Dr Dryasdust, Sir Walter Scott and Philip Henry Gosse

 

Writers of historical novels face the challenge of maintaining accuracy when describing events, while introducing narrative that is a product of their imagination. Sir Walter Scott (above, in a portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn) met this head-on and addressed it in an Introductory Epistle to Ivanhoe where, writing to the imaginary Rev Dr Dryasdust in the person of Laurence Templeton, he has this to say [1]: 

The painter must introduce no ornament inconsistent with the climate or country of his landscape; he must not plant cypress trees upon Inch-Merrin, or Scottish firs among the ruins of Persepolis; and the author lies under a corresponding restraint. However far he may venture in a more full detail of passions and feelings, than is to be found in the ancient compositions which he imitates, he must introduce nothing inconsistent with the manners of the age; his knights, squires, grooms, and yeomen, may be more fully drawn than in the hard, dry delineations of an ancient illuminated manuscript, but the character and costume of the age must remain inviolate; they must be the same figures, drawn by a better pencil, or, to speak more modestly, executed in an age when the principles of art were better understood. His language must not be exclusively obsolete and unintelligible; but he should admit, if possible, no word or turn of phraseology betraying an origin directly modern. It is one thing to make use of the language and sentiments which are common to ourselves and our forefathers, and it is another to invest them with the sentiments and dialect exclusively proper to their descendants. 

I am conscious that I shall be found still more faulty in the tone of keeping and costume, by those who may be disposed rigidly to examine my Tale, with reference to the manners of the exact period in which my actors flourished: It may be, that I have introduced little which can positively be termed modern; but, on the other hand, it is extremely probable that I may have confused the manners of two or three centuries, and introduced, during the reign of Richard the First, circumstances appropriated to a period either considerably earlier, or a good deal later than that era. It is my comfort, that errors of this kind will escape the general class of readers. 

In the Epistle, he attacks “the repulsive dryness of mere antiquity”, but also states the importance of making history interesting to a wide readership, while maintaining much detail accuracy. Writers of historical novels are likely to face criticisms from academic historians who have a knowledge of detail that is “dry” (thus Dr Dryasdust) and, even if these historians imagine the behaviour of key characters, they do not promote it with dialogue or other supposed interactions. 

It is interesting that the renowned natural historian Philip Henry Gosse (above) also used a Dr Dryasdust in the Preface to “The Romance of Natural History”, writing [2]: 

There are more ways than one of studying natural history. There is Dr Dryasdust’s way; which consists of mere accuracy of definition and differentiation; statistics as harsh and dry as the skins and bones in the museum where it is studied. There is the field-observer’s way; the careful and conscientious accumulation and record of facts bearing on the life-history of the creatures; statistics as fresh and bright as the forest or meadow where they are gathered in the dewy morning. And there is the poet’s way; which looks at nature through a glass peculiarly his own; the aesthetic aspect, which deals, not with statistics, but with the emotions of the human mind,- surprise, wonder, terror, revulsion, admiration, love, desire, and so forth,- which are made energetic by the contemplation of the creatures around him. 

Gosse was very much a natural historian of the second category, while The Romance of Natural History set out to describe his attitude to the third, for he certainly had a poet’s approach in some of his writing. So, where did Gosse get the name Dr Dryasdust? The scientist working with skins and bones bears a close resemblance to an academic historian looking at texts and contemporary material in a library. So, did Gosse base his Dr Dryasdust on the one in the Introductory Epistle to Ivanhoe? We know that Gosse was an avid reader when he lived in Carbonear in Newfoundland as a teenager and Ann Thwaite records [3]: 

..on his very first Sunday in Carbonear, he was so ‘eagerly devouring’ The Fortunes of Nigel that he ‘did not go to meeting’. It was the first time that he had read Scott and it was Mr Elson [his employer, who was also the librarian of the Carbonear Book Society].. ..who had pulled it down from the shelf, recommending the novel to him. 

That Henry Gosse had read Ivanhoe is clear, as he quotes from that novel in Omphalos, his disastrous attempt to explain the potential conflict between the Biblical account of creation and ideas on geological time scales [3,4]. Omphalos was published in 1857 and it is likely that Henry had been familiar with Scott’s novel for thirty years. 

The evidence is thus strong that Henry Gosse based his Dr Dryasdust on the fictional character addressed by Scott. Both authors wanted to popularise their subject and both were likely to be faced with opposition from academic, “pure” circles. It’s a potential conflict that exists today, perhaps even more so. We’ve all seen docudramas and other media that make our blood boil with their use of imagination over fact and it’s unfortunate that sometimes the audience is not aware of the difference. Both Walter Scott and Henry Gosse certainly were. 

[1] http://www.telelib.com/authors/S/ScottWalter/prose/ivanhoe/ivanhoe000a.html 

[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1860) The Romance of Natural History. London, J. Nisbet and Co. 

[3] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber and Faber. 

[4] Roger S. Wotton (2021) Walking with Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book

 

 

 

A seaside hotel with literary and natural history links

I left Paignton, my home town, for university in 1965 and, more permanently, in 1968, after my father died and our house was sold. I made few return visits to Torbay until 2008, when I was gathering information for a book on the famous marine natural historian Philip Henry Gosse, and his son Edmund, who lived in St Marychurch, Torquay: I needed to make visits to his old home, to Torquay Museum, and to places along the coast where he had collected. 

Since then, nostalgia for my childhood haunts took hold and I try and make an annual visit, although COVID-19 put paid to that for a while. It means that I have sampled a number of hotels in Torquay: The Imperial (that was not particularly impressive); The Livermead Cliff (that has a wonderful location as its best feature); and the Premier Inn (that I knew from childhood as the Belgrave Hotel, and which I now prefer, as it offers a very good standard package, being part of a large group). Unfortunately, none compare with some of the hotels that I have stayed in elsewhere.

During the years I spent researching the book, I stayed at the Livermead House Hotel and enjoyed its retro style – what I have called 1950s seaside chic – complete with Mr Rew, and his deputy, appearing in full “white-tie and tails” evening dress. Breakfast was accompanied by a selection of Everly Brothers hits and dinner by a pianist who played various showtime hits, etc. During the times when I was there, most of my fellow residents were from coach parties and they were given a guard of honour by staff as they left the hotel to board their coach for the journey home. I also remember visiting the Livermead House Hotel at the time boisterous Young Farmers were holding their annual conference in Torquay, with some young farmers staying with us. All these memories were triggered as I was completing a jigsaw puzzle by Susan Holbeche, where the Livermead House Hotel is seen on the left [1].

It wasn’t the 1950s ambience that drew me to the hotel, it was its association with Charles Kingsley and Henry Gosse, and I have written about their friendship [2], and the connection of the former with the original Livermead House (a picture of which is given on the hotel website [3]). Although the hotel bears a blue plaque to celebrate Kingsley’s stay, few people probably know of how he came to be there and the significance of his friendship with Henry Gosse. It’s a story worth telling.

[1] https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=28acb15f861b

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2016/05/charles-kingsley-creation-and-evolution.html

[3] https://www.livermead.com/torbay-hotel/about-us

 

Evangelical Christianity: reflections on the views of George Eliot, George Henry Lewes and Philip Henry Gosse

Evangelical Christians play important roles in George Eliot’s first two novels: Scenes of Clerical Life (really three separate novellas in one volume) and Adam Bede. As is well known, George Eliot (see above) was the pen name of Marian (earlier Mary Ann, or Mary Anne) Evans and her interest in evangelical Christianity came from when she attended schools in Nuneaton and Coventry. In her Introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Scenes of Clerical Life, Josie Billington writes [1]: 

As an adolescent, coming of age in just the period – the 1830s – she writes of in Scenes, Mary Anne Evans was swept up in the religious current of Evangelicalism.. ..If the Oxford Movement sought to turn back the legacy of the Reformation, Evangelicalism sought to complete what the Reformation had begun, expunging the ceremony and sacrament which were the remaining formal vestiges of Roman Catholicism and rediscovering the vital puritan impulses of original Protestantism.. ..Evangelicalism offered a belief that was hard and uncompromising, yet passionately earnest and totalizing, which in the first half of the nineteenth century had a profound impact not just on the rural towns of England, but on the nation’s cultural and intellectual life in general. 

Never fully committed to evangelical Christianity, Marian went on to reject it, while retaining sympathies for the “good side” of some of those who believed wholeheartedly in this approach. Her views are discussed in an essay by Donald C. Masters [2]: 

While George Eliot (1819-1880) came to dislike the Evangelical viewpoint, her treatment of Evangelicals, particularly in her early novels, was much more sympathetic than that of other Victorian novelists.. ..Like many other disillusioned Christians she retained her belief in the Christian ethic. She liked the Evangelicals in spite of their doctrines and what she regarded as their naïveté and narrowness, because they made people better.. 

..Her early letters.. ..suggest that her acceptance of Evangelical principles was merely an intellectual process. She never made the complete personal commitment that is the secret and core of the Evangelical position.. ..She had lost faith in the Bible, the essential basis of the Evangelical tradition and described it.. ..as “histories consisting of mangled truth and fiction.” 

Many of us who have encountered evangelical Christianity, and subsequently turned away from it without making “the commitment”, can recognise George Eliot’s feelings. I have described my own experience [3]: 

My last contact with formal Christianity came at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School, where I went to meetings of the Christian Union, in which my elder brother was a leader. We sat around a table and listened to speakers, or to tapes of Billy Graham preaching. We also had prayer meetings when we all had to take part. Prayers were for the usual things connected with our salvation but, being a school, we also prayed for masters who were Christian, to boost their religious, as well as their educational, mission. I always dreaded prayer meetings and was not comfortable at any of the other meetings either. Unlike some of those present, I found Billy Graham strange and rather too energetic, and neither could I summon up much enthusiasm for a guest speaker who spent many minutes propounding the correct pronunciation of Bethphage. 

There were tracts for us to hand out in the school, delivered in bulk from the Evangelical Tract Society.. ..I couldn’t hand out such things and had quite a collection by the time I stopped attending the Christian Union. 

It is not difficult, then, to see how personal experience of religious groups affects one’s reading of George Eliot’s novels. Like Marian, I rejected the thinking of evangelical Christians (on many grounds) and, like her, try to see their good human qualities, although I worry about their tendency to proselytise to those going through hard times. 

In addition to Evangelicals, another feature of George Eliot’s novels is the presence of young children, often described in detail and forming important threads to the various storylines. Marian loved children, but she was unable to have any of her own. The reason was not biological, as far as I know, more that she didn’t marry until she was in her sixties and spent most of her adult life living with George Henry Lewes (see above), who was already married and had children. If “living in sin” was bad enough in the eyes of many in Victorian society, having children while in such a relationship would be viewed very severely indeed. Certainly, Marian’s cohabitation with Lewes caused much pain to her upright family and this, in turn, was the source of much sadness to her. 

The couple had a very close relationship, with Marian depending on George for reassurance and advice. He was from a theatrical family and both acted in, and wrote, plays: he also wrote novels, was an expert on Goethe, published an outstanding review of philosophy through the ages, contributed to many leading artistic journals, and was also what we would now call a networker [4]. Although unprepossessing in appearance (some called him ugly), he was popular for his conversation and energy and he knew many of the movers and shakers in Victorian literary society. He was one himself. 

Lewes met Marian through John Chapman, the publisher of the Westminster Review [5]. Chapman was a “free-thinker” and Marian lived in his household, where relationships between Mr and Mrs Chapman, their governess, and Marian were complicated. In Ashton’s account [5] we read that Chapman “visited Marian Evans’ room, where she played the piano for him and taught him German.” It was all too much for Mrs Chapman and Marian left the household, but returned in 1851 when Chapman asked her back to help him as part of the editorial team on the Review, where her “sharp brain, wide knowledge, willing labour, and ability to deal tactfully yet firmly with touchy contributors” [5] was invaluable. 

During 1852, Marian was spending much time with Herbert Spencer, the philosopher and biologist to whom she had been introduced by Chapman, and they “were so often in one another’s company that ‘all the world is setting us down as engaged’, Marian would have liked nothing better, but Spencer was less keen.” [5] The result was that, in 1853, Lewes replaced Spencer in her affections and this was the start of a deep relationship that only ended with Lewes’ death. He was a great support to Marian and advised her during her first, tentative steps as a novelist and he played the same role after she had become famous and was being hailed as a very significant writer. Marian had come a long way from those evangelical Christian schooldays in Warwickshire and Lewes had also progressed in his interests. Like his hero Goethe, he then became interested in practical science. 

In the early years of his relationship with Marian, Lewes had been chided by T.H.Huxley as a “’mere’ book scientist ‘without the discipline and knowledge which result from being a worker also’”. This came after a review that Lewes had written and it perhaps inspired him to join the Victorian craze for the study of marine natural history. The leading figure in popularising this interest was Philip Henry Gosse, who had written A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast (1853, centred on Torquay and Ilfracombe), The Aquarium (1854) and Tenby (published in March 1856, centred on the Welsh seaside town). Lewes read all these books and, in the summer of 1856, he and Marian left for Ilfracombe (where they befriended another enthusiast, Mr Tugwell, the curate of Ilfracombe) and then Tenby; following this with visits to the Scilly Isles and Jersey in spring and early summer of 1857. It was during the first section of this marine shore adventure that the pair discussed the possibility of Marian’s writing a novel. The Sad Fortunes of the Rev Amos Barton was commenced in the autumn of 1856 and became the first part of Scenes of Clerical Life published, anonymously, in instalments in Blackwood’s Magazine through 1857 and as a book in two volumes in 1858. She was not an enthusiast for studying shore life, so Lewes’ avid work on the coast allowed Marian time to think about the content of her embryo novel. 

Lewes’ work was published in instalments in Blackwood’s Magazine through 1856/7 and came out in book form, published by Blackwood and Sons and dedicated to Richard Owen, as Sea-side Studies in 1858. In the preface, Lewes pays homage to Huxley (perhaps the latter’s comment stung?) and there are frequent references to Gosse throughout the book. Both men showed a particular interest in sea anemones and, indeed they had a dispute over one aspect of the biology of some of these animals [6]. It is interesting to make a comparison of the two men. 

Whereas Lewes was a free-thinking agnostic (if he must be classified), Philip Henry Gosse (above) was a strict believer in the literal truth of the Bible [3] and an evangelical Christian. In 1857 he moved to St Marychurch in Torquay after the death of his wife Emily, who had accompanied him to Torquay, Ilfracombe and Tenby on the collecting trips that resulted in his earlier books. Emily was a writer of religious tracts (like those I failed to hand out during my school days) and as deeply committed as her husband to evangelical Christianity. Her painful death, leaving Henry Gosse with his young son Edmund (later Sir Edmund), was the main reason that he decided to move. 

At the time of the move to Torquay, he was expecting high sales of his book Omphalos, that was to be published in late autumn 1857, and he was looking forward to the attention that it would bring. Although there are many references to God and Creation in Henry’s books, Omphalos saw him tackle head-on the conflict between the Biblical Creation and the idea of geological time scales, that were becoming accepted by the mid-1850s. It is subtitled “an attempt to untie the geological knot” and it was Henry’s attempt to ease an obvious conflict: his idea being that rock strata and fossils were all created over the short period of the Biblical Creation. In Omphalos, he showed a thorough knowledge of geology and palaeontology and knew that large time periods were involved, but clung to his odd theory, for which he was duly mocked. Through all the difficulties of 1857, Henry didn’t question his beliefs; rather he became even more ensconced in evangelical Christianity. He reduced his attendance at meetings of the learned societies and didn’t have much personal contact with members the scientific community, although he had correspondence with many people, including Darwin. 

There are many that still adhere to the Creationist views shown by Henry Gosse, although they make little attempt to provide a rational explanation to account for the differences between their views and those of the scientific community. At least Henry made an attempt, even if his explanation was unacceptable to both scientists and believers; Charles Kingsley, for example, chastised Gosse for suggesting the God appears to be telling lies [3]. It seems that evangelical Christians who believe in the literal truth of the Bible have the opinion that there can be no opposition to their view and cannot tolerate any other explanations. 

Lewes took a very different approach, as described by David Williams [4]: 

He thinks, or at any rate he wishes, that the scientific explorers and the religious no-compromise men.. .. can be brought together to ‘sit round a table’, as we put it, that Huxley and Darwin can amicably confer with the tractarians and the Evangelicals and come out of the room with a formula acceptable to both sides. 

There has been movement among some evangelical Christians and we are all familiar with the little car badge of a fish with limbs, bearing the word “Darwin” at its centre. Perhaps the only major difference for many is whether there was a Creator, or whether all that we see around us is the result of chance events. 

After the adverse comments about Omphalos, Henry Gosse spent much time collecting marine creatures from the shores of South Devon [3]. He was in the throes of producing his major monograph on sea anemones, that was to be a standard work on these animals for many years and is still consulted today. It contains brilliant illustrations, as Gosse was a very capable artist in watercolours [7]. 

In a letter sent to Tugwell in November 1856, Lewes writes [8]: 

It would be a pleasant thing for you to write the monograph on Actinae with W. Thompson; & as to the money, you can’t expect much from such labour, but may consider yourself lucky to be free of expense. At the same time you have a formidable rival in Gosse, who is I believe engaged on a monograph. 

This shows Lewes’ respect for Gosse as an expert in sea anemones, but in a later letter to Hutton on 5th May 1859 we read [8]: 

Gosse’s book is too poor for a review; & I have long been making notes of the history I shall sketch which will I hope be far more entertaining than a review. 

I assume that Lewes is referring here to Omphalos, as Actinologica Britannica appeared in book form in 1860, having previously been published in twelve parts from 1858-1860 [9]. Despite their disagreement over some points [6], Lewes clearly respected Gosse as a natural historian. 

We know that Lewes and Marian visited Torquay in 1868 and, while the former continued with dissections for a future publication, Marian was preparing ideas for Middlemarch and it is possible that there were some indirect references to Torquay in that book [10]. We also learn that Marian and Lewes enjoyed walks at Babbacombe, adjacent to St Marychurch [10], and one wonders whether they called on Gosse, or encountered him while walking. I cannot find reference to a meeting and would be intrigued to know how it might have gone and what Marian would have made of this evangelical Christian and a man who was not afraid of proselytising. The urge to spread the Gospel came through in many of Henry Gosse’s books, but rarely with the intensity of the extraordinary conclusion of A Year at the Shore, published in 1865, three years before George and Marian arrived in Torquay [11]: 

I cannot conclude this volume without recording my solemn and deliberate protest against the infidelity with which, to a very painful extent, modern physical science is associated. I allude not only to the ground which the conclusions of modern geologists take, in opposition to the veracity of the “God which cannot lie,” though the distinct statements which He has made to us concerning Creation are now, as if by common consent, put aside, with silent contempt, as effete fables, unworthy of a moment’s thought, and this too before vast assemblages of persons, not one of whom lifts his voice for the truth of God. These assaults are at least open and unmasked. But there is in our scientific literature, and specially in that which takes a popular form, a tone equally dangerous and more insidious. It altogether ignores the awful truths of God’s revelation, that all mankind are guilty and condemned and spiritually dead in Adam; that we are by nature children of wrath; that the whole world lieth in the wicked one; and that the wrath of God abideth on it: it ignores the glorious facts of atonement by the precious blood of Christ, and of acceptance in Him. It substitutes for these a mere sentimental admiration of nature, and teaches that the love of the beautiful makes man acceptable to God, and secures His favour. How often do we see quoted and be-praised, as if it were an indisputable axiom, the sentiment of a poet who ought to have known better,–

 

“He prayeth best who loveth best

All things, both great and small;” –

 

a sentiment as silly as it is unscriptural; for what connexion can there be between the love of the inferior creatures, and the acceptableness of a sinner praying to the Holy God? It is the intervention of Christ Jesus, the anointed Priest, which alone gives prayer acceptance… There is no sentimental or scientific road to heaven. There is absolutely nothing in the study of created things, however single, however intense, which will admit sinful man into the presence of God, or fit him to enjoy it. If there were, what need was there that the glorious Son, the everlasting Word, should be made flesh, and give His life a ransom for many? … If I have come to God as a guilty sinner, and have found acceptance, and reconciliation, and sonship, in the blood of His only-begotten Son, then I may come down from that elevation, and study creation with advantage and profit; but to attempt to scale heaven with the ladder of natural history, is nothing else than Cain's religion; it is the presentation of the fruit of the earth, instead of the blood of the Lamb … This will be, in all probability, the last occasion of my coming in literary guise before the public: how can I better take my leave than with the solemn testimony of the Spirit of God, which I affectionately commend to my readers, – … THERE IS NO WAY INTO THE HOLIEST BUT BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS. FINIS. 

Henry Gosse was not only a proselytising evangelical Christian, but the leader of his group of Brethren in St Marychurch. He thus retreated into his own support group and this made it increasingly difficult for him to accept any religious views other than those he supported. It was religious differences, and the views of Henry on who one should have as friends, that was the basis of the conflict with his son, Edmund, described (with some elaboration?) in the latter’s famous book Father and Son [12]. This volume, more than any other work, has shaped our view of Henry [3], a pity as, if one could find a way of negotiating the religious hurdle, with all its side effects, he was a very nice man and would certainly be good company on rambles or on the shore. 

As we have seen, Marian Evans and Geoge Lewes were more accepting of those with religious differences and the former certainly recognised these human sides of evangelical Christians, although she was aware of their dogmatism and inflexibility. I think they would have enjoyed meeting Gosse, but what would Henry make of them? He would balk at their lack of faith in his version of Christianity and he would also strongly disapprove of their relationship. Henry did re-marry after the tragic death of Emily and his second wife, Eliza, while also being a member of the Brethren appeared to be a little more flexible in her approach to Edmund’s “sinfulness” than was his father. Edmund was also helped in his relationship with his father by his wife, the painter Nellie Epps, whom I have described as a “Nineteenth Century Wonder Woman” [13]. Nellie’s sister, Laura Alma-Tadema drew a profile of Marian in 1877 [14] and it would be amusing to know what the artist felt about her sitter and what views she shared with the Gosse family. 

 

[1] Josie Billington (1988) Introduction to George Eliot’s Scenes of Clerical Life. Oxford, Oxford University Press World’s Classics. 

[2] Donald C. Masters (1962) George Eliot and the Evangelicals. The Dalhousie Review 41: 505-512. 

[3] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book. 

[4] David Williams (1983) Mr George Eliot: A Biography of George Henry Lewes. London, Hodder and Stoughton. 

[5] Rosemary Ashton (2008) Lewes, George Henry (1817-1878). https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/16562 

[6] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-human-side-of-science.html 

[7] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2017/04/stunning-biological-illustrations.html 

[8] William Baker (ed.) (1995) The Letters of George Henry Lewes Volume 1. Victoria, Canada, ELS Editions. 

[9] R.B.Freeman and Douglas Wetheimer (1980) Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography. Folkestone, Wm. Dawon & Sons. 

[10] Kathleen McCormack (2005) George Eliot’s English Travels: Composite characters and coded communications. Abingdon, Routledge. 

[11] Philip Henry Gosse (1865) A Year at the Shore. London, Alexander Strahan. 

[12] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. London, William Heinemann Ltd. 

[13] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2017/08/nellie-epps-nineteenth-century-wonder.html 

[14] https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01628 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Bell – a little known, but significant, figure in the Nineteenth Century

Thomas Gosse was an artist, his son Philip Henry Gosse a famous natural historian, his grandson Sir Edmund Gosse a noted literary figure, and nephew Thomas Bell a professor and President of the Linnean Society. Although we know much about these men, especially of Henry and Edmund, their stories may have been different, and perhaps less well-known, if it was not for Susan Bell and two other women: Emily Bowes and Nellie Epps.

Susan was the sister of Thomas Gosse and, according to him, “of a more refined and cultivated mind than the rest” of his family [1]. Being 15 years older, she had a strong influence on Thomas and he writes in his unpublished autobiography [2]: 

I had always an inclination for drawing.. ..I would often take a piece of chalk and draw the outlines of various common and familiar objects on the wall or on the kitchen door. My parents, witnessing my propensity as described, thought it would be useless to bring me up to a common trade, and therefore were resolved at length to give it encouragement. Accordingly, early in 1777 my school education was resigned for the practice of drawing at home; and here my sister Susan, afterwards Mrs Bell, became my tutoress. A drawing-book was bought for me, and another borrowed, with other necessary items. Thus I went on learning by degrees the art of drawing, in order that I might subsequently become a painter by profession.

From these beginnings, Thomas had instruction from various experts and became a student at the Royal Academy in Somerset House, attending classes and lectures, and he then became a pupil engraver. Armed with this training, Thomas became an itinerant painter “not on paper but on ivory” [1] - a painter specialising in miniatures. Thwaite [1] remarks: “He carried with him little more than his Bible, his Theocritus and the tools of his trade, but he was clothed with the armour of righteousness and stoicism.” 

Henry Gosse, like his father, received instruction in drawing from Susan and she also passed on to him her passion for natural history, after he had moved, with his family, to Poole, where Susan lived (and seen above in a near-contemporary view by Turner – her house is shown in [3]). She had married Thomas Bell, a surgeon, and her son, also Thomas Bell, was born in 1792, so was 18 years older than Henry. Thomas went on to have a distinguished career in both Zoology and Dentistry, being “responsible for innovations in the use of various dental instruments and [he] was the first to treat teeth as living structures by applying scientific surgery to dental disease” [4]. Thomas’ work in zoology focussed mainly on crustaceans, amphibians and reptiles, and he was responsible for describing animals in the latter group that had been collected on the voyage of HMS Beagle. In addition to his position as Professor of Zoology at King’s College London, Thomas also served as President of the Linnean Society and chaired the famous meeting on 1st July 1858, when papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace on the origin of species were presented (neither author being present).

Although on friendly terms with Darwin, Thomas Bell “remained hostile to the theory of evolution throughout his life” [4], but further in the piece by Cleevely [4], we read that: 

Darwin always regarded him as a delightful, kind-hearted man, and believed that a more good-natured person did not exist but that his overwhelming administrative roles and professional work prevented him from achieving very much.  

He was certainly invaluable to Henry Gosse, as it was Thomas Bell who introduced Henry to the publisher John Van Voorst, who accepted Henry’s first book The Canadian Naturalist. He also recommended Henry to be the author of books on natural history, then being planned by SPCK (The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), and the income from Henry’s publications allowed him to begin his career as a writer, illustrator and lecturer.

Clearly then, Aunt Bell was both an important direct, and also indirect, influence on Henry Gosse and his love of natural history. It should also be noted that both Henry and Thomas were uncomfortable with the idea of evolution by natural selection, and this became acute for Henry who went on to publish Omphalos, his “attempt to untie the geological knot.” The knot was the apparent conflict between the increasingly accepted view that the evolution of plants and animals occurred over long periods of time, and the description of Creation in the book of Genesis in The Holy Bible. As Henry’s belief in biblical accounts was absolute, he explained in Omphalos that rock strata and fossils, of which he had an excellent knowledge, were created along with living organisms within the six days of Creation. To him, they were “prochronic” and his theory was revelatory to him – he really thought he had resolved the conflict. Very few others agreed and the theory of prochronic existence met with derision in some quarters and neither the scientific, or the religious, establishment could accept Herny’s idea. This shook Henry, especially as he had ordered a long print run, as he expected the book to be a big seller.

Omphalos was published in 1857, the same year that Henry’s wife Emily had died, painfully, from breast cancer, leaving him with the care of their young son, Edmund. Henry and Edmund moved to Torquay just weeks before Omphalos appeared and, writing in 1890, two years after Henry’s death, Edmund suggested that [5]: 

..it seems to me possible that if my mother had lived, he might have been prevented from putting himself so fatally and prominently into opposition to the new ideas. He might probably have been content to have others to fight out the question on a philosophical basis, and might himself have quietly continued observing facts, and noting his observations with his early elegance and accuracy.

It is likely, therefore, that Emily could have persuaded Henry not to write Omphalos. What is certain is that Emily and Henry shared a profound Christian faith, while being different in personality. Edmund writes [5] that “her mind was a singularly gay and cheerful one” and he believes that she had a strong influence on Henry’s writing in books like A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast and Tenby that were both informative and full of enthusiasm, leading his readers to explore natural history for themselves. So, we not only owe a debt to Henry, but also to Emily and, alongside Aunt Bell, she was a major influence on him.

As he grew up, Edmund became distanced from his father in many ways, but especially over religious beliefs and practice, and their relationship became difficult. Edmund married Nellie Epps, a painter who had studied with the pre-Raphaelites, and she played an important role in maintaining contact between the two men. Nellie was much liked by Henry and his second wife, Eliza, who was herself a warm supporter of all that Henry did. Eliza also had a cordial relationship with Edmund, something that was established when he was a boy.

Three outstanding, yet little known, women and I am pleased to be able to add some notes about Aunt Bell to the earlier pieces that I wrote on Emily [6] and Nellie [7], both of whom I admire very much [8]. We know a great deal about Henry and Edmund Gosse, and a little about Thomas Gosse and Thomas Bell, but all four were very lucky in having relations and/or partners who were such a positive influence on those around them. I would like these women to have their proper place in history.

 

[1] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber and Faber

[2] Edmund Gosse (1915) Fragments of the Autobiography of Thomas Gosse. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 27: 141-150

[3] https://www.wessexmuseums.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Pooles-early-naturalists-Gosse-and-Bell-final-1.pdf

[4] R.J.Cleevely (2004) Bell, Thomas (1792-1880). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/2029

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

[6] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2013/10/emily-gosse-notable-evangelical.html

[7] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2017/08/nellie-epps-nineteenth-century-wonder.html 

[8] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book, available widely.

 

 

Homage to Sir Alister Hardy – Natural Historian and Artist

In describing new discoveries, or when writing for a wider audience, natural historians in the past accompanied their observations with illustrations, some of which were made by others and some of which they made themselves. At the forefront of natural historian/illustrators is Philip Henry Gosse, whose father, a professional artist, taught his son to paint in watercolour, a medium that he used to great effect. He also made a large number of line drawings. 

Nowadays, there are many means of producing beautiful and informative illustrations using photography and digital methods and we see the beginning of the transition to these media in Alister Hardy’s “The Open Sea: The World of Plankton”. The book is illustrated by black-and-white photographs taken by Douglas P. Wilson and line drawings and paintings made by Hardy himself. Wilson encountered problems when taking photographs of deep-sea animals that had been brought to the surface as the accurate portrayal of their colours required long exposures that were not practical in the 1950s. This is what Hardy wrote [1]: 

It was my hope, and that of the editors, that in addition to his black-and-whites Dr Wilson would have been able to contribute a series of colour photographs of the living plankton and especially of the richly pigmented animals from the ocean depths. At that time the electronic flash was only just being developed and he felt unable to attempt them. 

It’s a reminder of how much we take beautiful images, films, videos, etc. for granted in the modern era.  In the Introduction to “The Open Sea: The World of Plankton” Hardy describes his technique for making illustrations and this is worth quoting in full [1]: 

All save seven of the 142 drawings in the plates were made from living examples or, in a few cases, from those taken freshly from the net when some deep-water fish and plankton animals were dead on reaching the surface.. .. It may be of interest to record how the drawings were made. All the animals, except the larger squids and jelly-fish, were drawn either swimming in flat-glass dishes placed on a background of millimetre squared paper where they were viewed with a simple dissecting lens, or on a slide under a compound microscope provided with a squared micrometer eyepiece; in either case the drawings were first made in outline on paper which had been ruled with faint pencil lines into squares which corresponded to those against which the specimen was viewed. In this way the shape and relative proportions of the parts could be drawn in pencil and checked and rechecked with the animal until it was quite certain they were correct. The outline was then gone over with the finest brush to replace the pencil by a permanent and more expressive water-colour line; were rubbed out and the full colouring of the drawing proceeded with. 

Here are some examples (more are given at the end):  

It is tempting to suggest that their style, especially the dark-field paintings, were influenced by the illustrations in Gosse’s “A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast” [2]. Certainly, both natural historians appreciated that a lively text is boosted by quality images, but few have the talent, and patience, of Gosse and Hardy. 

“The Open Sea: The World of Plankton” was completed at a time when natural history was beginning to be overtaken by deterministic approaches for the study of living organisms. After the structure of DNA was elucidated by Crick and Watson [and others], many began to see the possibility of understanding living creatures by looking at their biochemistry linked to their genetics. This bottom-up approach now dominates academic Biology, and even ecologists, who look at very complex systems with many variables, are fond of reductionist modelling in an attempt to understand what they observe and measure. 

Alister Hardy (above) was appointed Linacre Professor of Zoology at Oxford University in 1945, one of the most prestigious appointments offered by any university. In the biography written to celebrate his life, published by the Royal Society [3], we read: 

In his inaugural address he looked forward to the encouragement of field studies in ecology and behaviour. In his teaching the direction was away from comparative anatomy and towards general zoology. His colleague, Dr Peter Brunet, saw him as foremost a naturalist who encouraged observation rather than analysis. Physicochemical explanations of life, which left no room for awe, did not attract him. There was still a nature mystic within him. 

It is an approach that is valuable, and natural history should be taught more extensively in our current age: a contrast to the mechanistic view that promotes the idea that answers will eventually be found for nearly everything about living creatures, communities and ecosystems. 

Gosse promoted the idea of a sense of wonder in many of his books, especially in “The Romance of Natural History” that was published in two series in 1860 and 1861 [4,5]. Gosse was driven by a profound belief in the literal truth of the Bible and saw everything in terms of God’s Creation. Hardy’s mysticism was less rigid and more wide-ranging and he went on to establish a foundation dedicated to “a future science of natural theology” [6], the papers of which are now held at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David at Lampeter [7]. Whether one uses theistic, or atheistic, explanations, a sense of awe at what one sees in the natural world is invaluable for interpreting our sense of being. 

Hardy and Gosse are fascinating natural historians from whom we can learn much. 

(Of course, I had no possibility of meeting Gosse in person and I never met Alister Hardy, who died as recently as 1985. However, I claim one small claim to contact with the latter, as one of my University Tutors was Michael Hardy, Sir Alister Hardy’s son).

[1] Alister C. Hardy (1956) The Open Sea. Its Natural History: The World of Plankton. London, Collins New Naturalist. 

[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1853) A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast. London, John Van Voorst. 

[3] Norman Bertram Marshall (1986) Alister Clavering Hardy, 10th February 1896 – 22nd May 1985. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1986.0008 

[4] Philip Henry Gosse (1860) The Romance of Natural History [First Series]. London, J. Nisbet & Co. 

[5] Philip Henry Gosse (1861) The Romance of Natural History [Second Series]. London, James Nisbet & Co. 

[6] Cyril Lucas (2004) Hardy, Sir Alister Clavering. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31196 

[7] https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/library/alister-hardy-religious-experience-research-centre/ 

Underwater flowers

 

Flowering plants (angiosperms) began to dominate the Earth’s vegetation about 100 million years ago and, while other, more primitive, plants continue to be abundant, the present diversity of angiosperms is remarkable. When thinking of flowering plants, our minds may turn to beautiful garden borders, meadows and occasional clumps of flowers in woods and verges. Yet flowering plants have also invaded water bodies; although this is really a re-invasion as land plant evolved from distant aquatic ancestors.

Anyone visiting a stream draining from chalk strata is impressed by the amount of vegetation growing over its bed and invading from the margins. There are many microscopic algae that are only visible under a microscope, but two common flowering plants often dominate: water cress and water crowfoot. Of the two, water cress grows into the stream from the banks and can extend right across narrow channels, a habit that has been exploited in the development of commercial cress beds fed by water from chalk streams. The bulk of the plant remains above the water surface and this contrasts with water crowfoot, where plants grow in dense stands, rooted into the bed of the stream and affecting its flow pattern. Water crowfoot is a relative of the buttercup and its flowers are very similar in structure, although they are white, rather than yellow, in colour. It is only during flowering that we see water crowfoot above the water surface, although stands can become so dense that, at times of low flow in summer, they may be exposed to the air. They are well adapted to life in flowing water. The drag on the mass of leaves is counteracted by an effective rhizome and root system that ensures anchorage on the stream bed and the plants engineer the stream around them. Stands provide an obstruction to flow that creates channels of faster-moving water between plants and this serves not only to keep the substratum clear of sediment, but the growing leaves are also unaffected by deposition and can thus photosynthesise efficiently. In contrast, the base of the plant is an area of sediment build-up and this includes much organic matter [1] that serves as a source of nutrients - another way in which the plants engineer their habitat to their advantage.

Although water cress and water crowfoot are both aquatic plants, with the former fitting the definition less easily than the latter, seagrasses are truly aquatic. As their name suggests, these plants are marine, spending the whole of their life cycle under water. Seagrasses have a world-wide distribution and are perhaps most commonly associated with tropical seas and, especially, reefs, where the water is clear and there is good light penetration to the substratum, allowing efficient photosynthesis. Nutrients needed for growth taken up by roots and stored in rhizomes that also serve to stabilise soft sediments. Interestingly, seagrasses are more closely related to lilies and ginger than to grasses [2] and their colonisation of soft sediments results in large meadows when conditions for their growth are favourable. These are then grazed upon by many animals and they also form shelter for many others organisms and a substratum for yet more.

Seagrasses are also found commonly in shallow temperate seas that have sufficient transparency to allow the plants to grow. As I grew up by the sea in Torbay, and had a love of Natural History, I knew about seagrasses, but had no idea that there were meadows of the plants so close to some of my collecting spots. Neither did I know that seagrasses were flowering plants. Like many, I thought that seaweeds alone were the dominant marine plants around coasts.

Two of my favourite places to visit in Torbay were Elbury [Elberry] Cove and the rocks below Corbyn’s Head, where I spent time collecting marine creatures for aquarium tanks. [3] Both locations now have interesting and informative signs (see below) describing the importance and susceptibility to damage by boats etc. of the seagrass meadows just offshore. It is likely that Zostera is one of the seagrasses and Henry Gosse mentions this plant when describing the results of dredging a little further up the coast:

Now we have made our offing, and can look well into Teignmouth Harbour, the bluff point of the Ness some four miles distant, scarcely definable now against the land. We pull down sails, set her head for the Orestone Rock [just off Torbay], and drift with the tide. The dredge is hove overboard, paying out some forty fathoms of line, for we have about twelve or fourteen fathoms’ water here, with a nice rough, rubbly bottom, over which, as we hold the line in hand, we feel the iron lip of the dredge grate and rumble, without catches or jumps. Now and then, for a brief space, it goes smoothly, and the hand feels nothing; that is when a patch of sand is crossed, or a bed of zostera, or close-growing sea-weeds, each a good variation for yielding. [4]

As Gosse was a devout Creationist, the presence of flowering plants in soft sediments around marine coasts would be another example of the extraordinary events of the six days in which all living things - and all fossil ones - came into existence. [5] To those of us who cannot share such a view, the presence of flowering seagrasses underwater is another example of the extraordinary powers of evolution.

In terrestrial habitats the fertilisation of ova by pollen is aided by insects, wind or other agents and there have been extraordinary adaptations to ensure that fertilisation is achieved - by evolving nectar and/or scent to attract insects, by evolving elaborate colour patterns that are attractive, by producing pollen in enormous quantities, etc. - yet flowers are retained by seagrasses where neither insects or wind can be involved in pollination. Seagrass plants bear both male and female flowers and the pollen from male flowers is released into the water and thus wafts around the plants. The use of water for fertilisation is, of course, extremely common in many marine organisms, including seaweeds and many animals, and that makes underwater flowers seem less unlikely than on first consideration. Natural History is full of such discoveries and one is always learning something new. That’s the satisfaction of it - that, and the sense of wonder at just what can evolve over millions of years and millions of generations. 

[1] Cotton, J.A., Wharton, G., Bass, J.A.B., Heppell, C.M. and Wotton, R.S. (2006) Plant-water-sediment interactions in lowland permeable streams: investigating the effect of seasonal changes in vegetation cover on flow patterns and sediment accumulation. Geomorphology 77: 320-324.

[2] http://www.seagrasswatch.org/seagrass.html

[3] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking With Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book.

[4] Philip Henry Gosse (1865) A Year at the Shore. London, Alexander Strahan.

[5] Philip Henry Gosse (1857) Omphalos: an attempt to untie the geological knot. London, John Van Voorst.

 

Baptism in the sea

Several denominations within Christianity follow the practice of baptism by immersion as a means of professing faith and for becoming a full member of a congregation [1]. Even branches of the Church that usually practise infant baptism, retain immersion of believers as an option, and services are conducted by the Church of England in some coastal parishes [2].

I was brought up as a Baptist and attended Winner Street Baptist Church in Paignton until I was eleven years old. Although I only attended two services of baptism, they left a strong impression and this in my description in Walking with Gosse [3]

Services of baptism at Winner Street were unsettling, although I only attended two. One was for my elder brother and I’ve no idea who was being baptised in the second, but it was likely to be a relative, or close friend. After some preliminaries, the minister conducting the ceremony walked down the steps into the pool followed, one at a time, by each candidate. Then came the solemn “I baptise you (or was it thee?) in the name of … (I can’t remember the rest)”, followed by a backwards dip to be completely immersed. Each successful candidate was then lifted up and made a soggy walk to the back vestry, accompanied by a supporter and the sound of joyous hymn singing. With my fear of water, I hated the thought of immersion, so didn’t think that I would ever be baptised. I was too young to be a candidate anyway, but if the idea of sending me to the services was to encourage me to think about a future baptism, it had the opposite effect. It wasn’t just the immersion; the whole church seemed to be filled with an unpleasant emotion. Or perhaps the emotion was fine, but there was too much of it? I still feel uncomfortable with the emotionality associated with evangelical Christian movements, yet a heightened state that borders on mild hysteria seems to be important to many believers.

This was in the confines of the church building in the 1950s, but in the Nineteenth Century at least one local group of Brethren held services of baptism in the sea, as their small chapel did not have a pool [3]. These Brethren were led by Philip Henry Gosse, the famous natural historian, and the party would gather on the shore at Oddicombe (see below in a more recent view) for the service, a practice that was stopped after onlookers started jeering and mocking the spectacle.

Henry Gosse’s son, Edmund, was baptised in 1859 when twelve years old, but not in the sea. It was unusual for one so young to be baptised in the Brethren and large numbers turned up at the main Brethren chapel in Torquay to witness the event (the room in St Marychurch probably did not have a pool, even though it had been newly constructed in 1859). In his famous book Father and Son, Edmund describes the baptism as being “the central event of my whole childhood,” and one would imagine it to have had an even greater impact if it was conducted at Oddicombe. As Ann Thwaite has remarked [4], Edmund relished being the centre of attention and I read his account with special interest, as the ceremony he described was almost identical to that which I had observed at the service of baptism in Winner Street. It is an event that invites an emotional response from the audience and I can imagine the comments from the jeering crowd of onlookers at Oddicombe in earlier times.

 

[1] https://christianindex.org/baptism-around-the-world/

[2] https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/4-september/news/uk/cornish-beach-baptism-for-model-who-found-peace-and-greater-love

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

[4] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 

Sponges are fascinating!

Sponges are very common, yet few of us pay them much attention when we are looking at organisms on the shore. It may be because they are primitive animals that don’t move, yet they are fascinating and, whether large or small (and they come in many shapes and sizes), they reward close examination. Some examples can be seen in the above image taken by Dan Bolt (from the BBC website) and those interested in examples of sponges from around the coast of Great Britain are recommended to view the excellent images taken by Dr Keith Hiscock and available on the MarLIN website [1].

Philip Henry Gosse writes about sponges in Land and Sea [2], in a chapter headed “An Hour among the Torbay Sponges”, and this has a special appeal for me as I am very familiar with the coast of that bay. Indeed, his collecting of sponges centred on the rocky outcrops at Goodrigton (above), a favourite haunt of mine as a boy [3]:

Diverse as they are in form, and in texture, and in colour, and in manner of growth, they have all the same essential structure. We cannot learn much about them by looking at them here, especially after they have been for an hour or more forsaken by the receding tide; but if we take one or two specimens off very carefully, so as not in any wise to bruise or break their delicate organization, separating, in short, by means of the chisel, a bit of the rock itself on which they are growing, and, committing them to a jar of sea-water, examine them at home, we shall find much to admire..

This is typical of Henry Gosse’s approach to observation and he was a populariser both of the use of aquaria and of microscopes to study living organisms. Nowadays, however, we might frown at Henry’s use of a hammer a chisel to acquire specimens in situ. In Land and Sea [2], Gosse continues that:

..each has then been rinsed and deposited in a small glass cell with parallel sides, full of fresh and clean sea-water, and left for twelve hours at least. Then, taking care not to touch the glass cell, nor to jar even the table on which it is placed, either of which might cause the sensitive sponge instantly to cease its operations, we bring a powerful pocket-lens close to the glass, and intently watch the specimen within. Suppose it is one of the yellow species, which throws up little hillocks, the Crumb-of-bread Sponge; our attention is at once excited by seeing a strong movement in the water, through which tiny atoms are hurried along in swift currents. We fix our gaze on one of the hillocks:-lo! it is a volcano indeed! From the perforate summit of the cone, as from an active crater, is vomited forth a strong and continuous stream of water, and crowds of atoms come pouring forth, disgorged in succession from the interior, and projected far away into the free water, to be followed by unintermitting crowds of others. This is highly curious, and we wonder what is the nature of the power which so strongly conveys to us the idea of an active vitality in a mass so inert and apparently lifeless as this yellow encrusting sponge.

Using his typically vivid powers of description, Henry asks a good question and the power with which sponges generate currents can be seen in a series of videos on the Digital Atlas of Ancient Life web site [4]. He goes on to provide us with the explanation:

The thoughtful observer, watching the evolution of this unintermitted current, ever pouring out with such power and velocity and volume, would ask, What is the nature of the force that vomits forth the fluid? what its seat? and whence the supply? No visible current passes inward from without; still, as the stream is continuous, and yet the quantity of water in the cell does not increase, it is manifest that the water from without must enter in the very same ratio as it is expelled. In order to understand this, we must cut or tear a Sponge to pieces. We shall find that the round apertures are the mouths of a few large canals which run through the interior; that into these open, at irregular intervals, other subordinate canals; that these receive others smaller still; these, again, others, in an ever-diminishing ratio; till at last we can no longer trace them as canals, the whole superficial portion of the Sponge being pierced with microscopically minute and innumerable pores. Into these the external water is constantly being absorbed, carrying with it both oxygen for respiration, and organic matter for nutrition. The influent water, parting with these elements, and thus revivifying the living gelatinous flesh that clothes every fibre, gradually permeates the whole interior, flowing along the pipes in succession, till at length it gathers into the larger canals and is poured out at their apertures..

The chapter in Land and Sea [2] continues with a description of the structure of sponges and the means by which the powerful currents highlighted in the section above are produced:

A Sponge is composed of a clear granular jelly, investing a fibrous or spicular skeleton, formed of horny matter, or flint, or lime. The Sponge which we use for washing has a skeleton made up of fibres of horn, but those which I have been describing have their solid parts made up of flint, the particles of which are arranged in needles (spicula) of a perfectly transparent, solid, brittle glass..

..These spicula or needles, however, that make up the firm portion of the Sponge, are worthy of a little notice. Without them the creature would be a mere drop of glaire, having neither form nor consistence. And yet a heap of needles seems to have little power of assuming or of keeping any definite corporate form, when we remember that they have no adhesion to each other, and nothing, in fact, to keep them together but their mutual interlacement, and the thin glaire by which they are invested..

..The gelatinous flesh has the power of secreting the flint from the sea-water, and of depositing it in regular needle-like forms, and in such an arrangement as to produce the canals and apertures that I have described above. The flesh itself is furnished, on the surface that lines the canals, with curious filaments or hairs called cilia, which are endowed with the faculty of waving to and fro in given directions at the will of the animal (for, strange as it may sound to some of my readers, a Sponge is, beyond all controversy, an animal), and in rhythm or harmony with one another; and these regular wavings impart movement to the water, and cause currents to flow in a given direction though the canals.

These paragraphs show Henry Gosse’s powers of observation, his acquired knowledge, and his wonderful descriptive prose. To some readers, especially those attuned to some of the excellent presentations on the Web [4], it must seem a bit hard-going, for we do not depend on reading in the same way that natural historians did in previous centuries – Gosse marking a transition in that his books use numerous illustrations, many of which he produced himself. Of course, he could not employ moving images.

That sponges are successful is demonstrated by their almost unchanged appearance from more that 500 million years ago and it can be argued that this success resulted from the earlier evolution of cilia and the evolution of the ability to secrete spicules using a number of materials. Of course, Henry Gosse, as a profound Creationist, would have been aghast at the mention of evolution in this context and, although Henry and myself have a shared sense of wonder in looking at the natural world, one of us has a theistic explanation for what we see and the other not.

Sponges are amazing, yet we pay them little attention. Gosse encouraged us to do that and those of us who enjoy shores, and the life they contain, are indebted to him for his encouragement. Using Gosse’s term, it’s good to be a “thoughtful observer” and I wonder if our sense of enquiry about Nature is as high now as it was 150 years ago? Are we losing the child-like gift of curiosity?

[1] https://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/rank/558/Porifera

[2] Philip Henry Gosse (1865) Land and Sea. London, James Nesbit & Co. N.B. This book was a collection of earlier essays and “An Hour among the Torbay Sponges” was probably first published in 1859 according to Freeman and Wertheimer (1980) Philip Henry Gosse: A Bibliography. It was a time when Henry Gosse was at his most outward going and expansive.

[3] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book.

[4] https://www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/porifera/

 

 

Looking for Torbay Bonnets

 

I was very lucky to have been born, and brought up, in Torbay on the Devon Riviera coast, only leaving to go to University when I was 18 [1]. Although I now live in Hertfordshire, I enjoy my return visits to South Devon for a couple of days each year, and I’m hoping that 2021 will allow me to re-connect with my roots; COVID-19 having prevented travel in 2020.

Perhaps because I live inland, I have a strong love of coasts and I am drawn, especially, to the red sandy beaches of Torbay and the rocky outcrops of sandstone and limestone that are such features of the Bay and the adjacent coast. Every visit I make includes a walk along a beach and, unlike most people, my fascination is with the strand line of material left by the retreating tide. I started beachcombing nearly seventy years ago, when there was far less plastic and other refuse on the shore, most of that being discarded by ships, or coming through sewage outlets from around the world. My discoveries then were mostly of seaweeds (from which colonising sandhoppers scurried away when the weed was turned over) and the remains of marine animals, with shells and shell fragments being abundant. Sometimes, there was something unusual – a mermaid’s purse or a comb jelly – but mostly the remains were of molluscs, their soft body parts having been decomposed long before. The commonest shells were those of cockles, clams and razor clams and, usually, there were also good numbers of limpets, slipper limpets, winkles (of several species) and top shells. They intrigued me as a child, as I had such little knowledge of the aquatic world, except that acquired by exploring rock pools.

After a storm, the amount of detritus gathered at the strand line could be impressive and the number of shells, and shell fragments, washed up after the “big freeze” of early 1963 made one wonder just what had been left behind in, and on, the substratum of the shallow bay. Although I wasn’t aware of them at the time, among the shells would have been those of “Paignton Cockles” and “Torbay Bonnets”. I have described Paignton Cockles in an earlier blog post [2], but many readers will not have heard about Torbay Bonnets (also known as Fools-cap Limpets). These are extracts from a description written by Gosse in the mid-Nineteenth Century [3]:

The Fools-cap Limpets.. ..have the shell shaped like a somewhat high cone, with the summit a little produced, and turned over backwards. The surface is commonly marked with lines (striæ), and covered with a horny skin, which is sometimes invested with a short velvety down. The interior has no plate or partition of any kind..

..The only British species is commonly known by the appellation Torbay Bonnet; it also bears the names of Fools-cap Limpet, Cap of Liberty, and Hungarian Bonnet, all of which designations.. .. have an obvious reference to its form. It is a rather large shell, being frequently more than an inch and a half in diameter, and an inch in height. Its substance is rather thin, though strong, and somewhat translucent; its colour is a delicate pink, or flesh-white, though this is concealed, especially around the lower part, by an olive-coloured skin, covered with shaggy down. The interior of the shell is delicately smooth, and of the same roseate hue as the exterior.

The animal is usually pale yellow, with a pink mantle bordered with a fine orange-coloured fringe. The head, which is large and swollen, is tinged with brown.

Though generally distributed, The Fools-cap must be considered a rare shell. Torbay, as one of its familiar names indicates, is the locality in which it occurs in greatest abundance.

Gosse provides an illustration of the shell (above upper) that can be compared to a photographic image taken by Georges Jansoone (above lower). In the latter, note that the periostracum is missing, this being the coating of the shell that Gosse refers to. In both images, there is no animal present, just the shells that they secrete, the animals having a superficial resemblance to limpets and slipper limpets, the former being familiar to us.

Although Gosse refers to Torbay Bonnets as Fools-cap Limpets, they are very different to common limpets, although they share features with slipper limpets. Common limpets use a file-like tongue (the radula) to scrape over the surface of rocks to remove algae and biofilm and are mobile when covered by water, returning to their “home scar” should they live on rocks in the inter-tidal. Slipper limpets and Torbay Bonnets, in contrast, are sedentary and feed on tiny particles carried into the cavity of the shell by huge numbers of tiny beating hairs called cilia. The particles are then trapped on mucus and carried to the mouth for ingestion, the radula being important in this process [4].  

I began this post about Torbay Bonnets by describing my love of beachcombing in Torbay before I went off to University. There, I was taught about molluscs by Professor Alastair Graham and Dr Vera Fretter (the latter was my tutor) and they were acknowledged experts on British snails, like limpets, slipper limpets, and Torbay Bonnets. I wish that they were still alive, as I would love to chat to them to find out more about these fascinating molluscs (I didn't have so many questions when I was a student...). Their monograph on snails (see image below) remains a classic of scholarship and research and, just like Gosse, they made all the illustrations themselves. Few of us have these skills, and maybe they are not needed in the age of videography and the internet, but we can still enjoy beachcombing and the excitement of discovery along the strand line. I’m certainly looking forward to visiting South Devon in 2021 and I shall be looking out for Torbay Bonnets.

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

[2] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-legendary-paignton-cockles-and-some.html

[3] Philip Henry Gosse (1854) Natural history. Mollusca. London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[4] C.M.Yonge (1938) Evolution of ciliary feeding in the Prosobranchia, with an account of feeding in Capulus ungaricus. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 22: 453-468.

[5] Vera Fretter and Alastair Graham (1962) British Prosobranch Molluscs: their functional anatomy and ecology. London, The Ray Society.