Exhibition on alumni Gilbert White and Thomas Pennant by doctoral researcher

Steph Holt, a doctoral candidate in History, has installed an exhibition on two notable alumni of Oriel College at Gilbert White’s House and Garden, Selborne. The exhibition explores the conversation between the two prominent 18th century naturalists Gilbert White and Thomas Pennant and their impact on natural history.

The exhibition has been created for the Curious Travellers Project, which is an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded collaboration between the University of Wales, University of Glasgow and Natural History Museum, London, exploring “travel and tourism in Britain and Ireland” in the late-18th and early-19th centuries through Pennant’s writings.

Holt, who is a project researcher at the Natural History Museum, helped design the exhibition and has also created an edited digital transcription of the letters between White and Pennant, which is available on the Curious Travellers Project website. Incidentally, she also has been an ecologist on White’s home turf for Hampshire County Council.

For her doctoral thesis, Holt is researching natural history in the late-18th century and its influence on modern amateur natural history.

She said: “It has been absolutely wonderful having the opportunity to design an exhibition focusing on two of the most influential naturalists of the period, particularly as a member of the College to which they both belonged.

“The team is incredibly proud of what we have created and that both it and the associated exhibition book shed new light on the connection between White and Pennant.”

Gilbert White studied at Oriel College from 1740 to 1743, then returned as a Fellow in 1744. In 1757, he stood unsuccessfully to be Provost, before the following year returning to Selborne, where he would later write his most famous work, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.

Thomas Pennant, by contrast, studied at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1744, and then moved to Oriel College, though never earned a degree.

Although they were close to being contemporaries at Oriel, the earliest record of White and Pennant’s correspondence and friendship is from 1767. It is not thought that they met during their studies.

The Curious Minds exhibition on the correspondence and legacies of Gilbert White and Thomas Pennant is open until 22 June 2025. In addition, Holt and Professor Byrcchan Carey, from the University of Northumbria, are organising a conference on Gilbert White which will take place at the Gilbert White’s House and Garden in June.

Holt will lead a special guided tour of Gilbert White’s House and Garden for Oriel College alumni on 21 June.