Alfred William Alcock

Alfred William Alcock

Alfred William Alcock , CIE (born June 23, 1859 in Bombay , † March 24, 1933 in Belvedere, Kent ) was a British naturalist and crustacean researcher . He was the son of Captain John Alcock, who spent his retirement in Blackheath . His mother was a daughter of Christopher Puddicombe.

Life and career

Alcock attended Mill Hill School in London, Blackheath Proprietary School and Westminster School. When his father was unable to support school attendance in 1876 due to financial losses, he was taken out of school and sent to India in the Wayanad district . There he stayed with relatives who ran a coffee plantation. At the age of 17, he often spent his free time in the jungles of Malabar. When the coffee business in the area collapsed, Alfred went to Calcutta to take an office job there. After the office was closed, he went to Purulia from 1878 to 1880 to work as a recruiter for porters for the tea gardens of Assam. There he made the acquaintance of Duncan Cameron, who gave him the book Physiology Primer by Michael Forster. In this book Alcock wrote personal notes and autobiographical thoughts. This shows that this book awakened his love for science, that is, it was the origin of his career.

In Purulia he also met JJ Wood, who was there at the time as a hygiene officer . Wood challenged him to study botany , natural history, and chemistry . During this time, Alcock even dug graves to study the human body and bones. He also read important works, including by Charles Darwin . After that, he was determined to embark on a scientific career and do a PhD.

In 1880 he took a position as assistant director in a European boys' school in Darjeeling . Here Wood entrusted his son to the Alcocks foster family. In 1881 Alcock's older sister came to India with her husband, an excellent official in the Indian civil service. At that time, Alcock was able to travel home to begin his medical training. in October 1881 he enrolled in the "Marischal College". He completed his first year in Alleyne Nicholson's natural history course with honors. Although not fully trained, he served as a hospital surgeon in the "Aberdeen Royal Hospital". In 1885 he graduated with honors and entered the Indian health service.

In 1886 Alcock returned to India and served on the northwest border with Sikh and Punjab regiments. In Baluchistan he had to deal with a bite from the common sand rattle otter . In 1888 he was offered the position of surgeon and naturalist in the Indian naval reconnaissance. He accepted and got on the reconnaissance ship "Investigator", where he stayed until 1892. There he studied marine wildlife and published many writings with James Wood-Mason and others. He also wrote A Naturalist in Indian Seas , which is now considered a classic in natural science.

In 1892 he resigned from the service and was appointed hygiene officer in eastern Bengal. In 1893 Wood-Mason traveled home and Alcock agreed to take his place during his absence. Wood-Mason died on the journey home to England and Alcock was appointed director of the Indian Museum. In 1895/96 he was on the border commission in Pamis and wrote down the natural history results of his expedition. At the Indian Museum, Alcock worked on adding to the collection of reptiles , fish and invertebrates . Alcock received little support from Sir George King, President of the Trustees. Lord Curzon decided to display the Indian Museum's collection as a memorial to Queen Victoria in 1903 and Alcock was instructed to abandon the collection of the fish. Alcock struggled against the trustees. The collection was then kept, but the library was abandoned. After this experience, Alcock gave up his job and traveled back to England in 1906, where he pointed out how "impracticable the position as director of the museum" was. He also wrote that zoology was a branch so important to human interests, important to areas such as education , agriculture , veterinary science and general public health. He proposed the establishment of an Indian Zoological Inspectorate, with a museum and laboratories managed by zoologists acting out of scientific interest.

He was offered reforms and should resume his old job if he withdrew, but Alcock declined and went to London , where he made the acquaintance of Patrick Masons, whom he knew as a student. He then worked at the "School of Tropical Medicine".

In 1897 he married Margaret Forbes Cornwall of Aberdeen. In 1901 he was elected a member of the Royal Society . In 1907 he received the Barclay Medal from the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Services

Alcock was above all a systematic and described numerous species . He worked on various areas on the biology and physiology of fish, their occurrence, evolution and behavior. He also did research on decapods and deep-sea corals . His "Illustrations of the Zoology of the RIMS 'Investigator," "a series of drawings by Indian artists are considered exceptionally beautiful and accurate. In addition, Alcock wrote his work in a high, Victorian writing style, which is attributed to a good education and upbringing. The following species bear his name:

• Bathynemertes alcocki Laidlaw, 1906
• Sabellaria alcocki
• Pourtalesia alcocki Koehler, 1914
• Aristeus alcocki Ramadan, 1938
• Pasiphaea alcocki (Wood-Mason & Alcock, 1891).

Web links

• Guide to the Fish Exhibition in the Indian Museum (1899) (digitized book)
• Illustrations of the Zoology of the Royal Indian Marine Survey Ship Investigator, under the command of Commander TH Heming. Fishes Part V, Crustacea Part VI, Mollusca Part II. Alfred Alcock. Calcutta, 1898 (digitized book)
• Catalog of Indian deep sea fish in the Indian Museum (digitized book)