author
E. A. (Edgar Albert) Smith
1847–1916
Best known as a meticulous British zoologist and malacologist, he spent decades studying shells and describing species from museum collections and expeditions around the world. His work helped make the British Museum's mollusc collections a major resource for natural history.
1 Audiobook
A guide to the shell and starfish galleries : (Mollusca, Polyzoa, Brachiopoda, Tunicata, Echinoderma, and Worms)
by British Museum (Natural History). Department of Zoology, F. J. (Francis Jeffrey) Bell, R. (Randolph) Kirkpatrick, E. A. (Edgar Albert) Smith
About the author
Working in the British Museum for more than 40 years, Edgar Albert Smith became one of Britain's leading specialists on molluscs. He began with the famous shell collection assembled by Hugh Cuming and went on to publish hundreds of scientific papers, especially on marine and land snails from Africa, Borneo, New Guinea, and other regions.
Born in London on 29 November 1847, he was the son of Frederick Smith, an entomologist at the British Museum. Edgar Albert Smith later served as Assistant Keeper in the zoology department and was known for the careful, steady scholarship that made him a trusted authority in malacology.
He died on 22 July 1916. Though he is not a household name today, his species descriptions and cataloguing work remained important to zoologists and museum researchers long after his lifetime.