Richard William Coppinger was born in
Dublin on 11 October 1847. He graduated M.D. from the
Queen's University of Ireland in 1870. He was a surgeon on
HMS Alert, for the ship's Arctic expedition from 1875 to 1876 and the ship's expedition and Pacific cruise, including the Patagonian coast, Polynesia, and the
Mascarene Islands, from 1878 to 1882. Whilst on HMS
Alert, he collected botanical specimens from
Magellan Straits landfalls, Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, the
Torres Strait Islands, Singapore, and the
Seychelles, in addition to extensive zoological collections. In 1889 he was appointed instructor in hygiene at the
Admiralty's
Royal Hospital Haslar at
Gosport. In 1901 he was appointed Inspector-General of Hospitals and Ships. He married in 1884 and had three sons and one daughter. He died in
Wallington on 2 April 1910. ==Selected publications==