The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins

You may not know that the word dinosaur was not coined until 1841 when the first dinosaur fossils were identified in England.

And in 1853, a naturalist, illustrator, and sculptor named Waterhouse Hawkins was chosen to build replicas of the dinosaurs from those bits of bones to be displayed as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum in Sydenham Park, England. Working with scientist Richard Owen, he painstakingly illustrated each dinosaur based on the patterns of animals living at the time. Then he built models in his workshop and invited Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to come see them. The Queen was duly impressed, but would they also impress the leading scientists of the day?

He decided on a grand gesture. He hauled one of his models outside, covered it with a tent, built a platform around it with a set of stairs, cut out a seating area on top, hired a caterer, and sent out invitations to twenty-one scientists, the “fathers of paleontology,” to come to a New Year's Eve dinner party! The party turned out to be a rousing eight-hour success, complete with speeches and toasts, and a song made up for the occasion.

So Hawkins built his models outside the Victoria and Albert Museum, and forty thousand spectators attended the unveiling. For fourteen years he taught and illustrated. And then he was invited to America, to build models of “American” dinosaurs to be displayed in Central Park. After two years of preparation on his “American” dinosaurs display, his project was completely defunded and, after Hawkins protested in the New York Times, it was later vandalized by a corrupt New York City politician who thought it was a waste of time and money.

Hawkins was discouraged of course, but he left New York City still built dinosaurs for Princeton University in New Jersey and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. At seventy-one years old he finally returned home to England, and continued to make improvements to his dinosaurs as new fossil discoveries were unearthed.

What a fascinating history!

Don't skip the Author's Note and Illustrator's Note at the back of the book, which given more information about Hawkins and his dinosaurs, and the changes that were made after his death. You can still see them today, if you travel to Sydenham in England.

We see pictures of dinosaurs quite frequently today, and I have never wondered before about the process of bringing those illustrations to life. It took the vision and creative ability of one man who loved his subject and dedicated his whole life to bring the vision to us. But it begs the question, What if Waterhouse Hawkins imagined them WRONG?

Content Considerations

For a book on this subject and of this length, only two passing references are made to evolution. Instead the focus is on the process of  bringing the fossils to life and of the difficulties Waterhouse Hawkins encountered.