Robert Gunther

Who was Robert Gunther?

Robert William Theodore Gunther was a historian of science, zoologist, and founder of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.

Gunther's father, Albert Günther, was Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum in London. Robert Gunther was educated at University College School, attached to University College London. Towards the end of his schooling he attended lectures at University College itself. He was elected to a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1887 and took this up in 1888. He joined the Oxford University Scientific Club in his first term at Magdalen and subsequently he took up a Fellowship at the College.

In 1911, Gunther and his family moved to 5 Folly Bridge, an unusual and distinctive tall house on a small island in the River Thames next to the bridge. This made the river central to his life. He was a pioneer of environmental conservation in Oxford.

From 1923, Robert Gunther produced a fourteen volume set of books on Early Science in Oxford, his magnum opus, the last appearing in 1945. These were initially produced under the auspices of the Oxford Historical Society and printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. A fifteenth volume by his son A. E.