Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet of Applegarth was a Scottish naturalist. He is known for his editing of a long series of natural history books, The Naturalist's Library.
Jardine was born in 1800 in Edinburgh, the son of Sir Alexander Jardine, 6th baronet of Applegarth and his wife, Jane Maule. He was educated in both York and Edinburgh, then studied medicine at Edinburgh University. Aged 25, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He was a co-founder of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and contributed to the founding of the Ray Society. While ornithology was his main passion, he also studies ichthyology, botany and geology. His book on fossil burrows and traces, the Ichnology of Annandale, included fossils from his ancestral estate. He was the first to coin the term ichnology, and this was the first book written on the subject. His private natural history museum and library are said to have been the finest in Britain.
Jardine made natural history available to all levels of Victorian society by editing the forty volumes of The Naturalist's Library, issued and published by his brother in law, the Edinburgh printer and engraver, William Home Lizars. His other publications included an edition of Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne, Illustrations of Ornithology and an edition of Alexander Wilson's Birds of America.
Jardine described a number of bird species, alone or in conjunction with his friend Prideaux John Selby.
He died in 1874 in Sandown, Isle of Wight.
