Coenraad Jacob Temminck and the Emergence of Systematics (1800–1850) is the first study to examine in detail the life and work of Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778–1858), the Dutch naturalist who was the first director of ’s Rijks Museum van Natuurlijke Historie (National Museum of Natural History) in Leiden, The Netherlands. This study situates Temminck’s activities in the context of European natural history during the early to the mid-nineteenth century. Three issues which defined the era are discussed in more detail: the growing European colonial territories, the rise of scientific meritocracy, and the emergence of systematics as a discipline. Temminck’s biography elucidates how and why systematics developed, and why its status within the natural sciences has been a matter of discussion for more than a century.