Emanuel Mendes Da Costa 1717-1791

Emanuel Mendes da Costa was a naturalist, collector and the first Jewish clerk of The Royal Society, elected in 1763.

This exhibition, in partnership with the Jewish Museum London and the London Metropolitan Archives, celebrates the recent rediscovery and restoration of his portrait in the London Metropolitan Archives.

Mediterranean Red Coral, which underpinned the Mendes da Costa's wealth, was a highly-prized material. In China it was reserved for the use of the Imperial family and nobles. Coral beads were used to decorate items such as this court robe. It was traded for raw diamonds and other gems in the Indian ports of the East India Company.

He also drew exotic animals, like this coati from Brasil. Some copied from books, and some from live and stuffed specimens.

Da Costa’s reputation as an expert in ‘the mineral and fossil part of the Creation’ led to his election as Fellow of the Royal Society on 26 November 1747.

Martin Folkes (1690-1754), President of the Royal Society, invited da Costa to Goodwood House, the Duke of Richmond's estate. Folkes assured da Costa there was food 'without breach of the Laws of Moses', and a Hebrew-speaking Christian Chaplain respectful of Judaism.

Folkes was an Enlightenment Freemason, religiously tolerant. As President of the Royal Society Dining Club, he clearly wished da Costa to enjoy amiable dinners at Goodwood, a gathering place for Royal Society Fellows.

Despite these attempts at integration, Jewish people were satirized in eighteenth-century London. In this engraving from William Hogarth's 'Harlot's Progress', the prostitute Moll distracts her wealthy Jewish protector by exposing a breast and tipping over a tea-table so that her lover can slip out of the room.

Linnaeus formulated the modern system of naming organisms, known as binomial nomenclature. Known as the 'father of modern taxonomy', he and da Costa had ongoing disagreements about natural history.

Da Costa also objected to how Linnaeus changed the names of species and genera. Da Costa thought the shells here as nos 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9 were 'volutes ... from à volvendo, or rolled up [which Linnaeus] changes to Conus [cone]'.
Linnaeus prevailed.

Da Costa sorted out the neglected Repository's instruments and specimens. As he notes in his letter, he launched enthusiastically into this ‘Augean’ task, comparing it to the labours of Hercules.

In 1767 Benjamin Franklin FRS wrote to his son in Philadelphia:

 'We have had an ugly affair at the Royal Society lately, One Dacosta [sic], a Jew, who, as our clerk, was entrusted with collecting our monies has been so unfaithful as to embezzle near £1300 in four years ... I have been employed all the last week in attending the enquiry into and unravelling his accounts, in order to come at a full knowledge of his frauds'.

After he was released in 1772, he published the Elements of Conchology aimed at the growing market for amateur naturalists. In 1778, da Costa published British Conchology, offering his own taxonomic scheme which differed from that of Linnaeus.

In the introduction to his British Conchology, da Costa seems to sum up his life’s work:

'The world is but too much inclined to treat with levity those studies which do not lead to its riches or preferments ... it is no wonder that the enthusiasm of the Naturalist is so often ridiculed, who can ... turn aside into the silent paths of life, in quest of nothing better than contemplative pleasure'.