Dr Michael A. Taylor
Research interests/expertise: Marine tetrapods, especially Jurassic marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs; the history of palaeontology and museums, especially the collector Hugh Miller.
Dr Michael Taylor came to National Museums Scotland from Leicestershire Museums, Arts and Records Service in 1993. He was a curator of vertebrate palaeontology till 2009, working on exhibitions and collections amongst other things.
Projects included studies with Lyall I. Anderson of the major collections of the Scots fossil-collector and author Hugh Miller (1802-1856), and of his friend the coastguard-collector Charles W. Peach (1800-1886). Such studies gave a better understanding of the collections’ growth and documentation, valuable for cataloguing and other curatorial work.
Work on the history of palaeontology (a museum-based science) has included a biography of Hugh Miller, and a collaboration with Ralph O'Connor (University of Aberdeen) of a new edition of Miller’s book The Old Red Sandstone. This last included a major book-length study of Miller’s book’s importance, ranging from its impact on Tennyson’s poetry to an appreciation of the historical and cultural significance of Miller’s collection which is (mostly) in National Museums Scotland. This won the Scottish Research Book of the Year category of Scotland's National Book Awards for 2023, under the aegis of the Saltire Society.
Another theme comprises the fossil marine reptiles of the West Country of England. Dr Taylor’s work on the famous nineteenth-century collector Mary Anning of Lyme Regis and her fellow collectors explores the social history and geography of fossil-collecting, including the issues of class and gender which she famously exemplifies. It throws light on the suppliers of old specimens in museum collections, and traces long-lost specimens of real historical importance and value for scientific research (for instance, as type specimens, used in naming species). Dr Taylor’s work has included studies of the anatomy and lifestyle of Jurassic marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.
Current work includes Mary Anning's houses and shops, the Edinburgh Museum Hadrosaurus of the 1870s, and the discovery of plesiosaur skeletons in 1823.
Selected publications
Taylor, M.A. & Evans, M. 2025. Pride and plesiosaurs: the life and fossil-collecting activities of Commander Henry Waring RN (1771-1837) of Lyme Regis, Dorset. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 145: 60-74.
Taylor, M.A. & Berry, C.J. 2023. Somerset ichthyosaurs and Quaker philanthropy: Alfred Gillett, William Stephens Clark and the geological museum in the Crispin Hall, Street. Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 166: 139-180.
Miller, H. eds. Taylor, M.A. & O’Connor, R. 2023. The Old Red Sandstone: new walks in an old field. Edited reprint of first edition of 1841. 2 vols. NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing, Edinburgh. Includes O’Connor, R. & Taylor, M.A. A critical study of Hugh Miller’s The Old Red Sandstone, 1838–1920.
Taylor, M.A., McMillan, A., Stewart, S.E. & Anderson, L.I. 2023. The geological and historical milieu of an ornamental cephalopod limestone (‘orthoceratite limestone’, Ordovician, Sweden) used in the Clerk Mausoleum (1684), St Mungo’s Kirkyard, Penicuik, Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology 53: https://doi.org/10.1144/sjg2022-007
Taylor, M.A. & Benton, M.J. 2022. The life of Mary Anning, fossil collector of Lyme Regis: a contemporary biographical memoir by George Roberts. Journal of the Geological Society 180: https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2022-053
Taylor, M.A. 2022. (Ed. and introduction), reprint edition of Hugh Miller (1858) The Cruise of the Betsey with Rambles of a Geologist. NMS Enterprises Limited – Publishing, Edinburgh.
Taylor, M.A. 2022. Hugh Miller. Stonemason, geologist, writer. Reprint with revisions. National Museums Scotland – Publishing, Edinburgh.
Taylor, M.A. & Berry, C.J. 2022. Science in a Somerset Quaker community: Alfred Gillett (1814-1904), fossil collecting and kinship networks in and around Street. Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 164: 259-287. https://sanhs.org/wp-content/uploads/13-taylor-gillett.pdf
Taylor, M.A. & Anderson, L.I. 2017. The museums of a local, national and supranational hero: Hugh Miller’s collections over the decades. The Geological Curator 10: 285-368. https://doi.org/10.55468/GC242 (and other papers in the same special issue).
Noè, L.F., Taylor, M.A., & Gómez-Pérez, M., 2017. An integrated approach to understanding the role of the long neck in plesiosaurs. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 62: 137-162. https://doi.org/10.4202/app.00334.2016
Taylor, M.A. & Anderson, L.I. 2016. Additional information on Charles W. Peach (1800-1886). The Geological Curator 10: 159-182. https://doi.org/10.55468/GC45
Taylor, M.A. & Clark, R.D. 2016. Ichthyosaurs from the Lower Lias (Lower Jurassic) of Banwell, Somerset. Geoscience in South-West England 14: 59–71. https://ussher.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/journal/2016/Taylor.pdf
Taylor, M.A. 2016. ‘Where is the damned collection?’ Charles Davies Sherborn’s listing of named collections and its successors. In Michel, E. (ed). Anchoring biodiversity information. From Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond. ZooKeys 550: 83-106. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.550.10073
Benson, R.B.J., Evans, M. & Taylor, M.A. 2015. The anatomy of Stratesaurus (Reptilia, Plesiosauria) from the lowermost Jurassic of Somerset, United Kingdom. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 35: https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2014.933739
Anderson, L.I. & Taylor, M.A. 2009. Charles W. Peach, palaeobotany and Scotland. The Geological Curator 8: 393–425. https://doi.org/10.55468/GC395
For further publications see the National Museums Scotland Research Repository.