As a renowned expert in matters of natural history, Richard Owen was the driving force behind the establishment of the Natural History department at the British Museum. His influence gave him the right of first refusal for the remains of any animal which died at London Zoo, and he successfully laid claim to many specimens from Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle.
Owen invented the word dinosaur in 1842 by combining two Greek words, deinos (terrible) and saurus (reptile). Actually there were scientific studies of dinosaurs before 1800, but the 19th century saw things really heat up in terms of research, with various scientists in competition to unearth or discover “new” species. In literature, the first mention of a specific dinosaur appeared in Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1852). “Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill”. June 2013 sees the 20th anniversary of the release of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, one of the most successful films ever made. 65 million years after they last walked the earth, dinosaurs still have a powerful grip on our imagination.
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