An insight into commercial natural history: Richard Glennon, William Hinchy and the nineteenth-century trade in giant Irish deer remains

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Adelman

Despite the gentlemanly status of natural history research and collecting during the nineteenth century, there was a wide commercial network that was necessary to supply the booming demand for specimens from scientists, hobbyists and public institutions. This article is a case study of two dealers in giant Irish deer remains, Richard Glennon and William Hinchy. I argue that examining how they transacted their business can give us insight into the workings of commercial natural history. The dealer-buyer relationship resembled one of patronage despite the fact that they were engaging in a commercial transaction.

Author(s):  
Janet Owen

The interests of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in natural history and evolution took them to remote parts of the globe on hazardous, multi-sensory journeys that were ultimately about collecting. This paper introduces a methodology for exploring these complex experiences in more detail, informed by historical geography, anthropology, textual analysis and the geo-humanities. It involves looking for evidence of the richly stimulating and often challenging sensory dynamics within which they collected and connected data, observations, images, specimens, memories and ideas. Darwin's exploits in Tierra del Fuego are examined as a case study, with a particular focus on the collection of ‘Fuegian’ body paints in 1833. This type of analysis provides a fresh insight into the multi-sensory entanglement of encounter with people and place involved in the collecting process. It helps us to understand better the experiences that shaped what was collected and brought back to Britain, and the personal observations associated with these collections that sowed the seeds for Darwin's work on the origin of species.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 347-362
Author(s):  
Jowita Thor

The Magdalene Asylums were penitentiaries for ‘fallen’ women. A high percentage of such women had been involved in sex trade in some form; others were betrayed fiancées, unmarried partners or women with drinking problems. This article explores the Magdalene Asylums’ education as a tool for reforming the inmates into women reflecting the managers’ ideals of femininity and Christian virtue in nineteenth-century Scotland. The reports of these institutions describe their aims, quoting selected letters of former inmates, their parents and new employers. They give us an insight into how these Christian philanthropists imagined and applied educational programme for this group of women and girls. The two main areas of the asylums’ education were religious teaching and instruction in a range of skills necessary for becoming a servant or a factory worker. Those who could not read and write also received basic literacy lessons. Magdalene Asylums in nineteenth-century Scotland offer a rich case study of a context in which education had a very narrow meaning and served a precisely defined purpose. They provided a broad spectrum of skills, although never at a comprehensive level. The article explores the managers’ intentions and ideals by analysing the language they used to talk about ‘successfully reformed’ women.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 323-341
Author(s):  
Alison E. Martin

This paper sheds new light on the relationship between translation and annotation by adding the theoretical coordinate of expertise to the discussion about the ways in which translators contribute to the making of knowledge. It takes as its case study the German geologist Leopold von Buch's account of his scientific travels through Scandinavia, the Reise durch Norwegen und Lappland (Berlin: Nauck, 1810), which appeared in English three years later as the Travels through Norway and Lapland during the Years 1806, 1807 and 1808 (London: Colburn, 1813). It was translated by the Scottish journalist John Black, who added a handful of his own annotations, while a weightier footnote apparatus was appended by Robert Jameson, Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. The paratextual material was not, however, meant merely to aid comprehension. Black's additions helped to vaunt his ‘practical’ expertise as a linguist and translator, while Jameson's additions repeatedly stressed his own ‘subject’ expertise as a specialist on the geology of Scotland and an ardent devotee of the German geologist Abraham Werner. These two sets of footnotes highlighted the tensions between transnational scientific knowledge-making and national, regional and individual agendas in nineteenth-century translation and annotation practice.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmut Hiziroglu

PurposeThis study aims to find out whether strategic plans contribute to change by exploring to what extent environmental (external and internal) perceptions of the public institutions changed in consecutive plans.Design/methodology/approachThe research is an explorative case study of three metropolitan municipalities in Turkey: Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, which represent about one-third of population of the country. In this context, three consecutive strategic plans of metropolitan municipalities in question were examined based on a content analysis using a guideline developed by the author.FindingsThe findings reveal that the use of strategic plans as a guide is indispensable. The study argues that consecutive strategic plans of metropolitan municipalities are both conducive to change and are useful tools for the effectiveness of the strategy.Research limitations/implicationsWhile this study analyses the strategic plans regardless of considering the extent to which the institutions have achieved their desired goals, it recommends that the “strategic plans” should not only be used as rituals but also as a guide to change.Practical implicationsThe study emphasizes the fact that strategic plans provide managers with the necessary tools to perform an analysis that gives insight into the extent to which they are able to manage the change when they compare their strategic plans and put them into practice in the consecutive periods.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the field by questioning the basis of criticisms of strategic planning in the context of public sector and shows how strategic plans play a role in tracing the change in institutions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Mathew

This paper explores the origins of the Calcutta journal of natural history (1841–1848) and the search from the 1830s for a permanent curator for the collections of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Edward Blyth (1810–1873) was appointed, even though John M'Clelland (or McClelland) (1805–1883), who founded the Calcutta journal of natural history, had acted as part-time curator of the collections for two years before Blyth's arrival in Calcutta. An analysis of the Society and the journal allows reconsideration of the significance of natural history in India in the mid-nineteenth century.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Mearns ◽  
Laurent Chevrier ◽  
Christophe Gouraud

In the early part of the nineteenth century the Dupont brothers ran separate natural history businesses in Paris. Relatively little is known about their early life but an investigation into the family history at Bayeux corrects Léonard Dupont's year of birth from 1795 to 1796. In 1818 Léonard joined Joseph Ritchie's expedition to North Africa to assist in collecting and preparing the discoveries but he did not get beyond Tripoli. After 15 months he came back to Paris with a small collection from Libya and Provence, and returned to Provence in 1821. While operating as a dealer-naturalist in Paris he published Traité de taxidermie (1823, 1827), developed a special interest in foreign birds and became well known for his anatomical models in coloured wax. Henry Dupont sold a range of natural history material and with his particular passion for beetles formed one of the finest collections in Europe; his best known publication is Monographie des Trachydérides (1836–1840). Because the brothers had overlapping interests and were rarely referred to by their forenames there has been confusion between them and the various eponyms that commemorate them. Although probably true, it would be an over-simplification to state that birds of this era named for Dupont refer to Léonard Dupont, insects to Henry Dupont, and molluscs to their mother.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore

Attention is drawn to the contents, pedagogic style and visual appeal of the 17-volume “Peeps at nature” series published by A. & C. Black between 1911 and 1935. Edited by the Reverend Charles Albert Hall (a Swedenborgian minister), who also contributed most of the titles, this series was a quality production but one that was cheap enough to be readily accessible to young readers. Its volumes were written in simple language and included colour pictures. With time, the flamboyant artistry of the covers that so characterized the earlier volumes was replaced by more muted designs, possibly to reduce production costs. Later contributors abandoned anthropomorphism and the moralizing tone of many nineteenth-century popularizers of natural history, although styles of writing varied between the early and later contributors to the series, becoming less technical with time.


2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-336
Author(s):  
PIOTR DASZKIEWICZ ◽  
MICHEL JEGU

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some correspondence between Robert Schomburgk (1804–1865) and Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876). Four letters survive, containing information about the history of Schomburgk's collection of fishes and plants from British Guiana, and his herbarium specimens from Dominican Republic and southeast Asia. A study of these letters has enabled us to confirm that Schomburgk supplied the collection of fishes from Guiana now in the Laboratoire d'Ichtyologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The letters of the German naturalist are an interesting source of information concerning the practice of sale and exchange of natural history collections in the nineteenth century in return for honours.


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