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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Natural History Heroes

Natural History Heroes: Allan Octavian Hume

Allan Octavian Hume

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Natural History Heroes, Allan Octavian Hume

Robert Prys Jones explains why Allan Octavian Hume is his Natural History Hero.

Robert Prys Jones explores the life of pioneering ornithologist and botanist, Allan Octavian Hume. From 2015.

Allan Octavian Hume donated the largest single collection of birds to the Natural History museum – around 80,000 items all collected during his time working for the East Indian Company and the British Raj in India. 

He spent 20 years recording and documenting all the birds of India only for the manuscript to be destroyed just before his return to England. So profound was his frustration that Hume gave up ornithology altogether and turned his attention to botany, founding the South London Botanical Institute which encouraged the ordinary working person to make a contribution to science.  

Curator of birds at the Natural History Museum Robert Prys Jones takes us into the Natural history Museum bird collection to explain why ornithologist and botanist Allan Octavian Hume is his Natural History Hero.

First heard on BBC Radio 4 in October 2015.

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