John George Children Federal Reserve System FRSE FLS PRES was a British chemist, mineralogist and zoologist.
Background
John George was born on 18 May 1777 at Ferox Hall, Tunbridge in Kent. His father George Children (1742-1818), a banker, belonged to a family that lived at the home, "Childrens", near Nether Street in Hildenborough and his mother Susanna, who was the daughter of Review Thomas Marshall Jordan of West Farleigh died six days after he was born.
In 1798 he married Hester Anna Holwell, granddaughter of John Zephaniah Holwell in 1798.
Education
Children studied at Tonbridge School, Eton College and Queens" College, Cambridge.
Career
In 1808 he visited Spain where he met Joseph Blanco White. In 1813 he constructed a large galvanic cell and conducted experiments using them. In 1824 he discovered a method of extracting silver without the need for mercury which was purchased by several American mining companies.
In 1822 he was working as a librarian in the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum when he was appointed assistant keeper of the Natural History Department in succession to William Elford Leach.
The appointment, influenced by Sir Humphry Davy, was controversial as he was less qualified than another applicant, William John Swainson. Children found himself poorly qualified in zoology and depended greatly on John Edward Gray who worked as a day-worker
Some visitors to the British Museum like Edward Blyth found him uncooperative. After the division of the Department into three sections in 1837 he became keeper of the Department of Zoology, retiring in 1840 and succeeded by his assistant John Edward Gray.
After his retirement he took an interest in astronomy.
Children was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1807, and served as the society"s secretary in 1826, and from 1830 to 1837. In 1833, he was founding president of what became the Royal Entomological Society of London. John James Audubon named a warbler after him, but the specimen turned out to be a juvenile yellow warbler.
She wrote a memoir on the life of her father which included several unpublished poems.
Membership
Royal Society]
Gray"s own application to the post that Children held had been passed over due to rivalries with influential members of the Linnean Society.