a journey to Cornwall, where Dr. Borlase encouraged him in the study of minerals and fossils. His first publication was an account of an earthquake felt at Downing in April 1750. This was printed in vol. x. of the ‘Abridgment’ of the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ p. 511.
In 1754 he made a tour in Ireland, but kept only an imperfect journal, ‘such,’ he says, ‘was the conviviality of the country.’ On 21 Nov. 1754 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, but resigned in 1760. In 1755 he began a correspondence with Linnæus, and at his instance was elected a member of the Royal Society of Upsala in February 1757. About 1761 he began his ‘British Zoology,’ the first part of which was published in 1766. He gave the profits of this work, which, when completed, was illustrated by 132 plates, to the Welsh school near Gray's Inn Lane, London. In 1765 he visited the continent, and stayed with Buffon at his seat at Montbard in Burgundy. At Ferney he saw Voltaire, whom he found ‘very entertaining’ and a master of English oaths. At the Hague he met Pallas the Dutch naturalist, to whom he became much attached. On 26 Feb. 1767 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society, London. He contributed papers to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ on geological subjects, and wrote a memoir on the turkey (1781). On 11 May 1771 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. In the same year he published his ‘Synopsis of Quadrupeds.’
In 1771 Pennant published his ‘Tour in Scotland’ (1 vol. 8vo), describing the journey made by him in 1769. He says he had ‘the hardihood to venture on a journey to the remotest part of North Britain,’ of which he brought home an account so favourable that ‘it has ever since been inondée with southern visitors’ (on the earlier Scottish tours of Bishop Pococke, see under Pococke, Richard). Starting from Chester on 26 June 1769, Pennant visited the Fern Islands off the Northumbrian coast, and noted many species of sea-fowl that resorted thither. He made nearly the circuit of the mainland of Scotland, observing manners and customs and natural history. On this occasion, as on all subsequent tours, he journeyed on horseback, and kept an elaborate journal. The success of the ‘Tour in Scotland’ led to his undertaking a second Scottish journey, beginning on 18 May 1772. He visited the English lakes, proceeded to the Hebrides, and was presented with the freedom of Edinburgh. During this tour he was accompanied by the Rev. J. Lightfoot, the botanist, whose ‘Flora Scotica’ was published in 1777 at his expense. Moses Griffith [q. v.], the Welsh artist, attended him on this journey (as also on his later tours), making sketches and drawings, afterwards reproduced in Pennant's published ‘Tours.’ Pennant fully appreciated Griffith's talents, though he once describes him as ‘a worthy servant, whom I keep for that purpose’ (making drawings, &c.). In 1774 Pennant visited the Isle of Man with Francis Grose [q. v.] He kept a journal, but most of the material he collected was lost.
Pennant made tours in various parts of England, including Northamptonshire (1774), Warwickshire (1776), Kent (1777), Cornwall (1787). As the outcome of several journeys in Wales he published his ‘Tour in Wales,’ the first volume appearing in 1778. In 1781 he published his own favourite work, the ‘History of Quadrupeds,’ being a new and enlarged edition of his ‘Synopsis of Quadrupeds.’ In 1782 his ‘Journey from Chester to London’ appeared. In 1784 he issued his ‘Arctic Zoology,’ which gave a ‘condensed view of the progress of discovery’ along the northern coasts of Europe, Asia, and America. For this work he received information from George Low [q. v.] and other Scottish naturalists, and from Sir Joseph Banks, who had visited Newfoundland. In 1790 he published his ‘London,’ which went through three impressions in two years and a half: he says it was ‘composed from the observations of perhaps half my life.’
Pennant declares that from about 1777 he began to lose his taste for wandering, and preferred to make ‘imaginary tours.’ He projected about 1793 a work in fourteen volumes, to be called ‘Outlines of the Globe;’ he published two volumes dealing with India and Ceylon, and vols. iii. and iv. (China and Japan) were issued posthumously. In 1793 he published ‘The Literary Life of the late Thomas Pennant, Esq. By Himself,’ giving biographical and bibliographical details.
Nearly all his life Pennant enjoyed perfect health, which he attributed to temperate living and abundant riding exercise. About 1794 his health and spirits began to fail, though he continued his literary work, and in 1796 published ‘The History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell.’ He died at Downing on 16 Dec. 1798, in his seventy-third year (Gent. Mag. 1798, pt. ii. p. 1090), and was buried in the church of St. Mary at Whitford, where there is a monument to him by Westmacott (Lewis, Topogr. Dict. of Wales, 1849, art. ‘Whitford’).
Pennant married, first, in 1759, Elizabeth (d. 1764), daughter of James Falconer of
