George Busk

George Busk FRS FRAI (12 August 1807 – 10 August 1886) was a British naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist.

Early life, family and education Busk was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the son of the merchant Robert Busk and his wife Jane. Robert Busk was the son of Sir Wadsworth Busk, who was an Attorney General of the Isle of Man and grandfather of Anna Jane Busk (1813-1888) whose grandson, William George Lupton (1871-1911), was named in honour of George. During this period Busk made important observations on cholera and on scurvy.

He founded the Greenwich Natural History Society in 1852, serving as its president until 1858.

In 1855, he retired from service and from medicine

From 1856 to 1859, he was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons, and he became President of the college in 1871. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1850. Busk was an active member of the Linnean Society, the Geological Society and president of the Ethnological Society and then the Anthropological Institute (1873–74). He received the Royal Society's Royal Medal and the Geological Society's Wollaston and Lyell medals.

Busk was the leading authority on the Polyzoa; and later the vertebrate remains from caverns and river deposits occupied his attention. In 1862, Busk was again in Gibraltar. He was responsible of bringing to England the Gibraltar skull (the second Neanderthal fossil ever found and the first known adult one) which was excavated at Gibraltar in 1848. The identification of the skull as belonging to a Neanderthal was not made until the 20th century.

Personal life and demise On 12 August 1843, George Busk married his cousin Ellen, youngest daughter of Jacob Hans Busk. They had two daughters.

He died in London on 10 August 1886 and is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London, in the northern section of the central circle.