Robert Kidston

Who was Robert Kidston?

Robert Kidston FRS was a Scottish palaeobotanist. He studied botany at the University of Edinburgh and later studied the Rhynie chert and worked for the British Geological Survey. Kidston was "arguably the best and most influential palaeobotanist of his day. In over 180 scientific papers he laid the foundations for a modern understanding of the taxonomy and palaeobiology of Devonian and Carboniferous plants."

In the 1880s Kidston was asked to catalogue the Palaeozoic plant collection of the British Museum. This work began in February 1883, and was completed in 1886.