Richard Bowdler Sharpe (RBS) is unquestionably the outstanding bird curator in the history of what are now the Natural History Museum (NHM) collections. Born on 22 November 1847, the son of the publisher of “Sharpe’s London Magazine”, he was a brilliant scholar with a deep love of natural history and when still young began to assemble a substantial bird skin collection. His father viewed these interests with disfavour and, on leaving school in 1863, RBS […]