scholarly journals Captain Vivian Hewitt and the fate of his collection of birds’ eggs and specimens

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-357
Author(s):  
David Clugston ◽  
Errol Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Middle Years

Vivian Hewitt was a little-known collector of natural history specimens (mainly birds and their eggs) during the early and middle years of the twentieth century. Although an obscure figure his influence on the museum world of his time – and later – was considerable and his collection of Great Auk material became almost legendary. Some of his story and that of his collection is a matter of published record but many elements remain obscure. In this study, we present previously unpublished details of Hewitt’s extraordinary life.

Michael Clegg (1933–1995): from naturalist to environmental correspondent in the multi-media age

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
The Media ◽  
Multi Media

The coverage of natural history in British newspapers has evolved from a “Nature notes” format – usually a regular column submitted by a local amateur naturalist – to professional, larger-format, presentations by dedicated environmental correspondents. Not all such environmental correspondents, however, have natural-history expertise or even a scientific background. Yorkshire's Michael Clegg was a man who had a life-long love of nature wedded to a desire to communicate that passion. He moved from a secure position in the museum world (with a journalistic sideline) to become a freelance newspaper journalist and (subsequently) commentator on radio and television dealing with, and campaigning on, environmental issues full-time. As such, he exemplified the transition in how natural history coverage in the media evolved in the final decades of the twentieth century reflecting modern concerns about biodiversity, conservation, pollution and sustainable development.

Simon of Pattishall, Pioneer Professional Judge

1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph V. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
English Law

The latter part of the twentieth century may not find many of us wishing to pay tribute to bureaucrats, but as Helen Cam reminded us, the civil servant “deserves more credit than he has yet had for building up and maintaining our precious tradition of law and order.” In the late twelfth century and the thirteenth century the process of “bureaucratization” first got underway in England. An early professional civil servant, one specializing in judicial activity, was Simon of Pattishall. His name surfaces in the records in 1190, and it disappears after 1216. His time of activity, then, coincides with an important period for English common law: the years between “Glanvill” and Magna Carta.Simon was one of that group of royal judges who might be termed the first “professionals,” a group that took shape by the middle years of Richard I's reign. By the time of John, about ninety men acted at various times as royal judges, either at the Bench at Westminster, with the court following the king, or as itinerant justices. Many of these had only temporary appointments, making circuits in the counties; but a core of fifteen, who concentrated on the work of the courts, can be regarded as early members of a professional judiciary. Simon of PattishalPs is perhaps the most respected name among the fifteen. He had the longest career on the bench, from 1190 until 1216. He founded a judicial dynasty, for his clerk, Martin of Pattishall, became a judge, as did his clerk, William Raleigh, who had as his clerk Henry of Bracton, author of the great treatise on English law.

Beyond Charles Knight: Women paleoartists at the American Museum of Natural History in the early twentieth century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mai Reitmeyer ◽  
Rebecca Morgan ◽  
Tom Baione
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
American Museum ◽  
Museum Displays ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Popular Images ◽  
Henry Fairfield Osborn

ABSTRACT Under the direction of Henry Fairfield Osborn, Charles Knight helped shape popular images of the prehistoric past in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen turies. Although he was the most famous, Charles Knight was not the only paleoartist working at the American Museum of Natural History at this time. Behind the scenes, there were several women paleoartists who made significant contributions to museum displays and publications illustrating the prehistoric world. Often overlooked, this chapter highlights the contributions of Elisabeth Rungius Fulda, Helen Ziska, Lindsey Morris Sterling, and Margret Joy Flinsch Buba.

scholarly journals An Index of the Yields of Junk Bonds, 1910–1955

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1203-1219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Basile ◽  
Sung Won Kang ◽  
John Landon-Lane ◽  
Hugh Rockoff
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Corporate Bond ◽  
High Yield ◽  
Government Bond ◽  
Bond Yields ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
Bond Index ◽  
Junk Bonds

We present a new monthly index of the yields on junk bonds (high risk, high yield bonds) for the period 1910–1955. This index supplements the indexes of government bond yields, and Aaa and Baa corporate bond yields economic historians have relied on previously to describe the long-term risk spectrum. First, we describe our sources and methods. Then we show that our junk bond index contains information that is not in the closest alternative, and suggest some ways that the junk bond index could be used to enrich our understanding of the turbulent middle years of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals George Patrick Leonard Walker. 2 March 1926 — 17 January 2005

2006 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 423-436
Author(s):  
S. Self ◽  
R.S.J. Sparks
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
Natural History ◽  
World War I ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Working Class ◽  
World War ◽  
The South ◽  
Interest In Science

George Walker was one of the most creative, inspirational and influential volcanologists of the twentieth century. Born in Harlesden, London, on 2 March 1926 in a respectable working–class neighbourhood, he was the first member of his family to take an interest in science and to attend university. His father, Leonard Walker, an insurance salesman, was badly wounded at Passchendaele in World War I as a sergeant bomber and never fully recovered. He died in 1932, when George was six years old. His mother, Evelyn Frances ( née McConkey), was a nurse. George had no siblings. He attended Acton Lane Elementary School and recollected a lesson on the making of iron as being memorable. Other influences included natural history, adventure books and visits to the South Kensington Museum and London Zoo. He did well at school and in 1937 won a scholarship to Willesden Secondary School.

scholarly journals William Dickson Lang, 1878-1966

1966 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 366-386
Keyword(s):  
Civil Engineer ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Status Occupation ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Minor ◽  
The Church

William Dickson Lang, Keeper of the Department of Geology in the British Museum (Natural History) from 1928-1938, died at Charmouth, Dorset, on 3 March 1966 in his 89th year. He was the second son of Edward Tickell Lang and Hebe, daughter of John Venn Prior. His father was a civil engineer, engaged at the time of the boy’s birth, at Kurnal in the Punjab on 29 December 1878, in the construction of the Jumna Canal. William was very much a product of the professional classes, all four of his grandparental branches, the Langs, Tickells, Priors and the Templers, being plentifully adorned with members of the fighting services, mostly the army—including at least two generals, and a collateral Field Marshal—the Indian Civil Service, the Church, the law and medicine, with a wealthy land-owning ancestor in the near distance, whose property had either passed to another branch or been largely dissolved by the multiplicity of descendants. His immediate relatives formed a well-knit, cultured clan whose nineteenthcentury standards and self-sufficiency were perhaps not always an advantage in dealing with a brash twentieth-century society. Lang himself summed up his ancestry thus: ‘The Langs and Tickells were very similar and homogeneous in their status, occupation and outlook, most of them entering one of the services (generally the army) and a few, the Church. It is recorded that one or two Langs showed (dilettante) artistic leanings, and one Tickell was a minor poet. None is mentioned as exhibiting a mathematical or scientific faculty; but a collateral Tickell branch threw up a naturalist. Most led straightforward and competent, if somewhat conventional, lives without exhibiting very outstanding abilities.

scholarly journals A Blackboard in Her Kitchen: Women and Physics at the University of Toronto

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-44
Author(s):  
Alison Prentice
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Graduate Program ◽  
Doctoral Degrees ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Physics Department ◽  
The University

Abstract Despite a widespread belief that they were a tiny minority in twentieth-century physics, women have been far more present in the field than we imagine. In this essay I explore three periods in the history of the University of Toronto physics department between 1890 and 1990. In the first expansionist period (1890-1933) women were much in evidence, earning nearly 20 percent of the university's doctoral degrees in physics; during the middle years of the century (1934-1961), some of these women taught in the physics department, but participation in the graduate program declined, with no women completing doctorates; between 1962 and 1990, when physics was again expanding rapidly, women gained some ground but still earned less than five percent of the doctorates. The essay explores the histories of nine of the women who earned PhDs in physics at Toronto during this third period, with a view to discovering the factors that helped or hindered their success in the field.

Alexander Morrison Stewart (1861–1948): noteworthy naturalist from Paisley, Scotland

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
History Of

Attention is drawn to the contribution made by Alexander Morrison Stewart to the natural history of the Paisley area in the early part of the twentieth century. From humble beginnings and while working on Paisley pattern textiles designs, Stewart rose to prominence as a naturalist in Renfrewshire, primarily from his interest in entomology. He founded the Paisley Naturalists' Society and held several positions within its ranks. Despite being a prolific writer of articles in local newspapers and the author of five books on insects and general natural history, he remains little-known nowadays. He networked with other local naturalists, notably the Reverend Charles A. Hall, to whose “Peeps at nature” series he contributed two lepidopteran titles. He donated a substantial butterfly collection to the Paisley Museum and was an advocate of the so-called “Paisley Method” of setting butterflies. An accomplished artist, he was much attached to the Firth of Clyde islands of Arran and Cumbrae, visiting them often for holidays spent sketching and collecting.

Narrative histories in mycology and the legacy of George Edward Massee (1845–1917)

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-380
Author(s):  
Nathan E. C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
University Education ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Mycological Society ◽  
Senior Member ◽  
Modern School ◽  
History Of

Mycology is a relatively small and young discipline that has yet to achieve the institutional presence of similar disciplines such as botany and zoology. Because of this, mycological histories are often written by practitioners aiming to establish a narrative of professionalization that confirms mycology as a scientific discipline instead of a natural history pursuit. George Edward Massee (1845–1917) was one of the foremost mycologists of the late nineteenth century, achieving the top position in the field as Principal Assistant (Cryptogams) at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and publishing over 250 books and articles. Providing a link between the great Victorian mycologists Mordecai Cubitt Cooke (1825–1914) and the Revd Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803–1889) and the more modern school that included the likes of Elsie Maud Wakefield (1886–1972), he achieved this position without a university education. However, since his death, his achievements have been subject to multiple negative assessments and, as a result, he has become increasingly obscured in the history of British mycology. The majority of these unfavourable appraisals originated from the publications of Dr John Ramsbottom (1885–1974), a mycologist and historian who was a key member of the British Mycological Society and a founding member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. These articles were published across the first half of the twentieth century, and Ramsbottom's works have since become standard texts in both the biography of Massee and the history of British mycology. Here I question the validity of the substance of Ramsbottom's claims against Massee, given the circumstances under which Ramsbottom's articles were written and the relationship between Massee and the fledgling British Mycological Society, initially run by Carleton Rea (1861–1946) and of which Ramsbottom was a senior member. I examine wider reasons for such strong criticism of Massee and explore the professional differences and relationships between Massee and Ramsbottom, placing the analysis firmly in the context of changing scientific practice occurring in the early twentieth century.

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