British Ornithologists' Union
UK based society with the aim of encouraging the study of birds
The British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) aims to encourage the study of birds (ornithology) around the world in order to understand their biology and aid their conservation. The BOU was founded in 1858 by Professor Alfred Newton, Henry Baker Tristram and other scientists. Its quarterly journal, Ibis, has been published continuously since 1859.
The Records Committee (BOURC) is a committee of the BOU established to maintain the British List, the official list of birds recorded in Great Britain.
BOU is headquartered in Peterborough and is a registered charity in England & Wales and Scotland.
Objectives and activities
Publishes Ibis as a leading international journal of ornithological science.
Organizes a program of meetings and conferences.
Awards grants and bursaries for ornithological research.
Encourages liaison between those actively engaged in ornithological research.
Provides a representative body of the scientific community able to provide ornithological information and advice to the government and other policy makers.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “British Ornithologists' Union” is uK based society with the aim of encouraging the study of birds. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through British, Ornithologists' and Union, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “uK based society with the aim of encouraging the study of birds” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q640771. VIAF identifies the subject as 127262255. The Library of Congress control number is n80040168. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1858 and 1859.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “British Ornithologists' Union”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow British Ornithologists' Union primary sources, British Ornithologists' Union archive and British research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “British Ornithologists' Union”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “British Ornithologists' Union” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.