ABSTRACT
Often styled as ‘England’s first ecologist’, the Reverend Gilbert White was a clergyman and writer on nature (a combination that came to be termed ‘parson naturalist’). White was Oxford-educated and then followed the family tradition of entering the church. He was ordained as a deacon in 1749 and served the cloth whilst maintaining a private passion for gardening and nature. He also remained a fellow of Oxford University for life after attaining this position but lived almost exclusively at his beloved home in the picturesque village of Selborne on the South Downs. Nearly a century after his death, the Selborne Society was founded in honour of Gilbert White, by George and Theresa Musgrave, in 1885 to pursue the ‘Preservation of Birds, Plants and Pleasant Places’. The Gilbert White Museum in Selborne stands at the former home of this ecological pioneer, where he made his name and carried out much of his valuable research.
