What is John Ray?
[[File:John Ray from NPG.jpg|thumb|right|200px|John Ray]] '''John Ray''' (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was an [[England|English]] [[Natural history|naturalist]], sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history.<ref>Robert W.T. Gunther (ed) 1928. ''Further Correspondence of John Ray''. Ray Society, London. p16</ref> Ray was the son of a village [[blacksmith]] who got to [[Cambridge University]] on a [[scholarship]]. This was in 1644, when the [[Puritans]] were making war against [[Charles I of England|Charles I]]. When he got his bachelor's degree in 1648, he continued as a [[Fellow]] of [[Trinity College, Cambridge|Trinity College]]. Ray was a [[Protestant]] [[dissenter]] who had accepted the return of [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]. He was ordained as a [[priest]] of the [[Church of England]], in [[London]] in 1660. By then, Charles II insisted that all priests sign an [[affadavit]] against the Puritan party. The Act of Uniformity of 1662 made the Book of Common Prayer compulsory in religious services, which was opposed by those of [[Puritan]] beliefs. Ray would not sign the affidavit, so he was forced to resign his Fellowship, and could not work as a priest. Ray returned to his native village of Black Notley, near [[Braintree]] in [[Essex]]. After Ray joined up with a former student, [[Francis Willughby]], the pair spent three years in continental Europe, discovering what the latest scientific ideas were.<ref>Green, John C. 1959. ''The death of Adam: evolution and its impact on western thought''. Ames, Iowa: Iowa University Press, p1-3.</ref> When he returned to England in [[Spring (season)|spring]] 1666, he joined the new [[Royal Society]], and devoted himself to the study of natural history. His most important scientific works were supported financially by the [[Royal Society]], whose President at a critical time in the 1680s was [[Samuel Pepys]]. Ray published important works on [[plant]]s, [[animal]]s, and natural [[theology]]. His classification of plants in his ''Historia Pl