John William Heslop-Harrison

John William Heslop-Harrison (* 1881 in Birtley , County Tyne and Wear, † January 23, 1967 ibid) was a British botanist and zoologist. He was mainly concerned with melanism in moths . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Hesl.-Harr. ".

His father, George Heslop Harrison, was an apprentice and later a foreman at the Birtley Ironworks . His mother, née Hull, was an avid gardener. He attended Bede College Model School in Durham , he was a County Scholarship the Rutherford College in Newcastle visit. He then became a trainee lawyer in Newcastle. From 1900 he completed a teacher training at Durham College of Science . Heslop-Harrison worked as a teacher first in Gateshead and from 1905 in Middlesbrough . In 1906 he married Christian Watson Henderson. During his time as a teacher he published in specialist journals, especially on the subject of genetics. In 1916 he received the title M.Sc. from the University of Durham , in 1917 he was awarded a D.Sc. 1917–1923 he was a lecturer at Armstrong College, University of Durham in Newcastle. In 1920 he became a lecturer in zoology, in 1926 a reader in genetics and in 1927 a professor of botany. From 1940 to 1950 he was Secretary of the Examination Board of the University of Durham. In 1921 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and in 1928 the Royal Society . After his retirement he was a Senior Research Fellow in Durham from 1946 to 1949.

Heslop-Harrison was a respected botanist and at an advanced age, when he made himself suspicious with finds of previously unknown plant species on some islands of the Hebrides (especially rum ) (they were only found in a few places). If they were authentic, this would affect the question whether the islands in the last ice age ver gletschert were. Heslop-Harrison took, among other things, the discovery of the Carex bicolor sedge on rum as proof that the island was not icy (a nunatak ). The amateur botanist, Cambridge professor and classical philologist John Earle Raven began investigating this in 1948 and wrote a report in which he presented this as a fraud. According to Raven, Heslop-Harrison had planted ( anointed ) them on previous visits . The report remained secret at Raven's request, but was secretly known to many botanists in Great Britain. The finds of Carex bicolor and Polycarpon tetraphyllum have been erased from the British Flora .

The journalist Karl Sabbagh wrote a book about the affair. Since the publication of his book, Sabbagh has been able to find more evidence to support the suspicion of forgery. He found in the archives of the Natural History Museum that their botany curator, George Taylor , was so concerned about the affair that he was told by RB Cooke, a former colleague and friend of Heslop-Harrison, who accompanied him on many excursions ( particularly to the Hebrides), requested a report in 1981. From this it emerged that Cooke himself believed in forgeries. In the vicinity of the plant finds there were indications that the soil was not untouched. Some of Heslop-Harrison's insect finds on rum have also been questioned.

Heslop-Harrison's son Jack Heslop-Harrison was also a botanist and became director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in 1970 . His abbreviation is Hesl.-Harr.f.

literature

• AD Peacock, John William Heslop Harrison. 1881-1967. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 14, 1968, 243-270. JSTOR 769446 .
• CD Preston (Ed.) 2004, John Raven's visit to the Hebrides 1948 . Watsonia 25, 17-44.
• Karl Sabbagh A Rum Affair. How Botany's Piltdown Man was unmasked . Hammondsworth, Penguin Books 1999.
• Eberhard Schnepf forgeries - not only in our time , Biology in our time, Volume 32, 2002, No. 4, pp. 245f

Web links

• Author entry and list of the described plant names for John William Heslop-Harrison at the IPNI
• Alastair Jamieson, botanist John Heslop Harrison faked rare plant discoveries , The Telegraph 2008
• Review of the book of Sabbagh by Edward Teague

Individual evidence

1. ^ AD Peacock, John William Heslop Harrison. 1881-1967. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 14, 1968, 244-245
2. ↑ Carex bicolor and Epilobium lactiflorum were two alpine-arctic plants that were not otherwise found in Great Britain. Other alleged discoveries made by Heslop-Harrison on the island (which was privately owned and had access to Heslop-Harrison exclusively for studies) such as Juncus capitatus and Polycarpon tetraphyllum were otherwise only found in south-west England
3. ↑ King's College library, MISC 18 / 1-2
4. ^ AR Clapham, Thomas Gaskell Tutin, DM Warburg 1952, Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
5. ↑ Sabbagh in the New York Times 1999
6. ↑ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3120761/Botanist-John-Heslop-Harrison-faked-rare-plant-discoveries.html
7. ↑ Magnus Linklater The botanist, the Ice Age flora and seeds of doub , The Times, October 2, 2008
8. ↑ Mágnus Mágnusson , Rum: Nature's Island , Luath Press, Scottish National Heritage, 1997, ISBN 0-946487-32-4 , based on Teague, review of the book by Sabbagh ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.