Philip Herbert Carpenter

Philip Herbert Carpenter (6 February 1852 London - 21 October 1891 Eton College), M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S., British naturalist and crinoid authority, was the fourth son of Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter. He took his own life, by self-administration of chloroform during a bout of temporary insanity caused by chronic insomnia.

Dr. Carpenter was educated at University College School, then at University College, and afterwards became a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1874.

Dr. Carpenter was a member of the scientific staff of the deep-sea exploring expeditions of H.M.S. Lightning (1868) and Porcupine (1869–1870). In 1875 he was appointed assistant naturalist to H.M.S. Valorous accompanying Admiral Sir George Strong Nares's Arctic expedition to Disco Island, and spent the summer sounding and dredging in Davis Strait and the North Atlantic.

After the 1872-1876 HMS Challenger expedition had returned, he was asked in January 1878 by Sir Wyville Thomson to describe the free-swimming Crinoids that had been collected.

Dr. Carpenter was an expert on the morphology of the echinoderms, especially the crinoids, both contemporary and fossil. In 1883 he was awarded the Lyell Fund by the Geological Society of London in recognition of the scientific value of his work, and in 1885 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Publications

• 1882. On the Relations of Hybocrinm, Baerocrinus, and Hybocystites, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxviii. (No. 151), pp. 298-312, pi. xi.
• 1886. Note on the Structure of Crolalocrinus, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 5, vol. xviii. pp. 397-406.
• 1887. Notes on Echinoderm Morphology, No. 11; on the Development of the Apical Plates in Amphiura squamata, Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci. vol. xxviii. pp. 303-317.
• 1889. Report on the Comatulae of the Mergui Archipelago, etc., Journ. Linn. Soc. London (Zool.), vol. xxi. pp. 304-316, pis. xxvi. and xxvii.
• 1890. Preliminary Report on the Crinoidea obtained in the Port Phillip Biological Survey, Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, new series, vol. ii. pp. 135-136.
• 1890. On certain points in the Anatomical Nomenclature of Echinoderms, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, vol. vi. pp. 1-23.
• 1891. Some publications on American Carboniferous Echinoderms, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, vol. viii. pp. 94-100.
• 1891. On certain points in the Morphology of the Cystidea, Journ. Linn. Soc. London (Zool.), vol. xxiv. pp. 1-52, pi. i. Abstract in Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1890, p. 821; and in GEOL. MAG. Dec. III. Vol. VIH. p. 135, March, 1891.
• 1891. Notes on some Arctic Comatulse, Journ. Linn. Soc. London (Zool.), vol. xxiv. pp. 53-63, pi. ii.
• 1891. Notes on some Crinoids from the Neighbourhood of Madeira, op. et torn. tit. pp. 64-69.

He also contributed an account of the Echinoderms to Cassell's Natural History (1883), and was the chief contributor for the section on the same group in Nicholson and Lydekker's A Manual of Palaeontology (1889).

References

 This article incorporates text from Men and Women of the Time, by G. Washington Moon, a publication from 1891, now in the public domain in the United States.