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Early Life and Family
[edit]Robert Lloyd ('Robin') Praeger was born on the 25th of August 1865 at The Crescent, Holywood, County Down as the second son of Willem Emil and Maria Praeger.[1] His Father was born in The Hague, Netherlands, where he had a linen exporting business with his brother before he emigrated to Belfast in 1860.[2][3] His Mother, Maria Praeger, was the daughter of the mill-funisher and amateur naturalist Robert Patterson who was one of the founding members of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society in 1821.[3]
A few years after Praeger's birth the family relocated to Woodburn, Croft Road, situated on the outskirts of Holywood in 1868.[3][4] There Praeger grew up with his four brothers - Willem Emilius, Egmont, Harry, and Owen, and his little sister, Sophia Rosamond Praeger.[3]
The Praeger family's holidays were often spent on the Antrim coast, where Preager and his siblings explored the surrounding landscape.[4] During a vacation in 1879 to Ambleside, Cumbria, Praeger started to study ferns and documented his interactions with British and Irish botanists.[3]
Following the passing of his father in 1884, his maternal uncle Robert Lloyd Patterson became the guardian of Praeger and his siblings.[5] However, it was his uncle William Hugh Patterson who functioned as his first tutor in the Natural Sciences while he was growing up.[4]
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[edit]Praeger attended the primary school of the Reverend McAlister and then the nearby Sullivan Upper School, followed by the Belfast Academical Institution. He joined the Belfast Naturalists Field Club (BNFC) at age 11, and was already judging a category in the precursor to the Chelsea Flower Show at 17. His membership lapsed two years after he joined but he rejoined the BNFC in 1885. [5] Praeger attended what is now Queen's University Belfast from 1882, earning a B.A. in 1885 and a B.Eng. in 1886. During his second and third year, Praeger was awarded an Engineering scholarship.[5] While at college he also became very active in the BNFC, learning a range of practical naturalist skills; he was elected to the club's committee in 1885. In March 1885 he won the Field Club’s prize for the best collection of ‘Ferns, Equiseta and Lyfopods’ and won a similar prize in 1886 for a collection of 250 plants, which Praeger collected during an excursion to the Mourne Mountains with his friend Samuel Alexander Stewart. [5]
After graduating from Queens College, Praeger worked under Luke Livingston Macassey as a civil engineer on the construction of Alexandra Dock during the expansion of Belfast Harbour in 1886.[3][5] He studied the exposed excavation and fossils during the construction and composed a study which he later published in the Belfast Natural Field Clubs Proceedings in 1888.[6]
- ^ "Births". The Belfast Newsletter. 26 August 1865. p. 3.
- ^ Lysaght, Seàn (23 September 2004). "Praeger, Robert Lloyd (1865–1953), naturalist and author". Oxford Dictionary of Natural Biography. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Lysaght, Seán (1998). Robert Lloyd Praeger : The Life of a Naturalist. Dublin: Four Courts.
- ^ a b c Byrne, Patricia M. (October 2009). "Praeger, Robert Lloyd". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 14 Noveber 2023.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - ^ a b c d e Collins, Timothy (1985). Floreat Hibernia: A bio-bibliography of Robert Lloyd Praeger 1865-1953. Dublin: Royal Dublin Society.
- ^ Praeger, Robert Lloyd (1888). "Notes on the Section exposed at the Alexandra Dock". Annual reports and proceedings of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club. 2 (2 - Appendix II): 29–51.