Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing

The Reverend Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing (6 February 1835, London – 8 July 1926, Royal Tunbridge Wells) was a British zoologist, who described himself as "a serf to natural history, principally employed about Crustacea". Educated in London and Oxford, he only took to natural history in his thirties, having worked as a teacher until then. Although an ordained Anglican priest, Stebbing promoted Darwinism in a number of popular works, and was banned from preaching as a result. His scientific works mostly concerned crustaceans, especially the Amphipoda and Isopoda, the most notable being his work on the amphipods of the Challenger expedition.

His zoological author abbreviation is Stebbing.

Biography

Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing was born on 6 February 1835 in Euston Square, London, the seventh of thirteen or fourteen children, to a clergyman and the editor of the Athenaeum, Henry Stebbing, and his wife, Mary Griffin. Thomas was educated at the King's College School, and afterwards entered King's College, London to study classics, graduating with a BA in 1855. He then matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford, before studied at Worcester College, Oxford, gaining a BA in law and modern history there in 1857 and an MA in 1859. Around this time, he was a master at Radley College and Wellington College. He took on various roles at Worcester College, including that of fellow (1860–1868), tutor (1865–1867), vice-provost (1865) and eventually dean (1866), as well as a lecturer in divinity. He resigned his fellowship in 1868. He was ordained into the Church of England by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford in 1859.