher and edited by John van Wyhe p 7 Elizabeth Hulse A Victorian Natural History Collection Victorian Studies Association Newsletter Ontario Number 14 November 1974 pp 19 21 Peter Stageman A Bibliography of the First Editions of Philip Henry Gosse F R S Cambridge Golden Head Press Ltd 1955 480 copies in commerce P J Miller review of Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography in Archives of Natural History Vol 10 April 1981 p 179 Anthony Payne Gosse v Darwin review of Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography and British Natural History Books 1495 1900 in Antiquarian Book Monthly Review Vol 8 August 1981 p 310 also The Library 6th series Vol 2 1980 pp 478 9 James R Moore review of Philip Henry Gosse A Bibliography in Isis Vol 72 June 1981 pp 288 9 Douglas Wertheimer Philip Henry Gosse Science and Revelation in the Crucible University of Toronto PhD thesis 1977 pp 87 103fn139 In 2010 Gary R Mullen and Taylor D Littleton reproduced the Alabama manuscript in color as Philip Henry Gosse Science and Art in Letters from Alabama and Entomologia Alabamensis Tuscaloosa Alabama University of Alabama Press 2010 There is no indication that the authors were aware of Freeman s project R B Freeman and Douglas Wertheimer Emily Gosse A Bibliography Brethren Historical Review 17 2021 pp 25 78 ISSN 1755 9383 This is a second edition of the English translation which first appeared in R B Freeman The Works of Charles Darwin An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist 1965 pp 70 3 A reviewer referred to this Darwin item as a precious pearl hidden in the delicate bibliographical flesh of Freeman s book Where the Bee Buzzes Times Literary Supplement 15 July 1965 p 604 Review by Eric Korn Times Literary Supplement 4 November 1988 p 1231 External links editThe Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online Works by R B Freeman on Open Library at the Internet Archive Works by or about R B Freeman in WorldCat catalogue Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title R B Freeman amp oldid 1179582850, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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