Leonard Jenyns

Born in 1800, he was an English clergyman, author, and naturalist who spent much of his life studying the plants and animals of the British countryside. He is especially associated with Cambridgeshire, where he collected specimens, recorded observations, and built a reputation as a patient and exact observer.

He moved in the same scientific circles as John Stevens Henslow and Charles Darwin. Jenyns was offered the position of naturalist on HMS Beagle before Darwin, but declined because of his clerical responsibilities; later, he helped describe fish specimens gathered during the voyage. That connection has helped keep his name alive, but his own scientific work also stood on its own merits.

Later in life he took the surname Blomefield in order to receive an inheritance, and he is sometimes listed as Leonard Blomefield. He is remembered not only for writing on natural history, but also for his long-running observations of seasonal events in nature, which made him an important early recorder of phenology.