Robert Lloyd Praeger

From a Unitarian background, he was born and raised in Holywood, County Down; he had four brothers and a sister.[1] His father was born in the Netherlands, and imported linen, while his mother's family had a history of producing businesspeople, antiquarians and naturalists; an uncle was a co-founder of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club.[1] Praeger attended the primary school of the Reverend McAlister and then the nearby Sullivan Upper School,[2] followed by the Belfast Academical Institution.[1] He joined the Belfast Naturalists Field Club (BNFC) at age 11, and was already judging a category in the precursor to the Chelsea Flower Show at 17.[1]

Praeger attended what is now Queen's University Belfast from 1882, earning a B.A. in 1885 and a B.Eng. in 1886. While at college he also became very active in the BNFC, learning a range of practical naturalist skills; he was elected to the club's committee in 1885.[1]

Praeger was an engineer by qualification and initial practice, a librarian of long and senior standing by profession and a naturalist by inclination. His first job was with the Belfast city and district water commissioners, and while working with this body on an expansion of Belfast Harbour facilities, he also conducted studies on fossils, which led to his first post-college academic paper, in 1886. He co-authored his first book, on the ferns of Ulster, with a businessman and botanist, in 1887.[1] In 1888 he declined a medium-term engineering position and applied unsuccessfully for a job at the Natural History Museum in Dublin; he worked the next five years on short engineering contracts while carrying on his naturalist work.[1] He continued to publish, and was hired to catalogue a collection of around 60,000 specimens being donated to Belfast city.[1] He was elected as a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1891.[1]

In 1892, Praeger founded the Irish Naturalist, becoming its co-editor. Aside from articles, the journal contained official communications of both the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society and the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland.[1]

In 1893, Praeger secured a position as an assistant librarian at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin, where he worked from 1893 to 1924, rising to the position of chief librarian.[1]

Prager continued to write papers on the flora and other aspects of the natural history of Ireland. He organised the Lambay Survey in 1905/06 and, from 1909 to 1915, the wider Clare Island Survey.

He was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1921. He became the first President of both An Taisce and the Irish Mountaineering Club[3] in 1948, and served as President of the Royal Irish Academy for 1931–34.

A vice-county system was adopted by Praeger dividing Ireland into forty vice-counties based on the counties. However the boundaries between them does not always correspond to the administrative boundaries and there are doubts as to the correct interpretation of them.[5]