Peter Markham Scott

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Statue of Sir Peter Scott at WWT London Wetlands Center

Sir Peter Markham Scott CH , CBE , DSC , FRS , FZS (born September 14, 1909 in London ; † August 29, 1989 in Bristol ; ⚭ 1942–1951 Elizabeth Jane Howard ) was a British ornithologist , conservationist and painter. He was the only child of the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912). He was a half-brother of Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet (1923-2009), and his godfather was the playwright Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937).

Life

Markham Scott studied at the Oundle School and the University of Cambridge and graduated from Trinity College in 1931 . He inherited the artistic talent of his mother, Kathleen Markham Scott , and had his first exhibition in London in 1933. As a very good sailor , he represented the British team at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and won the Olympic bronze medal in sailing in the one-man Olympic dinghy .

During World War II, Markham Scott served in the Royal Navy , as his father did. He fought there, first on destroyers in the North Atlantic and later as commander of a cannon flotilla in the English Channel against German speedboats. In 1945 he stood as a candidate for the general election in Wembley for the Conservative Party , but unsuccessfully. In 1948 he founded the Severn Wildfowl Trust, now the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge , Gloucestershire , with which he was in very close contact until his death. In the following years he led various ornithological expeditions worldwide and became very popular with educational television appearances on wild ducks and geese in the floodplains . He wrote and illustrated various works on the subject, including his autobiography The Eye of the Wind (1961-1977). In 1966 the documentary short film Wild Wings was made , in which Scott contributed to the script and acted as narrator. The film produced by Edgar Anstey received an Oscar in 1967 .

Markham Scott took up gliding in 1956 and became British Champion in 1963. He became Chairman of the British Gliding Association (BGA) from 1968 to 1970 and was President of the Bristol & Gloucestershire Gliding Club . He took on responsibility for training Prince Philips in gliding , and Prince Philip is still the patron of the BGA.

On the 12-meter-long yacht Sovereign , he took part as team captain in the sailing regatta for the America's Cup , which was held by the USA at the time, and lost 4-0.

At the University of Birmingham , Markham Scott was Chancellor from 1973 to 1983. In 1961 he co-founded the WWF (World Wild Fund for Nature), designed its panda logo and was appointed its first chairman. He also became a member of the Royal Society in London . For a long time he was Vice President of the British Naturalists' Association , after his death the Peter Scott Memorial Award was established in his honor .

In 1975 Sir Peter and Robert Rines suggested the name "Nessiteras rhombopteryx" for the Loch Ness monster in Nature magazine .

Scott was married twice. In 1942 he married the writer Elizabeth Jane Howard with whom he had the daughter Nicola, who was born a year later. After Howard left her husband in 1946, the marriage ended in divorce in 1951. In 1951 he married his colleague Philippa Talbot-Ponsonby during an expedition to Iceland in search of breeding grounds for the short-billed goose. Daughter Dafila was born in the same year, she also became an artist. Son Falcon was born in 1954.

The Peter Glacier in Antarctica is named after him.

Works

  • Morning flight. Country Life, London 1936-44.
  • Wild chorus. Country Life, London 1939.
  • The battle of the narrow seas. Country Life, White Lion & Scribners, London, New York 1945-74, ISBN 0-85617-788-1 .
  • Portrait drawings. Country Life, London 1949.
  • Key to the wildfowl of the world. Slimbridge 1950.
  • Wild geese and Eskimos. Country Life & Scribner, London, New York 1951.
  • A thousand geese. Collins, Houghton & Mifflin, London, Boston 1953/54.
  • A colored key to the wildfowl of the world. Royle & Scribner, London, New York 1957-88.
  • Wildfowl of the British Isles. Country Life, London 1957.
  • The eye of the wind. Hodder, Stoughton & Brockhampton, London, Leicester 1961-77, ISBN 0-340-04052-1 , ISBN 0-340-21515-1 .
  • Animals in Africa. Potter & Cassell, New York, London 1962-65.
  • My favorite stories of wild life. Lutterworth 1965.
  • Our vanishing wildlife. Doubleday, Garden City 1966.
  • Happy the man. Sphere, London 1967.
  • Atlas en couleur des anatidés du monde. Le Bélier prism, Paris 1970.
  • The wild swans at Slimbridge. Slimbridge 1970.
  • The swans. Joseph, Houghton & Mifflin, London, Boston 1972, ISBN 0-7181-0707-1 .
  • The amazing world of animals. Nelson, Sunbury-on-Thames 1976, ISBN 0-17-149046-0 .
  • Observations of wildlife. Phaidon & Cornell, Oxford, Ithaca 1980, ISBN 0-7148-2041-5 , ISBN 0-7148-2437-2 , ISBN 0-8014-1341-9 .
  • Travel diaries of a naturalist. Collins, London 1983, ISBN 0-00-217707-2 , ISBN 0-00-219232-2 , ISBN 0-00-219554-2 .
  • The crisis of the University. Croom Helm, London 1984, ISBN 0-7099-3303-7 , ISBN 0-7099-3310-X .
  • Conservation of island birds. Cambridge 1985, ISBN 0-946888-04-3 .
  • The art of Peter Scott. Sinclair-Stevenson, London 1992 pm ISBN 1-85619-100-1 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sir Peter Scott, Robert Rines: Naming the Loch Ness monster. In: Nature. 258, December 11, 1975, pp. 466-468, doi: 10.1038 / 258466a0 .
personal data
SURNAME Scott, Peter Markham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British ornithologist, conservationist and painter
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1989
Place of death Bristol