Torquay Boys’ Grammar School, South Devon Tech. - and pranks

Many of us look back on school days as being some of the best of our life. For me, there were a few good times, but mostly it was not a happy experience, and I don’t feel disappointed that my old school has now been demolished. In the image above, the east entrance to the school, with its rather grand portico, remains, as does the eastern internal staircase (just visible in the background of this image by Tom Jolliffe – with the handrail still in place) that led to the first floor. 

Passing though the entrance shown in the image, one entered a corridor that had the Head’s Study on the left, the Secretary’s office on the right and a succession of classrooms also on the right, with the Biology Laboratory at the end of the corridor (to the left of the corridor were windows looking out on to one of the “playgrounds”). The Biology Lab. plays an important part in the following narrative.

Having passed O-levels in 1962, I took A-levels in Chemistry, Botany and Zoology (I dropped Physics after one year). Chemistry was then taught at the school in a relatively new two-storey block that had replaced an old hut, where Mr Roberts had earlier taught us (1A of the 1958 intake) to recite the mantra “Acid + Base = Salt + Water”. The hut was so old that the knots in the floorboards were raised and shiny, the rest of the boards being worn away by the scuffing shoes of generations of students. As I recall, A-level Chemistry was taught on the first floor of the new building and I had the misfortune of having Mr Crabtree as my teacher. He was clearly an able chemist, but he bullied me on occasions, one of which I recall clearly when he tapped me repeatedly on the head while saying, with raised voice, “valency, Wotton, valency!”. I’m not sure what I had done to deserve this response, but I admit that I didn’t have much interest in chemistry, as was apparent to Mr Crabtree. My fascination with natural history made the A-levels in Botany and Zoology much more to my taste, but, unfortunately, I was not a good scholar.

 These are quotes from my book “Walking with Gosse” [1]: 

As Biology was not among the most popular subjects at TBGS, we took A-Levels in both Botany and Zoology at the South Devon Technical College, in a building adjacent to the school. Teaching was shared between the two institutions, with Botany taught by Mr Hood from the Grammar School and Zoology by Mr Cosway from the Tech…

 …and another excerpt [1]: 

…I always enjoyed visiting Paignton Zoo to gaze at the animals and I joined the “Peacock Association” (the Friends of the Zoo) to gain free entry and to attend meetings with guest speakers. On the south side of the Zoo was an area closed to the public, with a high double gate that led to mature woodland and a hillside that was grazed by rabbits. Mr Hood had kept a record of the distribution of plants on the hillside over several years and a group of us Botany students was taken there to continue mapping the site using quadrats. It was something that was organised each year to teach botanical surveying techniques and I really enjoyed this field work. My earlier flower collecting meant that I could identify many plants, although I now used Latin names rather than the common ones, and I went back to the site on my own a few times to expand the survey in other areas. This impressed, and surprised, Mr Hood who, like Mr Cosway, didn’t think I had much of a future academically [the latter having recommended that I give up Zoology]. 

I liked Mr Hood, as he clearly loved plants and seemed independent-minded, although we only had occasional glimpses of the human side of our schoolmasters. He had spent time in India with the Army and was almost a caricature of someone from that background, having a large moustache and habitually wearing a rumpled tweed sports jacket and cavalry twills. Occasionally, he talked to us about the Western Ghats and some of his Indian adventures and these were very exotic for me, an insular Paigntonian.

The freedom of the Tech. was such that I never worked as hard as I should have done in classes and it also meant that, with a couple of friends, we thought little of skipping school to go collecting marine animals from the local shore (see below). We should have been in the School Library, but identifying the animals in our collections was much more fun and we also brought back specimens and set them up in aquarium tanks.

Our form room was the Biology Lab. in the main school building and it was the scene of several pranks. One came from our collections, as we soon discovered that seaweed kept in a large jar decomposed to produce a shocking and pervasive smell. What could be more fun than to secrete an open jar of rotting wrack near a radiator in the corridor and then retrieve it once the area had become filled with its perfume? We also discovered that bubbling gas into a sink of water to which “Teepol” had been added produced large quantities of foam that would spread along a bench and that throwing a lighted match into the foam would produce a wonderful sheet of flame that burned itself out in a second or two.

Perhaps the most infamous prank came when we went to a local pub and bought a couple of flagons of cider that we distilled to produce applejack. We knew well enough that distillates might contain harmful chemicals, in addition to ethyl alcohol, so we were reluctant to drink the stuff that we had made. I can still remember the smell of it though, and the pleasure to be obtained by our behaviour and, as with all the other pranks, the school was seemingly unaware of our activities. As mentioned earlier, the Head’s Study was just along our corridor and “Joe” Harmer (MA Cantab. FRAS) didn’t have a highly-developed sense of humour. If I’d been caught there would have been trouble (and more doubt about my academic abilities), even though I was only a passive participant in the activities. Visits to the shore were an exception, as I was fascinated by all that I discovered there, and played an active role in searches.

My chances of gaining a good reference on my university application form would also have been affected if my behaviour during the 1964 Sixth Form Conference had been discovered. These conferences were held in different schools each year and there were lots of group debates that were very enjoyable: conferences were also a chance to meet girls. At the one held at TBGS, the day started with a religious service at a local church and then there were sessions until lunchtime, during which three of us (highly illegally) went to “The Rising Sun”. After a couple of pints of beer each, we left to walk back to school, singing our version of the 1964 hit by The Animals:

There is a house in Torre, Torquay

They call the Rising Sun 

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God I know, I’m one 

Well, it didn’t lead to my ruin, but it might have done. On return to the conference, I had the misfortune to sit next to a teacher from another school and had to ask him to let me out as I needed to get rid of some of the fluid that I’d accumulated. He must have found it odd that I left the debate so soon after it started, and also that I smelt a little of alcohol. An anxious few days followed, but I got away with it and I did get my university place and that’s where I changed beyond recognition. I was now much more diligent and I have to say that it was at university where it all started for me. School was just part of the build-up, although I recognise the dedication, and excellence, of some masters and the friendship of fellow students. While rarely happy to see buildings being demolished (another image by Tom Jolliffe is shown below), there’s some satisfaction in seeing the end of the old TBGS. My time there wasn’t the happiest period of my life.

[1] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book (available widely).

How a great auk “flew” from Durham to Glasgow

Fifty years ago, I travelled to Durham University to be interviewed for a PhD studentship to work with Dr Lewis Davies on the blackly larvae (Simuliidae) living in streams in Upper Teesdale. I had always liked moorland and the project involved regular sampling of streams on the Pennines, to collect larvae and then analyse the life histories and production of the populations. Among the questions I was asked at the interview were whether I was prepared to work on my own on the fells and whether I had a driver’s licence, as the studentship came with a short wheelbase Land Rover that would allow access to some of the rougher tracks that I would need to use. I was positive about the first, but I hadn’t passed my driving test and would need to do so. Despite this answer, I was offered the post and accepted readily.

I then needed to take an intensive course of driving lessons that resulted in a pass in what was a very high-pressure test. It was such a relief as I was very keen to go to Durham and I had been impressed by the wonderful city and, especially, the people whom I had met in the Department of Zoology. It wasn’t only the people that impressed – so did the stuffed great auk that had a prominent position at the foot of the staircase in the Zoology Building. I knew that these birds had become extinct but had never before seen a museum specimen and I found it fascinating.

When I moved to Durham, the great auk became a “friend” as I had to pass it as I made my way upstairs to the common room, where we took coffee. Recently, I was intrigued to read about its history, and current location, in a paper by R.A.Baker  in the Archives of Natural History [1]. It is worth quoting from his paper:

The ”Durham” Great Auk had a long association with the University of Durham, from about 1834 to 1977 – a span of over 140 years.. ..Canon Thomas Gisborne (1758-1846), a Prebend at Durham and early benefactor, bought and presented the Great Auk to the new university.. .. When science was re-established at Durham in 1924, the Great Auk was transferred to the newly-built Dawson building and insured against fire and theft. J.J.O.Mason, the Head of Science at the time, recalled “When I came, I begged it for the new department (Science), remarking that some day we should have a Zoology department, which would be glad of it.”.. ..By the late 1970s the Head of the Department of Zoology at Durham, Professor David Barker, decided to sell the specimen.. ..Some disquiet was expressed after the sale was agreed. The sale went ahead on the agreement that the money raised would be placed in a fund “to make purchases to maintain the quality of the zoological specimens teaching collection”.. .. The auction of the “Durham” Great Auk took place at Sotheby’s in London on Wednesday 21 September 1977 and was sold to a Michael Pilkington for £4200.. .Mr Pilkington eventually decided to sell the Auk, and gave the museum [the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, where it had been on loan] the first option on it. The Glasgow Great Auk Appeal, launched the day before the 150th anniversary of its extinction, helped to raise sufficient funds for the museum to purchase the specimen for £30,000 in 1994.

It continues to be exhibited at the Kelvingrove Museum (see below), although I have not been to visit my old “friend”

What is the attraction of extinct animals? We are all familiar with the enthusiasm that many have for dinosaurs and the ammonite fossils of the Jurassic Coast, and these animals became extinct millions of years ago, overtaken by evolution and climate change. Those factors may also explain the much more recent demise of mammoths (like dinosaurs, strong favourites with the public), but very recent extinctions, like that of the great auk and some other flightless birds, were the result of human exploitation. We know that Ole Worm (1588-1654) had a live specimen from the Faroe Islands that he fed on herrings and he also had at least one stuffed great auk in his private museum [2]. With the rise of interest by collectors in rarities, and with little defence against humans, great auks didn’t stand a chance, having already been taken as food and for their feathers [3,4]. Perhaps our fascination with them results from a sense of loss and a recognition that we have been responsible for their being wiped out - and knowing that we will never see one alive? 

It is all a long way from collecting blackfly larvae in Upper Teesdale, but the Durham great auk certainly had, and continues to have, a strong appeal for me. I think it is a pity that it was sold (at what appears a knockdown price), but good to know it “lives on” in Glasgow.

[1] R.A.Baker (1999) Going, going, gone – the “Durham” Great Auk. Archives of Natural History 26:113-119.

[2] A.V.DeLozoya, D.G.García and J.Parish (2016) A great auk for the Sun King. Archives of Natural History 43:41-56.

[3] W.R.P.Bourne (1993) The story of the Great Auk Pinguinis impennis. Archives of Natural History 20: 257-278.

[4] T.R.Birkhead (1994) How collectors killed… New Scientist Issue 1227 May 28th 1994.

The zoology of Bruegel’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is best known for scenes of everyday life and he can be regarded as the first well-known exponent of genre painting. The Fall of the Rebel Angels shows a quite different topic: the expulsion of Lucifer from Heaven by St Michael and a group of angels loyal to God. Bruegel shows us St Michael (with his shield bearing the cross of the resurrection), but it is difficult to make out Lucifer in his many-headed form. Heavenly light shines from the top of the picture, through the blue sky, and we then move down to the darkness of the abyss of Hell. Some animals are present in the sky, together with angels, and most are descending into Hell, which is not fiery, as it is described in The Holy Bible and as it is usually shown in paintings. The only hint of fire in Bruegel’s work turns out to be a feathery headdress.

An excellent commentary on the painting has been provided by the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels, where the painting is exhibited [1]. As mentioned in this commentary, several of the animals shown are based on those from collections of curiosities, which were becoming popular as sources of wonder at the unfamiliar.

I would like to make some additional comments on some of the animals shown in the painting.

The puffer fish

Bruegel shows a puffer fish with the body distended. One defence mechanism used by these fish is to rapidly take water into the stomach to “inflate” the body and make spines stand out: the same mechanism is used when the fish gulp air should they be caught out of the water. In this state, puffer fish have been preserved by drying and it is likely that Bruegel saw a preserved specimen displayed in a collection of curiosities. While the eyes look unnatural, he shows the fused teeth that are used by the living fish to bite into their prey [2].

Interestingly, some puffer fish have another defence mechanism in the production of chemicals within the liver that are highly toxic to humans. So much so, that raw fugu – a delicacy in some parts of the world – requires preparation by specially-trained chefs. It tempts us to think that the inflation of the body, and the production of toxins, evolved to prevent predation by humans, but both must have existed long before the evolution of humans.

Two dead fish and bloated frogs

The fish are shown with their mouths open as if gasping, an indication of distress that Bruegel clearly wished to convey. The same intention of providing images that cause us to become frightened comes in the bloated frog, whether bloating was caused by decomposition or, should the frog be female, by being filled with eggs that will now not be laid. A second frog-like creature is shown with the abdomen split open to show what appears to be spawn, but this animal is different to Bruegel’s frog (having what looks like the “parson’s nose” of a chicken at the end of the abdomen). I have no idea what Bruegel was trying to show here.

Mussels + a crustacean

In this image we see two open mussel shells containing the body of each mollusc. The two mussels, each shown inside one of their shell valves, have clearly been cooked as, in life, the mantle (the pink/yellow fold) is closely applied to the shell for almost all of its length. Lying between the two mussels is what appears to be a crustacean, blue in colour like a lobster when alive, and the whole reminds us of a flying creature, with the mussel shells forming “wings”.

The stenogastrine wasp

Although stylised, the stenogastrine wasp is probably included as a threat and also as a bizarre creature that would also have occurred in a collection of curiosities. These wasps, like other social insects, are likely to be female and possessed of a mild sting. However, they are not usually aggressive and their appearance more frightening than reality, especially when shown at such a large size relative to other recognisable animals in the painting.

The falling birds

Two birds are shown falling into the abyss. One appears to be laying an egg, but it is impossible to identify what type of bird it might be: the other resembles a great auk, now extinct. Interestingly, Ole Worm (1588-1654), the Danish natural historian and physician, kept a great auk as a pet and, after its death and preservation, it might have found its way into his splendid cabinet of curiosities [3].

We can spend much time in speculating on what Bruegel intended in his use of images of animals, both real and imaginary. His view of the expulsion of Lucifer is certainly unique and is based on his imagination, with no attempt made to show the realistic scale of the different components. Dead terrestrial and aquatic animals are present in all parts of the painting, together with images that are supernatural and were likely to have been strongly influenced by the earlier works of Hieronymus Bosch (as mentioned in the commentary).

It is an extraordinary painting.

[1] https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-fall-of-the-rebel-angels-royal-museums-of-fine-arts-of-belgium/lQLy-oPTgMeLKg?hl=en

[2] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2017/may/pufferfish-beak-originates-from-stem-cell-tweak.html

[3] https://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/image_of_the_month/worms-cabinet-curiosities/

Wotton’s place in the history of Biology

Stanley Goodman, the eminent economist and historian, mentioned the name of Edward Wotton to me. As Stan is a polymath, it came as no surprise that he had come across Wotton, but I knew nothing of my namesake (and no relation, I presume). Of course, I was then prompted to find out more. It turns out that Edward was an important figure in the history of Biology, yet he is not mentioned in Charles Singer’s textbook on the subject [1]. So, who was Edward Wotton and why was his book - De differentiis animalium libri decem [2] - an important influence on contemporary biologists and those who were to follow?

Born in Oxford in 1492, Edward was educated at Magdalen College School, where he was a chorister, and at Magdalen College Oxford, graduating in 1514 [3]. He then moved to the newly-established Corpus Christi College to teach Greek, although he retained rooms at Magdalen. Bishop Fox, the founder of Corpus Christi, granted Edward leave and he travelled to Padua, a great cultural centre, with its well-established University (founded in 1222) and glories such as the Scrovegni Chapel and its wonderful interior by Giotto. At Padua, Edward studied for an MD and returned to Oxford to receive the same degree in May 1526 [3].

Edward Wotton was admitted as a fellow of the College of Physicians and, like so many of those who practised medicine at the time, developed an abiding interest in natural history, not so much from first-hand study but from extensive scholarship of known texts, especially of those by Aristotle and his followers. The result was the publication of De differentiis animalium libri decem in 1552, an encyclopaedic account of the knowledge of the time. I find it a challenge to read as it is in Latin, so I am dependent on others to inform me of its details. Animals are described under headings, starting with many-toed mammals and ending with zoophytes (plant-like animals).

A feature of the book is that it separated factual material from that embellished by folklore [4], like the Natural History of Pliny, who was described by Singer as:

..a man of immense industry with an enthusiasm for collection. He did not, however, collect natural history objects, but only information or rather misinformation about them.. ..Unfortunately, Pliny’s judgement was in no way comparable to his industry. He was excessively credulous. Thus his work became a repository of tales of wonder, of travellers’ and sailors’ yarns, and of superstitions of farmers and labourers. As such it is a very important source of information for the customs of antiquity, though as science, judged by the standards of his great predecessors, such as Aristotle or Theophrastus or Erasistratus, it is simply laughable.

Given this attack on Pliny [1], it is even more surprising that Wotton’s book is given no mention in A Short History of Biology, especially as Wotton, like Pliny was a collector of information rather than a first-hand observer. However, the book is cited in Mayer’s The Annals of European Civilization 1501-1900 [5].

Unlike Edward Wotton, Thomas Moufet (or Muffet or Moffet) was a collector and carried out extensive field studies on insects. Like Edward, he studied medicine in mainland Europe (in Basel, after graduating with a BA from Gonville Hall Cambridge, having transferred from Trinity College [6]). Moufet’s book Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum draws on Edward Wotton’s knowledge [7 (and see above)] and was published posthumously in 1634. This book is mentioned by Singer [1] as being important in the history of Biology, but:

The significance for science of classical scholarship was on the wane, and the work of the later schools is conducted in a new spirit.

Interestingly, one reviewer, Haller, believed that Moufet “gave credence to too many fabulous reports [but] acknowledged him to be ‘the prince of entomologists’ before John Swammerdam” [6]. He was certainly inundated with specimens that were sent to him and Singer recounts that he was urgently in need of descriptive terms [1].Some of the illustrations from Insectorum sive are shown below and they enable us to identify insects today, so they must have been very powerful images in their day. There are hundreds of them and the shift in approach from Wotton to Moufet is significant, as Singer points out. It presages the approaches to the study of Zoology that were to follow, but Edward Wotton certainly had an important rôle in the development of studies in the subject.

[1] Charles Singer (1931) A Short History of Biology. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

[2] Edward Wotton (1552) De differentiis animalium libri decem. Paris.

[3] A.F.Pollard (revised by Patrick Wallis) (2004) Wotton, Edward (1492-1555). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29999

[4] Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition) 1910-11 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:EB1911_-_Volume_28.djvu/1052

[5] Alfred Mayer (1993) The Annals of European Civilization 1501-1900. New York, Barnes & Noble.

[6] Victor Houliston (2004) Moffet [Moufet, Muffet], Thomas [T.M.] (1553-1604). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/18877

[7] Thomas Moufet (1634) Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum. London.

My thanks to Stan Goodman for introducing me both to Edward Wotton and to Alfred Mayer.

Two wonderful Museums – and mention of another

As a child, I was fascinated by a box that was kept in a back room of our house and which contained "curios". I cannot remember all the bits and pieces in the box, but there was a claw (from a tiger?) and some coarse hair that was said to come from a giraffe's tail. It was our family's cabinet of curiosities, like those kept by Nineteenth Century collectors and Natural History enthusiasts, but I've no idea where the claw and hair came from. Perhaps they were given to my parents by a contact who, unlike us, had travelled widely? I now think the source was more likely to be Paignton Zoo, within easy walking distance of where we lived.

It is possible that my interest in Natural History Museums developed from my fascination with the curios, although I also enjoyed looking at plants and animals while walking in the countryside, or looking in rock pools and streams. It certainly grew when I went into the Sixth Form of Torquay Grammar School and began studying Botany and Zoology at A-level. For some reason, our classes in those subjects were held at the local Technical College, that shared the same campus as the school, and this brought much more freedom. Instead of going to the School Library, a group of us now spent time collecting animals on the shore during our free time, something that was completely against school regulations. Occasionally, we made trips to Exeter to visit the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and little did I know then that the RAMM was to provide a delightful surprise over fifty years later when a Curator, Holly Morgenroth, kindly let me see their collection of drawings by Henry and Edmund Gosse [1,2] – and to think they were there during my schoolboy visits all those years before (although not on display).

It was during the Sixth Form that I joined the Torquay Natural History Society and this allowed me free access to talks and also to their Museum. It was rather musty and dark at that time, not like the welcoming place it is today, and I spent hours in the Library, with its smell of dust and old leather, and volumes going back to the Seventeenth Century. One I remember was printed in London in 1666 and that set me thinking whether this was before, or after, the Great Fire and what a story that book could tell. Being free to look through the exhibits and the books was just like being given a very large box of curios to me. 

The Torquay Museum is housed in a building dating from 1874 (see above), collections previously having been in more temporary quarters [3]. The secretary of the Torquay Natural History Society from 1851 to 1890 was William Pengelly who was made an FRS for his many contributions to palaeontology, especially after the excavation of caves in the Torbay area.  A quote from a biography of Pengelly by his daughter [4] emphasises the central role he played in the development of the Society and I certainly owe him a debt of gratitude, for my love of museums started in Torquay:

It was indeed mainly due to Mr Pengelly's energy that the autumn of 1844 witnessed the foundation of the Torquay Natural History Society. Over its early fortunes he exercised the most watchful care, and in 1851 he was induced to accept the office of honorary secretary, an office which he continued uninterruptedly to hold, to the unspeakable advantage of the Society, for no less than nine-and-thirty years.. ..Year after year he lectured there, tincturing the locality with his own enthusiasm; and from the Society there ultimately sprang the Museum in Babbacombe Road, with its admirable local collections. In the reading-room attached to the Museum there fitly hangs an oil-painting of the man whose individuality is unmistakably marked upon the entire institution – William Pengelly

Pengelly, unlike the "other Torquay  FRS", Henry Gosse, was a regular visitor to London and he was acquainted with E. Ray Lankester, the eminent Zoologist who held the Jodrell Chair at University College London, attending conversazione that were held by that great academic. Lankester had a wide circle of friends and contacts, extending to Karl Marx, H. G. Wells and Anna Pavlova, so he wasn't just well known in his own field. In their monograph on Lankester [5], Lester and Bowler state that, although they mainly communicated through correspondence, he "much admired" Gosse and Edmund Gosse writes [6]:

Among the younger zoologists of the day, few of whom were personally known to my father, there was not one in whose discoveries and career he took a livelier interest than in those of Professor E. Ray Lankester, for whom, from his earliest publications, he had predicted a course of high distinction.

As Jodrell Professor, Lankester inherited the Zoology Museum built up by his predecessor Robert E. Grant (for whom the museum is now named), adding considerably to the collection. The museum is still used for teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students, but it is also open to the public and all who visit appreciate its wonders as it has a powerful atmosphere of the glory days of the Nineteenth Century [7]. Its current location, that shows off the collections so well, is the latest in a series and one hopes that it will remain there for a long time. Of course, the Grant Museum of Zoology is not just about teaching and connecting with the heyday of Natural History; it is also very contemporary, with some wonderful displays to attract and fascinate visitors [8] and a blog that is always worth reading [9]. One novel approach to develop interest is a scheme to adopt a specimen and I did this eagerly, choosing a sea slug Marionia quadrilatera (see below, with the adoption certificate). I chose it as I taught Aquatic and Invertebrate Biology, and a sea slug is appropriate for both. Interestingly, it was part of the collection added to by Lankester and may well have been one of the many specimens brought back from Naples in 1885 [5] by Alfred Gibbs Bourne, a student of Lankester's (note that the jar is labelled "Naples").

While a member of staff at UCL, I listened to one neophyte colleague chatting about the destiny of the Museum of Zoology and how much better it would be to use space for laboratories and contemporary biomedical research. I found this sad and was delighted to serve on the UCL Museums and Heritage Committee where there were never discussions of this kind and where we focussed on the marvellous collections held by the University. Heritage is so important and I'm delighted that Lankester still looks out at the Museum (albeit from a photograph – see below - with specimens of Limulus, about which Lankester wrote an important essay [5]), just as Pengelly looked out in the Library of the Museum in Torquay. I like those connections.

[1] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2015/01/brilliant-illustrations-of-organisms.html

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-moving-discovery-in-royal-albert.html

[3] http://www.torquaymuseum.org/about/our-history

[4] Hester Pengelly (1897) A Memoir of William Pengelly, of Torquay, F.R.S., Geologist. London, John Murray.

[5] Joe Lester and Peter J. Bowler (1995). E. Ray Lankester and the Making of Modern British Biology. British Society for the History of Science Monograph 9.

[6] Edmund Gosse (1896) The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, William Heinemann.

[7] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/a-day-at-londons-grant-museum-of-zoology/

[8] http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/zoology/about

[9] http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/category/zoology/

Photographs were taken with the permission of the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology.

E Ray Lankester and Henry Gosse

                                              

                                   

I was very pleased to be named as one of the winners in the UCL Research Frontiers competition: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/research-frontiers/contest. E Ray Lankester (above, top), the subject of my entry, was a formidable man but he had great judgement and pushed for what he felt was right.

When writing the “Imaginary Interview”, I was already aware of the mutual respect between Lankester and Henry Gosse, as Lankester’s name cropped up several times during my research for “Walking with Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts”. Lankester had been inspired by Gosse (above) when he visited the Lankester family home and told Ray of the many wonders of Natural History that he had observed. In turn, Lankester, much later, ironed out problems that Henry Gosse had with the Scientific Establishment when he insisted on referring to his devout Christian beliefs in scientific publications. It was also Lankester who suggested that Edmund Gosse should write the first biography of his father, which appeared as “The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: the Life of Philip Henry Gosse”.

Both Ray Lankester and Henry Gosse were great figures although, like all great people, they had areas of quirkiness. For Lankester, it was his sometimes bombastic approach; for Gosse, his imprisonment in narrow religious beliefs. I find it easy to forgive both, so what better way to have launched “Walking with Gosse” than in the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL? In the Museum, which Lankester helped to develop, are some of the specimens he used in his pioneering research and, with that all around us, we were able to discuss Henry Gosse and the respect everyone felt for his achievements. It was a special occasion.