Sir Sidney Frederic Harmer

Sir Sidney Frederic Harmer (9 March 1862 - 22 October 1950) was a prominent English zoologist. Among other institutional and academic appointments, he served as Superintendent of the University Museum of Zoology at Cambridge (1892-1908), Director of the British Museum (Natural History) (1909-1927), President of the Linnean Society of London (1927-1931), and Vice-President of the Royal Society (1922-1924). He was awarded the Linnean Gold Medal in 1934. He was created K.B.E. in 1920. Harmer was a specialist on the cetaceans.

He is included on Historica Botanica because of his achievement in botany as an undergraduate at University College, London. He attended that university on a mathematical scholarship. He obtained his B.Sc. in 1881. While there, he came under the influence of Ray Lankester in zoology and F.W. Oliver in botany.

Harmer was certainly a promising student as witnessed by the two medals which appear below. He took the third prize silver medals in both Botany and Zoology/Comparative Anatomy for 1879-1880. These medals both have the identical obverse (only one of which is shown) with the Roman date of 1877.

A lengthy memoriam to Harmer with a listing of his publications appears in the Obituary Notices of Fellows of The Royal Society for 1950-1951 (Volume VII, page 359-371)


Obverse
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Botany
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Harmer Zoology/Comparative Anatomy
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