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Robert Lloyd Praeger (1865 - 1953):
Naturalist and writer


Robert Lloyd Praeger

Robert Lloyd Praeger was born in Holywood, County Down on 28 August 1865, and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Queen's College, Belfast, where he qualified as an engineer. He was a member of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, of which he was twice president, and he received their gold medal. He wrote many papers on post-glacial geography, especially on the raised beaches of the northeast of Ireland, which gave information on the climate in Neolithic times.

In 1893 he joined the staff of the National Library of Ireland in Dublin as assistant librarian. He organised the Lambay Survey in 1905, which studied the natural resources of Ireland, and this led to the famous Clare Island Survey of 1909 to 1922. He was a prolific writer and was co-founder and editor of the journal, the Irish Naturalist. He published Flora of the County Armagh, Irish Topographical Botany, A Tourist's Flora of the West of Ireland and The Botanist in Ireland. Other publications include his best known book, The Way That I Went; Some Irish Naturalists; The Natural History of Ireland and The Irish Landscape. He was given the gold medal of the Royal Horticultural Society on two occasions and later became its president. He was elected President of the Royal Irish Academy, the British Ecological Society, the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland, the Geographical Society of Ireland and the Bibliographical Society of Ireland, and he was first President of the Library Association of Ireland. An honorary doctorate was conferred on him by Queen's University, Belfast, Trinity College, Dublin, and the National University of Ireland. He was elected an Associate of the Linnaean Society of London, was an honorary life member of the Botanical Society of the British Isles and in 1948 was first President of the National Trust for Ireland.

He died on 5 May 1953



Born: 25 August 1865
Died: 5 May 1953
Kate Newmann