Hello everyone, my name is Jason Brown.
On behalf of my Co chair Ethel Gordon and the rest of the Darwin Festival Committee,
I would like to welcome you to the 47th Annual Darwin Festival.
Before we begin, I need to share some logistical details.
So students, to register your attendance, you'll need to scan the QR code shown in
every talk that you attend.
There'll be AQ and a session at the end of the talk today.
And please type your questions in the webinar Q&
A that will be linked at the bottom of the screen.
Or if you're in Vets Hall, we're going to pass a microphone around
and let you ask your questions that way.
So tomorrow, Tuesday, is a completely remote day.
All the talks on tomorrow will just be on the webinars and then Wednesday through
Friday, all the talks will be available in Vets
Hall, including the webinars with lunches each
day.
So thank you for attending.
And now I'd like to pass it over to Dean Brian Vandenheugel to bring greetings
from SSU and the College of Arts and Sciences.
Thank you Jason, Greetings and a warm welcome to the 2020
Sixth Annual Darwin Festival.
We are thrilled to have you join us for this exciting week long event.
This week celebrates the work of Charles Darwin with sessions from leading
researchers celebrating the field of biology and its impact on today's world.
My name is Brian Vandenheuvel, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
here at Salem State University.
This week is exciting for me personally outside of my role as Dean,
as I'm a botanist and an evolutionary biologist.
The first class I ever wasn't a teaching assistant for was evolution.
And frankly, as a faculty member, evolution was my most favorite course to
teach as well.
And why evolution is explanatory.
It's not just a static set of facts to learn,
but a body of knowledge that we are continuing to test and grow.
First, welcome to Salem State, and for many of you, digitally,
Salem State.
As a public university, our core mission is to make critical
contributions to civic life, environmental sustainability,
and the cultural, social, and economic vitality of the North Shore
region of Massachusetts.
Salem State is the first Massachusetts State university to achieve Hispanic
serving status.
Salem State has made a conscious pivot to serve the North Shore region and we place
student success at the center of our work and to embrace belonging,
civic engagement, access and affordability,
and environmental sustainability.
The Darwin Festival is a fantastic example of building community in science.
It allows us, through discussions, presentation, collaboration,
to share our work.
The Darwin Festival also builds our future biologists,
allows us to collaborate with them, and is a valuable place to hear and to
share.
And in this era where funding for science is at risk,
it is very important for us as scientists to continue to advocate for the
importance of our research and the power of basic science for our future.
This festival was founded by Doctor Virginia Ginger Kevil and Doctor Philip
De Palma, both retired biology colleagues.
It was created to supplement a still running course.
We have Biology 124, human and social biology.
Ginger's still with us and is probably watching.
Unfortunately, Philip passed away some years ago.
Ginger has been relayed to me as the energy behind this festival and she
passed the baton to Susan Case who ran it for many years before she retired too
about 8 years ago.
I'm excited for this line up this year for our students in the room and online.
Please remember the Alumni Student Night on Thursday,
February 12th from 6:30 to 9:00 here in this building in Ellison Campus Center in
the Commuter Lounge and make sure to RSVP that RSV link is on the website.
I want to thank our main sponsors, Charles Albert Reed Trust,
Thermo Fisher Scientific, the Biology Department,
and the College of Arts and Sciences.
I also want to thank the Darwin Festival Committee.
Jason, Ethel, Thea, Lindsay, Jeremy, Jen and Ryan.
Thank you again for coming to the Salem State 2026 Darwin Festival.
I'm going to pass it on to Doctor Lisa Delicio to introduce our speaker.
Thank you.
It's my great pleasure to introduce my colleague John Hunnix,
curator of the British and Irish Seed Plant Herbarium at the Natural History
Museum, London, where he has worked for 22 years.
His degrees are in Humanities, Science and Society and Photography from
the institutions now known as the University of Westminster and the
University of Greenwich.
John has a particular interest in the history of life sciences rather late
clump Comer to botany.
His initial role at the museum was mainly in imaging and databasing of specimens.
John lives just outside London, very close to where Charles Darwin
botanized following his move to Down House in 1842.
He also has a botanizing connection with botanist Anna Atkins,
whose herbarium he has been reconstructing and has been making follow
up visits to the sites where she collected plants.
John, I wanted to note, has created a bibliography to accompany
his talk today, and that will be available through the
Darwin Festival website.
And now I will hand things over to John coming to us from London,
England for his talk, the Natural History Museum,
London and Charles Darwin.
Thank you much indeed, Lisa, thank you very much indeed everybody.
And thank you for the invite for today.
I'm, I'm afraid my technical skills, I'm, I'm just about getting ready to share
screen.
If yes, indeed we're away.
I think I'm sharing screen.
Yes, I think we're there.
I'm actually in the Darwin Centre, appropriately in the Historic Collections
room of the Algae, Fungi and Plants division of the Science
Group.
Behind me is the Herbarium of Hans Sloane Sloane,
one of the founding collections of the British Museum.
And effectively this collection is really the founding collection of the Natural
History Museum.
Some of the specimens in here go back to the 16th century,
the Natural History Museum, the Gothic style building in the centre
of Wells, the western centre of London.
And the Gothic style was very popular in the 19th century.
We're going to talk about the 19th century quite a bit today.
Hi John.
Can I, can I interrupt real quick?
We're not seeing your screen.
Oh, right, OK, sorry.
And you're seeing now.
Yes.
And I need to go to previous and if we're OK, I'll carry on.
All set.
OK, thanks very much indeed everybody.
Sorry about that.
As I say, the Natural History Museum opened in 1881.
Gothic style building in the Western Centre of London.
Might you may be more familiar with the House of Parliament.
Same sort of style Gothic style very popular in Britain in the 19th century.
Natural History not really a search for causes.
Natural History has been with us going back installing a trolleys cleaning the
elders 777 CEID in Rome really Natural History really really descriptive biology
Biology is the only is the term the word really comes in a language the biology,
the science of life really comes into the language in the 19th century.
Charles Darwin's most influential book on the origin of species by means of natural
selection.
That's a short title basically implies a search for causes.
So Natural History, not a search for causes and but biology
is it's a search and the title of of Darwin's most famous book for causes.
So a difference between Natural History and biology.
First off, apologies for the digital watermarks on
some of the images.
Our picture library let us use the the thumbnails for presentations.
But when there's been an image has been in a in a publication,
the digital watermark has to stay doing the reading for today,
it seems that Darwin's image is quite a little bit controversial.
He's Germany always portrayed as in his older years and almost sometimes seen as
a sort of biblical prophet, a Moses if you like.
It certainly wasn't that he was very well off.
His family was his father, his father and grandfather of doctors
relation to the Wedge, which is properly, properly the pottery family.
And really he wasn't the only person as we'll see,
who was thinking about natural selection and and species change.
His statue sits in the centre of the museum in the main hall.
As you come into the main hall, it really dominates his work.
Natural evolution of Species by Natural Selection completely guides our research
and our public engagement.
Alfred W Wallace, you may never heard of, might be working up,
looking up the Wallace line, a sort of really sort of dealer in
Natural History specimens.
He was working in Malaysia and really almost sort of he comes up with the same
ideas and he forces Darwin to publish.
However he's tucked away in the corner, perhaps because he ended up very much a
spiritualist and really wasn't wasn't perhaps so much in with the establishment.
However, we don't, we don't hold too many of Darwin's
specimens and they're quite tucked away, often coming to us from other people.
This Galapagos Moss bryophyte came to us from the biofight expert William Wilson
from Glasgow.
And there was a whole exchange of mechanism of specimens in Britain in the
19th century really.
And and biological information could be moved around quite relatively quickly
really due to the sort of Britain being the first industrial nation that that
will come a subject will come to and the the growth of the railways massive growth
of railways of railways steam powered rail in the in the 19th century.
The special in on the right the the the ****** Herbarium.
Joseph's daughter, Dalton, Joseph Dalton ****** really a very close
collaboration with Darwin.
William Jackson ****** his father, who who says collaborates with Anna
Atkins.
But really a lot of specimens.
We a lot of specimens went to Cambridge in where Darwin went to university and
really to lots of other collectors.
The man behind the Natural History Museum, the Cathedral of Nature,
as you'd like to call it, Sir Richard Owen.
I emphasize the Sir because to be if you weren't a hereditary Baron,
you got you have to to really work hard to get a knighthood.
Richard Owen really is the sort of epitome of British Victorian self-made
man really quite an achiever.
At 16 he was apprenticed to a surgeon really.
So he's learning lots about anatomy.
Very quickly it comes to London to be a surgeon at the Bushes St.
Basu Solomon's Hospital.
He starts taking an interest in in paleontology and again, anatomy.
This is a bit of a personal view in the in the 19th century, to get a knighthood,
you really have to be an achiever.
You really have to work hard.
Unless you're a hereditary knight, you're necessarily a Baron.
You, you really had to a knighthood really
have to be achieved.
And Owen did achieve that personal view here in the 21st century,
you can get a knighthood for being part in Britain,
for being part of the sports celebrity circus.
But that's where we are.
That's where we are now, unfortunately, the British Museum in the 1850s.
Owen becomes works his way out.
He becomes Superintendent of the Natural History collections of the British Museum.
Effectively the collection behind me.
It was part of that Hans Slimes collections, 110,000 specimens.
I'm really really a sort of go getter, really sort of hard,
very hard bargaining guy.
And he really managed to get he got the ear of the Prime Minister William
Gladstone, and he persuaded Gladstone to build a
separate Natural History Museum for for the UK.
The French Natural History Museum had been in existence since 1794.
Owen successful managed to get the British Museum Natural History,
where I'm sitting now, built by 1880.
We were called the British Museum Natural History until really into the 19 into the
1980s.
This is where I'm sitting today and the museum open to the public in 1881 on
Easter Monday.
However, Owen, unlike Darwen, Owen, is tucked under the stairs.
In the words of his biographer Nicholas Rookie,
eclipsed by Darwin really quite one the major anatomist paleontologist in Britain
in the 19th century until until really the publication of On the Origin of
Species by Natural Selection is facing the corner by the man known as Darwin's
bulldog.
Darwin really a quite quiet personality towards the end of his life after the
publication on the Origin of Species really is is is not physically very
unwell and and tends to stay out of London and stick to down house.
Someone's Henry Huxley really an aggressive advocator of evolution by
natural selection.
Every idea has been about evolution have been around for a fair for many for a
fair while Darwin's own grandfather put them forward, John Battery.
Sir Mark again felt that species changes could become within individual
individuals that could be passed on to the next generation,
particularly the the example he gives is giraffes.
Giraffes fishing their next could state be passed on to the next generation.
Owen, however, rejected natural selection.
For Owen, evolution was guided by supernatural
selection.
Probably we'd think about today's intelligent design.
I think for Owen, Darwen was pretty much the rich boy who
had the the luxury of being the outsider, getting a bit of a personal view,
a bit of an outsider like Russell Wallace and Darwin really had had a bit of a bit
of an advantage.
Scientists don't operate in a in a social vacuum.
For Owen, giving up accepting natural selection as
opposed to supernatural selection would been turning his back on the monarchy
Queen, the Queen Victoria at the time who
knighted him and the Church of England.
For a self-made man like Owen, that would have been too much.
But really, so as I say, scientists are operating in a in a social
setting.
So that that's really, that's really, I think where Owen comes from,
but a really great achievement really we're we're very grateful for for to him
for getting at our, our beautiful building,
the Cathedral of nature.
I think at this point it's probably looking thinking about Britain in the
19th century as well.
So to do that, I've used the work of the historian Eric
Hobsbaum.
Hobsbaum for an interesting he actually worked as a very junior administrator
here when he started out in the 1950s and went on,
he described us then as the United Nations,
which I'm very proud to say we're very much same, same situation today.
Hobsbaum wrote this very inferential book in the mid 1990's, the age of extremes.
This this comparing the 20th century to the 19th century as well 303 ages,
the age of extremes.
He he calls it the short century, 20th century starting with 1914,
a war which he calls ending in 1945.
He calls the end of the the 31 Years War and going on for a goal a sort of golden
period till really the end of communism in Russia in 1991 in fact.
Very much, I think everyone will agree, very much the short 20th century,
very much the American Century.
Hochman as I say he he compares the 20th centuries,
the age of extremes between the three ages of the very much the long 19th
century and starting with the French Revolution and ending with the clash of
the empires, the British and French airport against
the German Empires in 1914 very much the British century capital and empire.
Yes, you definitely try to associate those
with Britain.
However revolution the French Revolution maybe not However Holstraum points out
the industrial revolution.
Britain very much the first industrial nation mass production of particularly of
textiles and really sort of day-to-day things like people like candles.
There was no electric power and so it made I make things very affordable,
driven by steam power and getting the railways, as I say,
very important in Britain to to to really sort of power a Britain to to it's really
it's status as the first industrial nation and give it lots of advantages.
Also perhaps revolution, the completion of the scientific
revolution, the revolution in the knife sciences.
OK, moving on.
We've got lots of statues.
Another statue again.
This is Britain in the 19th century.
The national hero during the long 19th century, Horatio Nelson,
his statue on a column in Trafalgar Square in central London, 1805.
Nelson gives his life leaving a British freet from the front to defend to defeat
a French and Spanish fleet effectively driven giving Britain really mastery most
of the Seas of the of the of the Seas to clear significance for us that pretty
much gives British naturalists free passage to go to places to be incredible
biodiversity.
A drawing a drawing by Anna children who we'll meet as Anna Atkins a little later.
Anna and a children, daughter of John Children,
the then keeper of Minerji at the British Museum, visits the Field of Waterloo.
The British command post at the Field of Waterloo.
The Battle of Waterloo 1815, written in alliance with Germany and
Holland, effectively defeats the revolutionary
armies.
French revolutionary armies led by Napoleon Bonaparte's Talisman and
effectively effectively neutralizing Britain's main rival for for global
domination with the United States yet to emerge.
Herbarium specimen probably collected.
We've got quite a few of these actually, it seems.
It seems to be the things that seem to have been the thing to go to the field of
the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium to collect specimens.
This was by George Cornelius Gorham about 1944.
What's interesting is that other celebrities,
other intellectuals like through all the Scots and the novelist really,
and several politicians used to like used to visit the field of Waterloo.
There seems to have been a comprehension of the moment,
the whole trench of the time.
This was going to be the British century.
It could well have been the French century.
Moving on to the life sciences in the 19th century, particularly in Britain,
and we can't talk about the the life science in 19th century without being a
natural theology, without thinking natural theology.
But Lisa, I think has put onto the website a
reading list and a very good book by Keith Thompson,
who was director of the Natural History Museum in Oxford,
The Watch on the Heath to explain it's from William Paley.
He's a very intellectual book, natural theology or evidence of existence
of attributes of a deity collected from the appearances from the appearances of
nature highly walking on heath.
I have to explain that heath heath land in Britain is low growing low is open
ground with very low growing plants like heathers and it's not very good.
It's it's not agricultural and it's generally considered common land for
recreation.
He finds a watch.
This would be a mechanical watch, not a digital watch room that like a
mobile phone, like it's powered by energy for an
unwinding spring.
Really tight, really quite tiny, intricate pieces of clockwork that was
really the cutting edge in the 16th and 16th, 17th, 19th centuries.
Certainly with technology, the influence party says is inevitable,
that the watch must have a maker.
The maker, and he starts compares with other things
he finds on the heath, like rabbits, frogs and plants, living things.
So really almost sort of going back to Isaac Newton's clockwork universe,
he feels that animals, plants, living Organism equates to very complex
technologies and really that that's sort of natural theology really dominates
British thinking really up to the middle of the the 19th, the long 19th century.
In fact, Darwin when he was at Cambridge actually
read Padium.
He said he could really, he could take quote it off by heart.
Now the book The Wisdom of God in the Works of Creation, John Wright,
John Wright really really sort of founds natural theology, a great classifier,
great classifier of plants, the collection behind me.
So Einstein collection is ordered by John Wright's classification system.
Wright, however, does have his doubts.
Right, sorry, sorry to explain.
The Royal Society, it's the Royal Society of London for
improving, for improving natural knowledge,
founded in 1660 and still going today.
And we'll, we'll encounter it a little bit later.
And appropriately it's headquarters near the Buckingham Palace, right,
did a very famous European Tour.
And in fact, the specimen from there, he didn't use Siberian specimens very
much surprising.
We've still, we've actually got the specimens from
that European Tour here.
Fossils had always caused a problem.
The age of the earth was always going to be quite a problem for those who believed
in the creation, believed in biblical story and even Ray,
an ordained priest in the Church of England,
although he didn't take the the title of reverend,
he never practised this It's a strange this is in his notes,
it's a strange thing in his Diaries it's a strange thing continuity considering
the novity of novelty of the world, the age of which,
according to usual account is not 5600 years.
The age of the earth really a big question in the 19th century and and and
perhaps a little bit before moving on a Herberian specimen.
Interestingly, at the the the the specimen on the top
right there from Reverend Hugh Davis, Reverend Davis,
Welsh expert on flowering plants.
It was it the the the natural we we find the natural theologians competing to our
collections a great deal right up to the 20th century.
We had the we had the Reverend John Lightfoot contributing how we specimens
and classifying them.
The Reverend Churchill Barrington classifying lichens and even up to the
20th century.
It even continued to the natural pseudosions continued to then the
Reverend John prim of aging went through all our rose collection and and and and
classified them.
The aim of natural theologians was to get a better,
better understanding of God's plan really for the universe to try to improve
ourselves.
The specimen, there's five specimens on the sheet.
The top left specimen is a not very attractive specimen because it's possibly
on the way of being a fossil.
And it was collected by Sir Joseph Banks, not a hereditary night.
It was, it was a baronet.
So he got to use the title Sir.
He didn't waste his time.
He, he went, he took three voyages to the Southern
hemisphere botanising and concentrate on Natural History really.
And his British collections really form the collections that I'm very fortunate
to create.
Really quite tricky photographing what's on the the rear of this herbarium sheet
because we actually it's rather delicate.
We have to sort of photograph it from below and but what we've got is in a bog
under level of low watermark in the sea at Sutton in Lincolnshire, September 1796.
And a paper, a trans philosophical philosophical
transfacial that we can receive a transaction as paper that we can still
get from the web on the submarine forest of the East Coast of England by Joseph
Carella Lucera, who was basically fallen out with the
Portuguese government for some reason and banks took him under his wing.
And this specimen is quoted on there again.
He's looking right back into it's really speculating about the age of the earth.
Again.
We look at I was at the British Museum yesterday seeing the and the Rosetta
Stone is there.
I'm sorry.
She's a bit of London centric and it's quite interesting Book called The Keys to
Egypt.
Chamfrillion, the translation of the hieroglyphs that
was playing the Egyptian civilisation went back very a very long way.
And actually Chamfrillon was actually really not just doing the goose stick.
He was almost doing cosmology again, looking for the the start of the universe,
geology, the age of the earth, the age of the Earth,
basically Charles Lyon Lyle Lyle, a very close collaborator of Darwin and
really a really very influential book.
There's three three in three.
It's really in three three parts.
Darwin takes the first one on his his his round the world boys,
which lasted five years.
Full titles most revealing principal jolly being so I can't quite see it
basically basically what he says is for is is is really looking to look to
explain changes in the earth, the non living world by causes now in
operation.
The key phrase is causes now in operation.
If we can change changes in the living world can be can be explained by fault
courses now in operation.
Obviously changes in living things can be noticed and obviously over time that
things will change.
So that's a really quite very influential on Darwin and Lyle will become really one
of his close collaborators.
OK, HS Spiegel and his his his voice to the
Galapagos Islands.
The Beagle basically was a survey ship really it was to it's main task was to
survey the survey mass as well as possible particularly concentrate on
South America and the Pacific really.
So British merchant ships really could start exporting mass manufactured goods
to the new markets and British warships could obviously try to continue their
domination.
As I say that Darwin had actually given up on medicine,
he didn't he really didn't fancy it.
His father, very rich sort of put up with him.
He then went on to Cambridge University to be supposed to be a reverend to join
the Church of England and took theology and take to theology.
He took theology courses, but he also took Natural History courses
with the Reverend John Stephens Henslow.
And again, we've got a lot of Henslow specimens here.
Henslow really transfer really really moves him over to Natural History and the
these Britney ship survey ships did take naturalist wisdom Stephens Henslow was
supposed to go on the voyage of the Beagle and basically Darwin he he
couldn't be it was decided Darwin would would would like to replace him and he
did OK.
The voice of the Beagle to the Darwin to the to the Galapagos Islands.
The Galapagos a almost a really incredible place to die vice versa.
Sea about 1000 miles off the coast of South America off the coast of South
America really, really a a different world for Darwin.
OK some some specimens from the Galapagos vinces Darwin noticed there's different
species of vinces of different islands, different shapes of beaks.
Again, mockingbirds, mockingbirds.
Darwin notices there's different mockingbirds on different islands and
they're very different from those on the South American mainlands.
The same actually probably is bird specimens is best known and but quite
interestingly, we hold these pigeon specimens as well.
And it invokes the whole chapter of the On the on origin of species by by by
natural selection to variation under under to variation under a cultivation.
It were under the variation, sorry, variation under domestication.
And there's a couple of images from contemporary publications.
He actually joins pigeon clubs.
He go he he he actually asked the pigeon breeders what,
how how they select certain features for really fancy pigeons and there's
competitions and things like that.
As a sort of historic, very reader of the history of science,
one's reminded of Galileo going to the, to the Arsenal at Venice and watching and
talking to the guys who are moving around very,
very heavy weights and for ships and cannon and, and,
and thinking about forces.
Darwin kind of does the same.
He talks to the, the really to the biotechnologists animal
breeding has been going for, for Millennium, obviously.
And it's, it's really sort of science coming down
from the heights really to, to, to get its hands dirty, as it were.
And that that begins to provide insights.
All these bird specimens are held at not in the main museum here,
but our sister museum out at Tring, Tring, about 3035 miles to northwest of London.
The a huge country house owned by the Rothschild family, Walter Rothschild.
But he converted you into a museum, a Natural History Museum particularly and
all down.
Well, all orthology specimens are out there.
If you do go if you do come to to London police that we'll get we can get you out.
It's quite hard to get to by by public transport.
It's no it, it was known as the Walter Rothschilds
museum up until about 20 years ago when it became Natural History Museum train
and I couldn't resist putting this in this is Walter Rothschild,
a man of his time, not too worried about animal
sensitivities, riding on a giant tortoise again,
tortoises fun enough this very morning we found out that in spirit we've got one of
Darwin's tortoise small tortoises from the Galapagos, from the Galapagos Islands.
We didn't really know about that, but again,
Darwin knows his very variation in species over over the different
geographical regions, the the the Galac with us really an
incredible place for for for this different sources for different islands.
OK, Darwin returns to return from the voyage
of Beagle really thinking about variation.
He's really, he really has abandoned, he really, he really is.
He's really now thinking about really the origin of species.
And he moved out to Down House, which is about 12 miles to the 1215 miles
to the southeast of London, which now being conserved in the the
urban sprawl of London.
And now in the London Borough of Bromley where I live.
And I hope you'll forgive me for including a rather local plant,
Visca Melba mistletoe, because Darwin actually quotes mistletoe
in the introduction to On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection.
He points out that Darwin that risk of album mistletoe is parasitic on certain
plants, on certain trees.
It's it's dependent on certain insects for its pollination and certain birds for
it to distribute its seeds.
Unlike Kylie's watch, he can't see how that is independently
created.
Just a bit of a personal view here.
The the origin on the origin of species full of sort of 19th century language
which kind of gets will get misconstrued.
Today.
He talks about favoured races.
When he talks about races, it means really plant and animal species
and survival of the fittest.
Really, you think of Nazi Germany, etcetera.
What I think it means take viscom album.
What it means is really natural selection has effectively caused mistletoe viscom
album to fit into the a certain ecology.
It's it's the key that fits the log that fits the ecological lock.
Survival of the fittest.
That's what he means by fittest.
Not by physically physicists, but chant the chance mutation that
natural natural selection is has given Biscombe album the opportunity to fit
into a certain ecology.
Anyway, Darwin moving on now to a project which
we'll be working on with Lisa with with Darwin connections or surprising lack of
Darwin connections, the first book ever illustrated by
photographs and it is technically a book of our librarians say yes.
There's multiple copies, one you'll find in New York Public
Library of photographs of British algae, Sinotype impressions, 1842,
the year significantly perhaps that Darwin moves out to Down House.
Various copies all around.
Ours is not complete, so we've had to borrow the site.
We're lacking a cover page.
We've had to borrow the couple page from Science Museum.
Significantly, perhaps a Darwin connection,
the what's called the presentation copy.
The best copy went to the Royal Society, the Royal Society of the Improving
Natural Knowledge, who is still in existence today.
As I say, the appropriate news to Buckingham Palace,
and it's in the library there.
Rose Team B, who's done a PhD on a PhD on early women
photographers.
It's pretty pretty sure that Charles Domin actually consulted the actually did
look at this actually actually did look at Anna's book and and really that's
that's the one door in connection.
We can at least perhaps establish Anna a really great achiever.
She not only a great photographer.
She was, what I've been trying to do is is put her
bearing together after basically she got forgotten.
It's a social morage of the time.
She was John Perry Atkins's husband, John Perry Atkins's wife.
She was John children's daughter.
Her Herberium.
She she was given to the museum in 1865, which some of it was mounted and put in
the van and pretty much forgotten.
Larry Schaeff, the historian of photography,
rediscovered her work in the 1970s and again reissued more,
a biography and another reissue of the what's called Sun Gardens,
the book on her and in 2015 two 1016, there was an exhibition at New York
Public Library, who hold one of the copies.
Gabriel de la Sash.
St.
Janine wrote a novel with Anna's central character taking in all the sort of
various intellectual currents at the time.
And again they both visited and I decided I'm going to put her herbarium back
together.
Lisa's compared her with Harriet Eliza Payne,
another outstanding American botanist who through the most social mores got all the
time got forgotten.
I've really had a great take been been I mean,
I had the great pleasure of going through all in fact, our backlog boxes,
let's call it that the backlog.
A lot of anti specimens were just shoved into the backlog.
This is my favorite.
It's a really beautiful delicate grass in common name.
We've written a bent and it's it's Anna as she's got two names.
I think first she's hedging her bets, but I like to think she she's got an
understanding of science in science.
Science is not a belief system.
It's always got another observation to make and it's Anna kind of knows.
I called her Anna because I've got a first name,
terms of a very sort of close connection with her.
I feel a very close connection with her.
I live in London Borough, Bromley and I, I botanized in the same places as her.
Agrosis Carnina or agrosis speak out of Vinci.
She can't tell.
She can't tell the species apart on morphology.
They're very difficult to be told, told apart morphology.
You think she's hearing her bets, But I like to think she understands that
down the line in science is all the observation to make that something's
coming down the line and this space she would someone will eventually be able to
identify this species.
Well, she didn't really know.
1866 Ernst Hackel starts the science of ecology and this is from a bog and so we
we now freely feel that this is just a Gross's canina,
which which tends to grow in bogs.
The other species doesn't again also coming down the line there's we'd like to
do in DNA.
I'd like a DNA analysis done on this to finally prove really prove Anna to prove
which to say to Anna yes, Anna here is is that that that that is
this specimen OK another production by Anna in conduction with Anna and a close
collaborator and Dixon British and foreign firms.
Only a couple of three of these made a few things started all over a few few
plates in in various institutions.
One in the John Paul Getty Museum.
Ferns, foreign ferns.
The foreign ferns are from Jamaica and perhaps Bermuda.
Probably insect collected by enslaved people.
And this is where the lack of Darwin connection comes in.
Down house and Anna's home housed his place as a as a blue plaque where I
remember actually where she was not a mile and a half 2 miles away,
about a mile and a half two ways away from each other.
Houses place a big country house in the 19th century.
They eventually demolished in in the 1950s and made way for more modern
developments and basically set idle for our needs.
This 1980 development gated development is now on there.
But houses place is only an hour is a less a couple of miles less than a couple
of miles from the Darwins at Downhouse and yet there is no connection.
I think the keyword is slavery.
The Darwin's the Darwin family very clean abolitionist of slavery find it abhorrent.
The Atkins family John Pelley Atkins, Alderman of London,
who becomes Mayor of London, a plantation owner in Jamaica and Bermuda.
Slavery officially abolished in Britain in 18 O 7 but the plantation owners a
huge economic power, they stuck out for huge compensation and
slavery wasn't officially abolished in Britain in the finally abolished in the
British colonies in the British Empire until 18351836 really went went up even
to 1840.
You know, people had to be paid wages and the
plantation owners didn't really like it.
Darwins.
This is probably why there was no there's an incredible lack of connection between
the two people, between the two families.
And we don't know how Anna feels or letters are few and far between.
Maybe some, maybe Anne Dixon may have must have had
lots of them.
We're looking in the public record offices in a couple of places.
Anne Dixon Siberian moves from Hampshire up to Warwickshire.
Folk in the Warwick Museum are looking into naturally just try and find some
some of Anna's letters they're feeling, but there's one or two in private
collections.
Alderman John Atkins really was a really sort of a tough rabbit, really,
really stuck out for as much compensation as he could.
It was really pro to save, pro to save trade,
really out of step with the time and passed his his money on to John Petty
Atkins when he died in 1838.
It's really quite surprising.
Geoffrey Kitchener, the local historian and local botanist,
says there was a visitor's book at at Healthy Place.
He's definitely trying to find that see if any of the Darwin's went in now.
Janet Brown's books on the reading list.
Janet Brown's the latest biography of of Charles Darwin is is really quite
extensive and really quite Sojam.
Sojam is a person.
The American Civil War For Charles Darwin, the American Civil War is a crusade
against slavery.
He really sort of criticises Lincoln for not making that.
He sees that Lincoln see the the war as a may of maintaining the Union.
He he sort of had a disagreement with his his collaborator ASA Grey.
Again, he Darwin feels that the the American
Civil War is really a crusade against slavery.
The first battle of Bull Run sees a Union defeat.
Darwin is very worried the the the Confederacy will will go on and achieve a
victory.
So that really is is shows Darwin as a person and really that that's that's a
surprising lack of that's a surprising lack of contact between between the
Darwin's and the Atkins's.
And Lisa has compared Charlotte Horner with Anna Atkins.
Charlotte Horner actually drives a supply wagon for the Union forces in the Civil
War.
OK, moving on, moving to 1953, being a very amateur reader of history
and philosophy of science and scientific theories.
Last, because they passed tests, the big tests for natural for evolution
by natural selection is the mechanism by which natural selects takes place cell
division in cell division.
The DNA molecule is very key.
This rather rickety model from our friends next door at the Science Museum
is an the atomic structure of the DNA molecule.
Please don't ask me to pronounce the full name of DNA and the more up to date and
more up to date model of DNA and let's say Darwin,
Darwin's theory of natural selection really evolution by natural reduction
passes this really big test and it influences our work today.
It introduced my personal work my my work in the British and Irish Sea plant
herbarium is recreating the herbarium to an A an order based on DNA analysis.
And I go through and I see the people who, who were, who made the,
the arrangements by morphology did a really, really good job,
really good job by common sense.
But sometimes you get a group of plants, say thymine, the, the thymine,
the AC family, which is moved out of it's order.
It was in originally in the Martel's order,
which is things like eucalyptus and it's moved to the Malvasi order,
things like Malvas.
And you think why this this, this sits better.
We're calling it a common sense in the in the motels order very influential book
published in 1990s.
It's on the reading list The unnatural nature of Science by Lewis Wallper,
who was then chair of the committee of the public of the public own
understanding of science here in the UK.
And he points out science so often goes against common sense.
And this is, this is possibly the, the, the conflict we have in Natural History,
the unnatural nature of science against Natural History.
Perhaps this is the, this is really the, really some of the,
the points of the tension you'll see in our research themes.
We've probably, we're not just a public engagement
institution.
We've got over 5060 scientists working here and and curators as well.
These are research themes, evolution of life, biodiversity change,
genomics, planetary origin of evolution, biodiversity and health.
We're correlating with Lisa on collections and culture.
I'm more than happy to be the conduit for any connections with,
with any of our research themes.
I, I do hate sort of telling people to go to
the website, but there there's a list of our themes 1
This is my contact name.
But before I, I sort of finish and answer any questions
and go back to anything I've missed, Lucy's asked me to say let me let folk
know how how I got here.
Basically, as Lisa said at the start, I was very fortunate I got it.
I really came in at the ground floor of Botany because obviously I did the
academic corridor for escalation in humanities sciences society,
but also imaging skills.
It's really really it's I'd advise people who are starting out to try and get a
skill along as along with along with your academic qualification.
We've just had a fellow American, Hailey Glanich start here and as the
algae curator and she's well reel up on artificial intelligence.
I'm afraid that's a bit beyond me, but again, that's an example.
As I say, I'm I'm more than happy to to take any
questions and put people in touch with the vehement people here.
Thank you very much indeed.
Great.
Thank you, John.
So if you have questions, if you're on the webinar,
if you can post those questions to the webinar Q&A,
there's a link at the bottom of the screen.
And Ethel Gordon and Jen Carr will monitor those questions.
And I'm gonna walk around the room with a microphone and see if people in the room
have questions.
I do have one quick one to start with.
So I've always been kind of intrigued by Alfred Russell Wallace.
And I'm just curious if, you know, if he was much of A collector and whether
your institution has any specimens from anything that he collected?
Not not too much, certainly not too much, but not biological with it.
Botany material.
He tended to be a bit of a deer in natural in Natural History collections.
It doesn't really feature very much.
I think there's quite a few entomology entomology collections.
Jane Beccoloni, whose husband George Beccoloni is really
quite the expert on on Russell Wallace.
So if if anyone has got any questions, I can put them on to Jane and George,
that'd be great.
I know.
As I say, look up the Wallace line.
Wallace noticed that in New Guinea, animals that he expected to be more Asian
animals were actually more Australian animals.
So the Wallace line really we, we get the beginnings of perhaps ideas
about continental drift, plate tectonics.
But yes, very interesting character, as I say,
and ideas about natural selection end up with the spiritualist maybe that that's
sort of what it got kind of pushed away by the the scientific establishment.
But as I say, George, I'm more than happy to put you into
object with Jan and George.
Awesome, thank you.
We have a question on the line from Lisa.
Hi, I was just to ask.
Hi, John, thanks for the talk.
I was wondering if you could tell people how many specimens are in the British and
Irish seed plant herbarium for which that you curate and how many specimens you
have altogether?
Natural History herbarium specimens altogether.
I think getting on, I think we with the British specimens,
British oil specimens, at least 3/4 of a million.
We, we, we, we're still counting things inbound
volumes.
People in the 18th, 18th, 19th century tended to keep things
inbound volumes as we have out here with the Sun Herbarium.
We're in flowering plants well over, well over 3,000,000.
I think things like Toyota Fights even brings it more.
I think we're pushing on a 5 million specimens all told that including these
collections.
It's really, it's quite, really quite hard today.
But we've got a digital imaging process on Jimmy digital imaging project,
which is really trying to get as much as trying to find as many space what we're
trying to see what we've got.
I mean it's a huge institution.
As I say, we've also got the other, the other kind of problem of,
of things coming to us, local museums closing and we take the
collections in.
We, we haven't got the time to process them.
It's almost going back to the sort of Darwin's day with the specimens that,
that actually we end up going to Cambridge.
Do those numbers include the backlog or do you have any?
Yeah, yes, yes, you do.
Well, I, I, I like to think that the British
collections, we don't have a backlog.
We now have an auxiliary collection which everything's been put into in a genus
order along ADNA profile lines.
So certainly, yes, indeed.
But yes, indeed, I think that we, some people call it backlog,
but I like to call it auxiliary collection because auxiliaries are ready,
they can be brought forward.
Thank you.
I'll ask Gwen.
I need to.
OK, so I'd like to ask if if you have a
sample of Darwin's collection, where are the other samples?
And are any of them in the US Darwin's collections?
Yes, we, we, I think I showed some of the, some of his collections.
Yes.
I'm not, I'm not sure whether any, any of Darwin's collections are in the
USA.
They're mostly, they tend to be mostly at Cambridge.
Whether within, I'm not quite sure, but I can certainly find out.
I can.
Obviously we, we, we've got connections.
We can certainly let you know.
What was really quite interesting actually was we were visited by the
public engagement person from the Smithsonian.
You said that Darwin collections are really quite controversial in the United
States.
Yeah.
All right.
Any other questions?
Great.
Well, thank you so much, John.
This was, oh, sorry, we do have one.
Oh good.
So we do have a question.
What's the oldest specimen that you have in the museum and the oldest specimen we
have in the museum?
Oh, we're certainly on the botany side.
We've got a herbarium from Germany, which we can date to 715-9079 by the by
the watermark on the paper of the of the volume technique.
The technique of pressing and drying plants on paper was put was started by
Luca Guinea in Italy.
Use it and and it was easiest for him to show vital the key parts of the plant on
paper, then to take people out into the out into
the field.
That's, that's the oldest botany specimen.
So in the library we've, we've got a very good book that was made
in Istanbul, Constantinople, Constantinople,
which is a copy of the Giuliano and Anesia Codex,
which is now in the National Library of Oxford.
So it was made in 5-10.
But we, as I say, on the botany side, that's probably our oldest specimen,
1515191579.
I'd like to ask one more question.
How long, How long do you think it will take you to
recurate the herbarium collection to match the new information that's coming
from genetic studies?
Basically, I think I've got, I think it's going to take me another
five years, but I've been going out for 10 years
already.
This is a problem across all Natural History collections.
I'm saying it's a problem.
It's just improving them in science has always another observation to make.
We got halfway through and again, more information came up and so we're
having to sort of fit that in.
So I think another five years, I think, Lisa.
So hopefully I'll be, I'll be around, I'll still be here in five years time.
So anyone wishing to visit, please do contact me and we,
we can have a look at the herbarium.
That's exciting opportunity.
It looks like we have another question back here.
All right, answer.
Well, the person who asked about what the the
age of the oldest specimen also wanted to know what that specimen is.
Well, it's actually a a bound volume.
It's probably it's it's Europe, German, European plants that were collected
really around Lake Constance by your own horon was harder really quite a rare set
of specimens.
There's about there's like harder made about 15 volumes about about 2300
specimens, mostly in German institutions, ones in a private collection.
Ours came to us from the welcome collection and there's one there's one in
the Vatican Museum as well.
So if if you're visiting London, please feel free to we'll be able to show
it to you.
Please feel free to to get in contact.
Great.
Thank you, John.
So for students in the room or in the webinar online,
make sure that you scan the QR code that I'm sharing right now.
Hopefully here we go.
So if you can scan that QR code and input the information there.
So there are in person talks and webinars throughout the week this week.
And just remember that tomorrow is an all remote day.
But then Wednesday through Friday, we have events going on here in Vets Fall,
and you can find a listing for all those & up for any webinars at salemstate.
edu/darwinfestival.
And thank you for joining us and have a wonderful rest of your day.
We'll leave the QR code up for another couple of minutes to make sure everybody
gets a chance to scan it.
But otherwise, thank you, John.
Well, thank you very much, Jason.
Thank you, Lisa, Ethel and Derek, and thanks.
Thank you, Salem.
Thank you very much indeed.
Nice.
Thank you, thank you.
And it's it's, it's good night here because it's now the
afternoon here.
It's 5:00 and I'm, I'm going to have a, a cup of English tea,
which actually actually Indian tea really, but it's such an English tradition.
Thank you very much indeed.
And thank you for for having me for the talk.
Good, Good night.