Gilbert White: Beyond the Natural History of Selborne

Rev Gilbert White (1720–1793) is celebrated for a single work, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, the fourth longest continuously printed book in English—a remarkable literary achievement.

Yet White was far from the secluded village naturalist he is often imagined to be. His travels ranged widely across England, including visits to Bath, bringing him into contact with diverse landscapes, ideas, and people. This talk reconsiders White beyond Selborne, tracing his journeys and encounters, and exploring how travel shaped his observations, his writing, and the enduring legacy of his pioneering natural history.

An ecologist by training, Stephanie Holt has worked across local government, consultancy, NGOs and academia before joining the Natural History Museum, London, over a decade ago. Now based between the Museum’s Centre for UK Nature and its Library and Archives, she works on both modern conservation science and the Curious Travellers project, exploring the life and influence of the eighteenth-century naturalist Thomas Pennant.

A Trustee of the Gilbert White House and Gardens and the British Naturalists’ Association, Stephanie is also Associate Editor of Archives of Natural History, the journal of the Society for the History of Natural History and a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. Recently awarded the David Bellamy Award for Exceptional Field Naturalist, she combines natural history expertise with historical scholarship.

Currently completing a DPhil at Oxford on eighteenth-century natural history and its modern legacy, Stephanie is a passionate and engaging communicator at the intersection of ecology and history.

Image of naturalist Gilbert White derived from a colourised sketch, courtesy of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum. A Museum algorithm replaced coloured pixels with like-coloured images of digitised specimens from the Museum’s UK collections.