R. G. (Robert Gordon) Latham

Born in Billingborough, Lincolnshire, in 1812, this English writer and scholar was educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge. He trained in medicine and was also associated with Middlesex Hospital, but he became best known for his work in philology and ethnology.

His interests were unusually wide. Early travel in Scandinavia helped shape his language studies, and he went on to publish on subjects ranging from English language and comparative philology to the classification of peoples. Among the books linked with his career are The English Language and The Natural History of the Varieties of Man.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he remained a prolific man of letters throughout the Victorian period. Today he is remembered as a learned and energetic figure whose books capture both the reach and the limitations of 19th-century scholarship.