Stephanie Holt – Gilbert White: His Life, Legacy, and Impact on Natural History Today

Stephanie Holt has been working at the Natural History Museum in London for the last 10 years in the Centre for UK Nature, following a career in conservation, ecological planning and consultancy, and academia. She is fascinated by British natural history, her specialisms include bats, amphibians, and some invertebrate groups, but also by the history of natural history.  She is currently studying ‘Historical Studies’ at the University of Oxford, and will be embarking on a DPhil in October looking at natural history in the eighteenth century, and how it influences work today. She is a fellow and trustee of the British Naturalists Association, fellow and former trustee of the Linnean Society of London, and associate editor for Archives of Natural History, the journal of the Society for the History of Natural History.

As a natural historian Steph has always been fascinated by the history and origins of her study and science. Gilbert White is often termed the ‘father of ecology’, and while he would not have known that term himself, his work did pave the way for the development of ecology as a science. White himself was influenced by his time in Oxford and London, as well as his native village of Selborne in Hampshire, where his masterpiece The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne was written. This book is the fourth longest constantly in print book in the English language and has influenced so many who have come after him, including notably Charles Darwin and David Attenborough. In this talk Steph will delve into White’s life, work, and his legacy, and indeed how (and why) we can all follow in his footsteps as naturalists today.