SHNH e-newsletter (3) November 2023
Dear Friends
Welcome to our SHNH e-news and an especially warm welcome to all our new members who joined the Society this year.
Our meetings Secretary Elle Larsson has been busy planning our events programme and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible online and also in person.
EVENTS
Plans for meetings next year are shaping up with an in person summer meeting and an online AGM. We will be forwarding more details in the New Year. Visits for small groups are also being arranged.
Two lovely recent visits enjoyed by members were to see the library and archives of the Zoological Society of London, hosted by Ann Sylph and her team and the exhibition on Charles Lyell in Edinburgh, curated by Jim Secord. ‘Time Traveller: Charles Lyell at work‘ is open (free) until 30 March 2024.
LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER
Finding W. H. Hudson – The Writer Who Came to Britain to Save the Birds
Conor Mark Jameson
Monday 4 December, 7pm (UK time), Online
To register for the event please sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/finding-w-h-hudson-the-writer-who-came-to-britain-to-save-the-birds-tickets-713058947507
Conor’s recently published biography of W.H. Hudson reveals how this unschooled, impoverished, battle-scarred emigrant from Argentina to Britain in the mid-Victorian era came to be so influential in the creation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds by its founding women, and in the rise of the modern-day conservation movement.
In this talk, Jameson will focus on how history has remembered or neglected Hudson and his colleagues, and how his legacy in South America (where he is revered) and North America (where academics still hold conferences to discuss him) compares and contrasts with his status today in the United Kingdom.
Conor Mark Jameson is an award-winning writer and naturalist. He is the author of Silent Spring Revisited, Shrewdunnit and Looking for the Goshawk. Following 25 years with the Scottish Wildlife Trust, RSPB and BirdLife International he now writes full-time, and has written for television and radio. He is Scots-Irish, Ugandan-born and now lives in a corner of the forest where Cambridgeshire meets Norfolk.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Early Career Researcher Symposium
Society for the History of Natural History
Online, Thursday 22 February 2024
The Society for the History of Natural History is a diverse community of people united by an active interest in the study of natural history through time, believing that a greater awareness of how nature has been considered, documented, valued and exploited by societies and individuals worldwide leads to a deeper understanding and celebration of nature. The Society is known for its friendliness, and its meetings combine intellectual excellence with opportunities for an informal exchange of ideas. It is a focal point for the history of all aspects of natural history. This includes art, literature, biography and bibliography as well as investigative historical studies.
We are delighted to announce that in 2024 we will again be hosting an Early Career Researcher Symposium, an event dedicated expressly to showcase research into the history of natural history being done by doctoral and early career researchers across the globe. This builds on the Society’s already successful annual William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize, awarded to the best original, unpublished essay in the history of natural history, which is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students worldwide, and the inaugural ECR event held in 2023.
For this symposium we welcome papers from across the field which speak to any aspects of the history of natural history. The only restriction is that eligible speakers must be individuals registered for PhD programmes or within 3 years of being awarded their doctorate.
Speakers will be convened into panels of related 15-20 minute papers by the conference organisers, with a shared session for questions at the end of each panel. The exact format and timings of the day are yet to be confirmed, but we welcome submissions from scholars in all parts of the world and will endeavour to put together a final programme which accommodates international time differences.
Paper proposals should be submitted to Dr Elle Larsson, Meetings Secretary at: meetings@shnh.org.uk. Please include a title, an abstract (up to 250 words) and a speaker biography (up to 100 words).
The deadline for submissions is 15 December 2023.
Please do circulate the CFP amongst your networks and contacts!
Archives of Natural History Volume 50
more cause for celebration!
Archives of Natural History part 2 is now published online and it is another bumper issue. It contains articles on ground-breaking 19th-century natural history studies in Siberia, how wooden barrels were used to transport specimens in the 18th century, the natural history lectures of Benjamin Hawkins Waterhouse, and the forgotten history of the mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus) discovered by Lewis and Clark.
Our featured article is ‘How collections and reputation were built out of Tasmanian violence: thylacines (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and Aboriginal remains from Morton Allport (1830–1878)’ by Jack Ashby, Assistant Director of the Zoology Museum, Cambridge. Cambridge University issued a press release and the article has had wide press coverage. Jack has summarised some of the key findings for his article in The Conversation.
Accompanying the book reviews, we also have an essay written by Janet Brown who discusses the history and completion of the Darwin Correspondence project – an enormous achievement. It can be read here.
Hot off the Press
- Birds of the World: The Art of Elizabeth Gould (Prestel, 2023), £55, by Andrea Hart & Ann Datta. NHBS interviews the authors
- Cuvier’s History of the Natural Sciences: the Eighteenth Century, volume 4. (Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, 2023), 45 Euros, edited by Theodore Pietsch.
- Darwin and the Art of Botany: Observations on the Curious World of Plants (Timber Press, 2023), US$30, by James Costa and Bobbie Angell.
- Taxidermy and the Country House where natural History meets social history (MPM Publishing, 2023), £33, by Pat Morris.
With very best wishes,
Elaine and Elle
Elaine Shaughnessy
Newsletter Editor, Society for the History of Natural History
Email : newsletter@shnh.org.uk
Dr Elle Larsson
Meetings Secretary, Society for the History of Natural History
Email : meetings@shnh.org.uk