George Perry

George Perry was a Liverpool architect and sculptor who pursued a career in natural history after moving to London in 1807. While in London, Perry joined a circle of naturalists who observed flaws in the Linnean system of classification which was the dominant system for classifying natural specimens at the time. Instead, he and his friends looked to the writings of French naturalists Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier whose theories better suited the taxonomy of fossils and shells. Perry’s most notable illustrated publication was Conchology, or the Natural History of Shells (1811) which sought to introduce a new system of classifying shells through beautifully illuminated aquatint engravings.