John Latham (27 June 1740 – 4 February 1837) was an English medical doctor, naturalist and author. His main works were A General Synopsis of Birds (1781–1801) and A General History of Birds (1821–1828). He was able to examine specimens of Australian birds that reached England in the final twenty years of the 18th century, and was responsible for providing English names for many of them. He named some of Australia's most famous birds, including the emu, sulphur-crested cockatoo, wedge-tailed eagle, superb lyrebird, Australian magpie, magpie-lark, white-throated needletail and pheasant coucal. Latham has been called the "grandfather" of Australian ornithology. He was also the first to describe the hyacinth macaw from South America.
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Biography
John Latham was born on 27 June 1740 at Eltham in northwest Kent. He was the eldest son of John Latham (died 1788), a surgeon, and his mother, who was a descendant of the Sothebys, in Yorkshire.
He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and then studied anatomy under William Hunter and completed his medical education in London hospitals. In 1763 at the age of 23, he began working as a physician in the village of Darenth, near Dartford in Kent. In the same year he married Ann Porter. They had four children of whom two survived childhood: a son John (1769–1822) and a daughter Ann Latham (1772–1835), who illustrated many of his birds.
Latham retired from his medical practice aged 56 in 1796 and moved to live near his son at Romsey in Hampshire. His wife died in 1798 and Latham remarried the same year to Ann Delamott. His son who had invested in a series of inns became heavily indebted and was declared bankrupt in 1817. Latham lost much of his wealth in supporting his son. In 1819, Latham sold his house in Romsey and moved with his wife to live with his daughter's family in Winchester. His second wife died in 1821 and in the following year his son died by suicide.