80+ Jacob Klein, Bird Genealogy

Jacob Theodor Klein German, 1685 – 1759

Jacob Theodor Klein was a German jurist, historian, botanist, zoologist, mathematician and diplomat in service of Polish King August II the Strong. He established a botanical garden and menagerie in Danzig apart from setting up a cabinet of natural history known as the Museum Kleinianum which he filled with specimens collected through a wide network.

Klein was born in a family of lawyers on 15 August 1685 in Königsberg, Duchy of Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He studied law at the University of Königsberg while also attending lectures on natural history, music, and history. Between 1706 and 1712, Klein travelled through England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Dutch Republic in an educational journey, before returning to Königsberg. He was present in England during the first parliament of 1707. He was unable to go through France possibly due to the Spanish War of Succession. He moved to Danzig after the death of his father, where he was elected city secretary in 1713 in the service of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony. Between 1714 and 1716 he served as the city's representative, or “resident secretary at court,” (residierender Sekretär) in Dresden and then Warsaw. He accompanied Peter the Great who was visiting Germany and represented Danzig at the marriage of the daughter of Augustus III and the King of Sicily in 1737.

Klein began his scientific works in 1713 and began publishing his findings by 1722, as a member of the Institute of Sciences in Bologna. Influenced by Johann Philipp Breyne, his works dealt with matters of zoological nomenclature, and he set up his own system of classification of animals, which was based on the number, shape, and position of the limbs. He used his position as secretary to found a botanical garden there (now called Ogród Botaniczny w Oliwie).

For his work in the natural sciences, Klein had been rewarded with membership of several scientific societies, including the Royal Society in London, the Academy of in St. Petersburg, the Deutsche Gesellschaft in Jena, and the Danzig Research Society. He was a founding member of the Natural History Society of Danzig in 1742.

One of Klein's daughters, Dorothea Juliane Klein, married physicist Darniel Gralath, who would become mayor of Danzig. Gralath inherited Klein's library, which was praised by Swiss mathematician Jogann Bernoulli.

Klein died on 27 February 1759 in Danzig.

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