Frederick William Frohawk

Frederick William Frohawk

Frohawk: Chloropsis hardwickii , in: The Avicultural magazine (1896)

Frederick William Frohawk (born July 16, 1861 in Brisley Hall, East Dereham , Norfolk , England , † December 10, 1946 ) was a British animal illustrator and lepidopterist .

Live and act

Frohawk was the son of a farmer and the youngest child in the family. His interest in drawing animals was nurtured by his mother and his fascination with butterflies began when he caught a common haymoth at the age of seven . When the family moved to Great Yarmouth and later to Ipswich , Frohawk collected many interesting species of butterflies. After the father's death in 1873 the family moved to Croydon and later to South Norwood . Frohawk attended Norwood College. During this time, typhoid fever resulted in almost blindness in one eye. In 1880 the family moved to Upper Norwood . At the age of 20, Frohawk became a draftsman for the nature journal The Field . He made the acquaintance of Walter Rothschild , who promoted his work and later bought his butterfly watercolors. Frohawk illustrated numerous works, including Aves Hawaiienses: The Birds of the Sandwich Islands by Scott Barchard Wilson and Arthur Humble Evans (1890–1899), Birds of the British Isles and their Eggs by Arthur Gardiner Butler (1898), for which he made about 500 Made drawings, and Extinct Birds by Lord Walter Rothschild (1907). He published his few ornithological articles in the journals Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club , Ibis and Field . Frohawk also wrote several books on British butterflies, including The Complete Book of British Butterflies (1934), Varieties of British Butterflies (1938) and the standard two-volume Natural History of British Butterflies (1924). In 1927, Frohawk was forced to sell his entire butterfly collection to Lord Rothschild for £ 1,000. This is now part of the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring . In 1892 Frohawk published the first scientific description of the Laysan rail ( Zapornia palmeri ).

In 1895 Frohawk married Margaret Grant. From this marriage two daughters were born. After Margaret Grant died in 1907, he married Mabel Jane Hart Bowman in 1909. In this marriage, the third daughter Valezina was born, who Frohawk named after a dark form of the imperial coat ( Argynnis paphia f. Valesina ).

In 1891 Frohawk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and in 1895 a Member of the British Ornithologists' Union . In 1926 he became a lifelong honorary member of the Entomological Society. In 1946 he was buried in Headley , Surrey . In 1996 his daughter Valezina inaugurated a memorial plaque in the New Forest , the so-called Frohawk Ride .

Works

• Aves Hawaiienses. the birds of the Sandwich Islands . London 1890–1899 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.63344
• British birds with their nests and eggs . London 1896–1898 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.54473
• with Arthur G. Butler: Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, Order Passeres, complete in two volumes . London 1907–1908 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.15357 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.8651
• Birds beneficial to agriculture . London 1919 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.48641

literature

• MA Salmon, P. Marren, B. Harley: The Aurelian legacy: British butterflies and their collectors . University of California Press 2000, ISBN 0-520-22963-0 , pp. 193-197.
• J. Chatfield: FW Frohawk: his life and work. The Crowood Press, Marlborough (Wiltshire) 1988, ISBN 0-946284-68-7 .
• Valezina Bolingbroke: Frederick William Frohawk. A memoir by his daughter . EW Classey, Faringdon 1977, ISBN 0-900848-98-7 .
• William Herbert Mullens, Harry Kirke Swann: A Bibliography of British Ornithology. 1917. (Reprint: 1986, ISBN 0-85486-098-3 )
• Valezina Bolingbroke: I remember. Feather Books, Shrewsbury 1988, ISBN 0-947718-10-9 .