How not to 'regain paradise'

Biographical accounts of (Charles) Henry Bellenden Ker (1787-1871) state that he resigned from the Royal Society when the Duke of Sussex became President in 1830.' The facts, which are quite different, throw so much light on this sometimes confusing period in the Society’s history (and on an individual capacity for self- deception) as to deserve at least a brief record. Ker’s certificate of election to the Society in 1819 describes him as a barrister and ‘gentleman conversant in the studies of Natural History and Philosophy’. ‘Conversant’ is an inadequate adjective for somebody whose powers of conversation about many topics, however slight his expertise thereupon, once led the diarist Henry Greville to describe him as ‘clever but superficial and ignorant’. It must be said immediately that ‘ignorant’ in this context can be taken to refer mostly to Ker’s cantankerous social habits, for which much evidence survives. Since Ker was seldom a respecter of persons, Greville himself may have been the butt of one of the clumsier shafts of unprovoked satire which Ker enjoyed unleashing. Be that as it may, it should be remembered that Ker’s main claim to attention rests on his reputation as an exceptionally industrious legal reformer. Such industry, alas, brought about the end of his Fellowship, but this is to anticipate

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• Tra Disegno E Scoperta

  Open Access•Eugenio Tamburrino•Papers of the British School at…•2025

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