James Scott Bowerbank (1797–1877), author of A history of the fossil fruits and seeds of the London Clay (1840) and A monograph of the British Spongiadae (1864–1882) was an immensely energetic self-taught naturalist, and the founder or co-founder of several famous scientific societies. In 1847, at the age of 50 years, he retired from business as the wealthy joint head of his family's distillery company to devote himself to scientific research. In 1846, such was the extent of his collections of fossils and other specimens already amassed before his retirement, he had been obliged to build a private museum as an extension of his residence at no. 3 Highbury Grove, Islington, London. The fame of this museum, where on Monday evenings in the summer Bowerbank held informal scientific soirées, spread rapidly and attracted many eminent scientists from Great Britain and abroad. Almost as soon as it was built, the museum was immortalized in a curious lithographic cartoon, which jokingly represented it as a typical Victorian London chop-house with various fossils on the menu, making gentle fun of Bowerbank's perceived eccentric obsession with palaeontology. The identities of neither artist nor printer of the cartoon are known for certain, but Edward Forbes is suggested herein as a strong candidate for the possible artist. Nine copies have been traced in London, though none elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Probably it was intended for private circulation among Bowerbank's friends and colleagues. The present paper provides a brief account of the Highbury Grove museum and a description of the remarkable 1846 lithograph.
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