John Edward Gray

John Edward Gray FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) studied medicine in London, and became an English zoologist.
Gray was Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum from 1840 until Christmas 1874. That was before the natural history holdings were split off to be the Natural History Museum.
Gray published several catalogues of the museum collections which discussed animal groups and described new species. He improved the collections to make them amongst the best in the world.
During his life he wrote over 500 academic papers, mostly on new species.
Gray was also interested in postage stamps; on 1 May 1840, the day the Penny Black first went on sale, he bought some to keep, thus making him the world's first known stamp collector.