Charles Joseph Patten

Charles Joseph Patten (1870 – 13 June 1948) was an Irish anatomist and ornithologist.

Biography Charles Joseph Patten was born in 1870, in Ballybrack, County Dublin. He was a son of Richard Patten, of the Court of Exchequer. He was educated at The High School, Dublin. He studied biology and medicine at Trinity College and graduated in 1896. After that, he joined the staff of Daniel John Cunningham at Trinity College as demonstrator of anatomy. In 1901 he became professor of anatomy at the University College of Sheffield, as the successor of Christopher Addison.

When he left Dublin that was observed as a loss for Irish ornithology: W.F. de Vismes Kane, the President of the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club, in his Presidential Address of January 1902, said: Patten's "appointment to the Chair of Anatomy at Sheffield deprives us of one of our most promising members."

After Sheffield got its independent university, in 1905, Patten got in charge of the new department of anatomy. He retired in 1935, then becoming professor emeritus. He continued to live in Sheffield. The last years of his life he lived in Farnham, Surrey. He died after a very brief illness on 13 June 1948, at his home.

Ornithologist Charles J. Patten was perhaps better known as an ornithologist than as an anatomist. "He had an extraordinary affection for birds, and an unusual knowledge of their ways." He published books and articles on birds, both popular and scientific. He observed birds as a naturalist, rather than as an anatomist, and was interested in their habits, their nesting, and their migration. In 1906 he first published The Aquatic Birds of Great Britain, which became a standard work.

In 1916 Patten identified a new bird species for Ireland: a "black-eared wheatear"; the species would nowadays be called western black-eared wheatear (Oenanthe hispanica). The species was obtained on Tuskar Rock, County Wexford, on 16 May, by Mr. Glanville, the principal lightkeeper, and was sent in the flesh for identification to Patten, who announced the new species on the Irish list in Nature.