Praeger, Robert Lloyd (1865–1953)

Northern Irish natural historian who dominated the subject in Ireland during much of his lifetime. He co-founded and edited the journal The Irish Naturalist and completed major research in the field of botany.

Praeger was born in Holywood, County Down, and graduated from Queen's College, Belfast, in 1886 as an engineer. He began to study the fossil shells being unearthed during the construction of the Alexandra Dock in Belfast. He published papers on the post-glacial geology of northeast Ireland, and left engineering to join the National Library of Ireland, Dublin, in 1893.

His publications were extensive and included Irish Topographical Botany (1901), A Tourist's Flora of the West of Ireland (1909), and The Botanist in Ireland (1934). He was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy, the British Ecological Society, the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland, and the Geographical Society of Ireland. He also received honorary doctorates from Queen's University, Belfast; Trinity College, Dublin; and the National University of Ireland.