George Edwards

George Edwards (3 April 1694 – 23 July 1773) was an English naturalist and ornithologist, known as the "father of British ornithology". At the same time Edwards published a French edition of the book. The four parts were published in 1745, 1748, 1751 and 1751. The translator is given on the title page as "traduit de l'Anglais par M. D. de la S. R.". This was David Durand, a French protestant minister and a Fellow of the Royal Society who was living in London. Three additional volumes, under the title Gleanings of Natural History, were issued in 1758, 1760 and 1764. The two works contain etchings and descriptions of more than 600 subjects in natural history not before described or delineated. He likewise added a general index in French and English, which was afterwards supplied with Linnaean names by Linnaeus himself, with whom he corresponded.

The Royal Society awarded him the Copley Medal in 1750 with the citation: "On account of a very curious Book lately published by him, and intiyled, A Natural History of Birds, &c. - containing the Figures elegantly drawn, and illuminated in their proper colours, of 209 different Birds, and about 20 very rare Quadrupeds, Serpents." This was a significant honour. The clockmaker John Harrison had been awarded the medal the previous year for his invention of a chronometer suitable for calculating longitude while at sea. Edwards included a picture of the medal on the overall title page in the first volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds and an explanation in the preface.

In about 1764 he retired to Plaistow, Essex, still a rural village, where he died in 1773 at the age of 77. The German text was translated into French and published as Recueil de Divers Oiseaux Étrangers et Peu Communs, and translated into Dutch and published as Verzameling van uitlandsche en zeldzaame vogelen, benevens eenige vreemde dieren en plantgewassen: in 't Engelsch naauwkeurig beschreeven en naar 't Leven met Kleuren afgebeeld, door G. Edwards en M. Catesby.

Some of the colour plates in his Natural History of Birds were painted by Peter Paillou.

Eponyms Diadophis punctatus edwardsii, a subspecies of North American snake, is named in honor of George Edwards.