John Ellis (355)

John Ellis (c.1710–c.5 October 1776) was a zoologist, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1774. Likely born in Ireland to a middle-class English family, Ellis apprenticed under a London clothworker, before later launching a successful linen business of his own. His income now steady, Ellis was free to pursue his true passion: natural history. Known as one of the earliest marine biologists, he studied invertebrates and had a penchant for zoophytes, publishing descriptions and engravings of these creatures alongside his Swedish collaborator, Daniel Solander. Most notably, the two discovered that sponges are animals. For this work he became a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1754 and was its Copely medalist in 1767. Many of his biological papers appear in the Transactions of the Royal Society from 1754 to 1776. He was one of the first to speculate that microorganisms cause putrefaction as well as disease, despite being credited for neither discovery. Going bankrupt in 1759, Ellis shifted careers and became an administrator in the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Science, moving his focus towards tropical plants. He wrote extensively on this topic, notably his 1770 Directions for Bringing Over Seeds and Plants, Coffee (1774), and Mangosteen and Breadfruit (1775). Towards the end of his life, he made several trips to the South-East coast of England to continue to study invertebrates before dying in Hampstead and being buried at St. Leonard’s in Bromley. (DNB)