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{{Short description|Scottish scientist and evolutionary theorist (1808–1865)}}
{{For|those of a similar name|Hugh Faulkner (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Hugh Falconer
| image =Hugh Falconer.jpeg
| honorific_suffix = MD, FRS
| birth_date = {{birth date|1808|2|29|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Forres]], Scotland
| death_date = {{death date and age|1865|1|31|1808|2|29|df=y}}
| death_place = London, England
| father = David Falconer
| field = [[Geology]], [[Botany]], [[Paleontology]]
| work_institutions = Saharanpur Botanical Gardens<br />[[Calcutta Medical College]]<br />Agric. Hort. Soc. Bengal
| alma_mater = [[University of Aberdeen]]<br />[[University of Edinburgh]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Robert Jameson]]
| known_for = Precursor of [[punctuated equilibrium]]
| prizes = [[Wollaston Medal]] 1837
| author_abbrev_bot = '''Falc.'''
}}

'''Hugh Falconer''' (29 February 1808 – 31 January 1865<ref name=DNB>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Falconer, Hugh|first=George Thomas|last=Bettany}}</ref>) was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[geologist]], [[botanist]], [[palaeontologist]], and [[paleoanthropologist]]. He studied the [[flora]], [[fauna]], and [[geology]] of [[India]], [[Assam]], [[Burma]], and most of the [[Mediterranean islands]] and was the first to suggest the modern evolutionary theory of [[punctuated equilibrium]]. He studied the [[Sivalik Hills|Siwalik fossil beds]], and may also have been the first person to discover a [[fossil]] [[ape]].

==Early life==

Falconer was the youngest son of David Falconer of [[Forres]], [[Elginshire]]. In 1826 Hugh Falconer graduated at the [[University of Aberdeen]], where he studied [[natural history]]. Afterward, he studied medicine in the [[University of Edinburgh]], taking the degree of MD in 1829.<ref name="Arnold">Arnold, David (2006) ''The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, and Science, 1800–1856'' University of Washington Press, Seattle, [https://books.google.com/books?id=UB__GdCapmEC&pg=PA156 pp. 156–157], {{ISBN|0-295-98581-X}}</ref> During this period he zealously attended the botanical classes of Prof. R. Graham (1786–1845), and those on geology by Prof. [[Robert Jameson]], the teacher of [[Charles Darwin]].

Falconer became an assistant-surgeon on the [[Bengal]] establishment of the [[British East India Company]] in 1830.<ref name="Arnold"/> Upon his arrival in Bengal he made an examination of the [[fossil]] bones from [[Kingdom of Ava|Ava, upper Burma]] in the possession of the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]]. His description of the fossils, published soon afterward, gave him a recognized position among the scientists of [[India]]. Early in 1831 he was posted to the army station at [[Meerut]], India, then in the North Western Provinces, and now in the state of [[Uttar Pradesh]].

== Siwalik Hills ==

In 1832, Falconer became Superintendent of the [[Saharanpur#Places to visit|Saharanpur botanical garden]], India, succeeding [[John Forbes Royle|John Royle]].<ref name="Arnold"/> Falconer remained at Saharanpur until 1842, during which time he became widely known for his study of fossil [[mammals]] in the [[Sivalik Hills|Siwalik Hills]]. [[File:Hugh_Falconer_1844.jpg|thumb|Falconer in 1844]]
Falconer and his associates may have made the first discovery of a fossil ape, in the 1830s in the [[Neogene]] deposits in the Siwalik Hills.<ref>Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and [Russell Ciochon|Russell L. Ciochon], "A canine tooth from the Siwálik: first recorded discovery of a fossil ape?" ''Journal of Human Evolution,'' Vol. 14, No. 3 (July, 1999). {{ISSN|0393-9375}} (Print) 1824-310X (Online).</ref> In the [[Tertiary period|Tertiary]] [[Stratum|strata]] of the Siwalik Hills in 1831 Falconer discovered bones of [[crocodile]]s, [[tortoise]]s and other animals. With others, he later brought to light a sub-tropical [[fossil]] [[fauna]] of unexampled extent and richness, including remains of ''[[Mastodon]]'', the colossal [[ruminant]] ''[[Sivatherium]]'', and the enormous extinct [[tortoise]] ''[[Megalochelys atlas|Colossochelys atlas]]''. Falconer also published a geological description of the Siwálik Hills in 1834. For these valuable discoveries he and [[Proby Cautley]] (1802–1871) together received the [[Wollaston Medal]] from the [[Geological Society of London]], its highest award, in 1837.

In 1834 Falconer was asked by a Commission of Bengal to investigate the commercial feasibility of growing tea in India. On his recommendation [[Camellia sinensis|tea plants]] were introduced, and the resultant [[black tea]] became competitive with Chinese teas.<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.''</ref>

Falconer returned from India in 1842 because of ill health. He brought back 70 large chests of dried plants and 48 cases of fossils, bones and geological specimens.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.falconermuseum.co.uk/founders.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070611180018/http://www.falconermuseum.co.uk/founders.html|url-status=dead|title=The Friends of the Falconer Museum|archivedate=11 June 2007}}</ref> He then travelled throughout Europe making geological observations, and was elected Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1845. Continuing in the service of the British East India Company as a naturalist, he pursued research at the [[British Museum]] and [[East India House]] and prepared casts of the most remarkable fossils for the leading museums of Europe.

== Calcutta ==

In 1847 Falconer became superintendent of the [[Indian Botanical Gardens|Calcutta Botanical Garden]] and professor of botany in the [[Calcutta Medical College|Medical College]], [[Calcutta]], near his older brother, Alexander Falconer, a Calcutta merchant. Hugh Falconer served as an advisor to the Indian government and the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Bengal, the ''de facto'' colonial "Department of Agriculture". He prepared an important report on the [[teak]] forests of [[Tanintharyi Region|Tenasserim]], and this saved them from destruction by reckless felling. Through his recommendation, the cultivation of the [[cinchona]] in the Indian empire was introduced for the [[pharmacology|medicinal use]] of its bark in the treatment of [[malaria]].

== Punctuated equilibrium ==

Falconer was originally a [[Creationism|creationist]] who denied the fact of [[evolution]].<ref name="Gould 2007">Gould, Stephen Jay. (2007). ''Punctuated Equilibrium''. Harvard University Press. pp. 14–18. {{ISBN|978-0-674-02444-1}}</ref> In November 1859, [[Charles Darwin]] sent Falconer a copy of his ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' with a letter which stated "I am fully convinced that you will become, year after year, less fixed in your belief in the immutability of species".<ref name="Gould 2007"/> In June 1861, Falconer expressed respect in a letter to Darwin for receiving the book. By the early 1860s he reassessed his worldview and came to embrace evolution from his studies of the fossil record.<ref name="Gould 2007"/>

In 1863, Falconer authored a monograph ''On the American Fossil elephant of the regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico''.<ref name="Gould 2007"/> A year before he had privately sent the work to Darwin who was delighted to read it. In the work he observed long periods of evolutionary stasis in fossil mammals with short periods of rapid evolutionary change throughout geological time.<ref name="Gould 2007"/> This research shows great foresight. [[Niles Eldredge]] and [[Stephen Jay Gould]] developed the same basic theory a century later, a theory known as [[punctuated equilibrium]]. According to Gould, the work "anticipates a primary inference of punctuated equilibrium— that a local pattern of abrupt replacement does not signify macromutational transformation in situ, but an origin of the later species from an ancestral population living elsewhere, followed by migration into the local region."<ref name="Gould 2007"/>

== Later years ==

Having to leave India again in 1855 because of ill health, he spent the remainder of his life examining and comparing fossil species in England and the Continent to those he found in India, notably the species of mastodon, elephant, and rhinoceros. He also described some new [[mammalia]] from the [[Purbeck Group|Purbeck]] strata of [[Wessex]]. Turning to the subject of human origins, he reported on the bone [[caves]] of [[Sicily]], [[Malta]], [[Gibraltar]], [[Gower Peninsula|Gower]], and [[Brixham]]. He discovered the dwarf elephant species ''[[Palaeoloxodon falconeri]]'' on Sicily and Malta, and also found the bones of the flightless giant swan ''[[Cygnus falconeri]]'' in Malta at [[Għar Dalam phase|Għar Dalam]] .

Falconer served as vice-president of the [[Royal Society]] 1863–1864. Although suffering from exposure and overwork, Falconer returned hastily from Gibraltar to support [[Charles Darwin]]'s claim to the [[Copley Medal]] in 1864. Falconer succumbed in London, England, on 31 January 1865<ref name=DNB/> from rheumatic disease of the heart and lungs. He is buried in [[Kensal Green Cemetery]], London.

The flower ''[[Rhododendron falconeri]]'' was named after Falconer by [[Joseph Dalton Hooker]].

Falconer's botanical notes, with 450 coloured drawings of Indian plants, were deposited in the library at [[Kew Gardens]], together with some of the specimens he collected. A marble bust was placed in the rooms of the [[Royal Society]] of London, and another in the [[Asiatic Society]] of Bengal, Calcutta. A competitive Falconer scholarship of £100 per year was created for graduates in science or medicine of the University of Edinburgh.

The Falconer Museum in [[Forres]], Scotland ({{coord|57.609906|N|3.612346|W|region:GB_type:landmark_scale:3000|format=dec|name=Falconer Museum|display=inline}}), a "Victorian Gem",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://falconermuseum.co.uk/|title=The Falconer Museum – "A Victorian Gem in the heart of Forres"}}</ref> houses, amongst numerous other collections, the many Falconer finds that had not been sent to other institutions like the library of Kew Gardens or the British Museum, including Palaeolithic finds that enable "visitors of the Falconer Museum [to] look at three different species of humans at once, ''homo erectus, homo neanderthalensis'' and ''homo sapiens''".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Friauf |first1=Christiane H |title=Science & Imagination: True Stories from the Falconer Museum |date=2024 |publisher=Friends of the Falconer Museum |location=Forres |isbn=978-1-916572-99-7}}</ref>

== Selected publications ==

* Hugh Falconer and [[Proby Cautley|Proby T. Cautley]], ''Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis, being the Fossil Zoology of the Sewalik Hills, in the North of India, Part I, Proboscidea,'' London (1846), with a series of 107 plates by G. H. Ford appearing between 1846 and 1849.
* ''On the American Fossil Elephant of the Regions Bordering the Gulf of Mexico, (E. Columbi, Falc.): With General Observations on the Living and Extinct Species'' (1863)
* ''Palæontological memoirs and notes of the late Hugh Falconer,'' edited, with a biographical sketch, by [[Charles Murchison (physician)|Charles Murchison]], M.D., 2 vols., London, R. Hardwicke (1868). OCLC: 2847098. [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_4r4wAQAAMAAJ/page/n5/mode/2up vol. II online at archive.org]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070428091104/http://darwin.lib.cam.ac.uk/bib_all.html Hugh Falconer, Darwin Correspondence Project: extended bibliography]
* Falconer's works were documented in the Royal Society's ''Catalogue of Scientific Papers,'' vol. ii (1968).

{{botanist|Falc.|Falconer, Hugh}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

== Literature ==
* Patrick J. Boylan, ''The Falconer papers, Forres,'' Leicester: Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service (1977).
* [[Grace Prestwich|Grace, Lady Prestwich]], ''Essays descriptive and biographical,'' Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood (1901).
* [[Charles-Théophile Gaudin|Charles T. Gaudin]], "Modifications apportées par M. Falconer à la faune du Val d'Arno", ''Bulletin des Séances de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles'' 6: 130–1 (1859).
* Patrick J. Boylan, "The controversy of the Moulin-Quignon jaw: the role of Hugh Falconer," in ''Images of the Earth: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences,'' Ludmilla J. Jordanova and Roy S. Porter, eds., Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks., British Society for the History of Science. (1979) {{ISBN|0-906450-00-4}}
* Leonard G. Wilson, "Brixham Cave and Sir Charles Lyell's . . . the Antiquity of man: the roots of Hugh Falconer's attack on Lyell," ''Archives of Natural History'' 23: 79–97 (1996).
* {{cite book|title= Biographical sketch of Hugh Falconer, A.M., M.D|author=Murchison, Charles| url=https://archive.org/details/b29007240|place=London| year=1868}}
* Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and Russell L. Ciochon, "A canine tooth from the Siwaliks: first recorded discovery of a fossil ape?" ''Journal of Human Evolution,'' Vol. 14, No. 3 (July, 1999). {{ISSN|0393-9375}} (Print) {{ISSN|1824-310X}} (Online).
* Anne O'Connor, "Hugh Falconer, Joseph Prestwich and the Gower caves", ''Studies in Speleology,'' Vol. 14, pp 75 – 79 (2006).
* [[Tim Murray (archaeologist)]], "Hugh Falconer: Botanist, palaeontologist, controversialist", in ''Life-writing in the History of Archaeology: Critical perspectives'', 2023, Clare Lewis and Gabriel Moshenskapp eds., pp 265-280, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv37mk2fp.16 Hugh Falconer: Botanist, palaeontologist, controversialist]

== External links ==
{{commons}}
* [http://www.falconermuseum.co.uk The Falconer Museum]
* {{Historic Environment Scotland|num=LB31747|desc=Tolbooth Street, Falconer Museum|cat=B}}
* [http://www.falconerfriends.blogspot.com Friends Blog]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZw067mvL-E Prof. Tim Murray on Hugh Falconer and his special role in the history of science]
* {{Find a Grave|21795}}
{{EB1911|wstitle=Falconer, Hugh|volume=10|page=140}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falconer, Hugh}}
[[Category:People from Forres]]
[[Category:1808 births]]
[[Category:1865 deaths]]
[[Category:Botanists with author abbreviations]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Aberdeen]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Scottish palaeontologists]]
[[Category:Scottish geologists]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish botanists]]
[[Category:Botanists active in India]]
[[Category:Wollaston Medal winners]]
[[Category:Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery]]
[[Category:Punctuated equilibrium]]
[[Category:British fellows of the Royal Society]]

Hugh Falconer - Revision history

Candy332540216 at 00:31, 18 February 2026