Thomas Bellerby Wilson

Thomas Bellerby Wilson (1807-1865)

Thomas Bellerby Wilson (born January 17, 1807 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † March 15, 1865 in Newark , Delaware ) was an American doctor, naturalist, collector of natural history exhibits and promoter of the Academy of Natural Sciences .

Live and act

His father Edward Wilson (1772-1843) came from Liverpool and married Elizabeth Bellerby in 1802. Both came to the United States from England before 1800. Thomas Bellerby Wilson was the third child from this marriage. One brother was Edward Wilson (1808-1888), who lived in Hean Castle in Pembrokeshire and provided his brother with natural history collections from Europe. His brother William Savery Wilson (1803–1870), who lived temporarily in Paris, also bought collections for his brother. Rathmell Wilson (1810–1890), another brother, bequeathed a considerable portion of his brother's library to the Academy of Natural Sciences after the death of Thomas Bellerby.

From 1818 to 1819 he attended the Friends' School , where he a. a. received Latin lessons from Thomas Dugdale Jr. When his father traveled to England in 1820, he took him with him. Here he attended a school in Darlington and developed a strong bond with the land of his ancestors. In the spring of 1822 he returned to America. His interest in science now determined his future life. Instead of going back to school, he decided to study pharmacy with one of the most famous pharmacists in the city of Philadelphia, Frederick Brown (1796–1864). Here he experienced the wonders of the physical universe in his daily work . For him, this training was as valuable as a university course, as he got to know many factors influencing human organs. The influences from the fields of chemistry , natural philosophy , mineralogy and geology , which he got to know in his six years of activity, shaped his later life.

The research area of ​​geology developed slowly in the USA in 1828 and so Wilson prepared for his first geological expedition. In the fall of the same year, he and three friends set out to explore the coal region around Philadelphia. Their route led them along the Delaware River to the Lehigh River . From there it went to the mountain areas at the headwaters of the Lehigh and further into the basin of the Susquehanna River . The next destination was the Wyoming Valley and its adjacent coal mines. Along the Susquehanna they finally reached Northumberland and Sunbury . They moved east and reached the main arm of the Schuylkill River , where they visited the coal mines, and from there returned to Philadelphia.

In the fall of the same year he attended the University of Pennsylvania to study medicine. Here Philip Syng Physick (1768–1837) became his mentor. He finished his studies in the spring of 1830, but his thirst for knowledge required him to study further. Since Europe was much further than America in science, he was drawn back across the Atlantic. He arrived in Paris 10 days before the July Revolution of 1830 . Here he listened to the lectures of Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) and other famous professors at the University of Paris. So he regularly visited the Jardin des Plantes and, in addition to his medical studies, dealt with botany , zoology and geology. In the summer of 1831 he went on foot with his friend Caspar Pinnock to explore France and Switzerland. During his stay in Europe he also visited England and Ireland. He also attended medical lectures in Ireland and returned to his hometown of Philadelphia after two years.

Although he was a fully trained medical practitioner, he never really practiced, or only with minor exceptions. During his time in Europe, cholera was rampant so he could carefully study its treatment. When the epidemic spilled into the United States, his services were of great value. Instead of taking up a lucrative job in a hospital, he devoted the whole summer to caring for poor people. When the epidemic subsided in the fall, he first had to take care of his own health and recovered for a few weeks in Berks County and New Castle County .

Shortly after his arrival in America he worked intensively on botanical and ornithological questions. He collected plants, dried them and sorted them systematically in his herbarium . In Cuvier's lectures he had learned the basics of comparative anatomy and so he formed his own collection for private studies, which finally passed into the possession of the Academy of Natural Sciences .

He spent the winter of 1832/33 in Philadelphia before moving to New London in Chester County with his brother Rathmell the following spring , where they lived for eight years. Here he bought a farm whose area and surroundings he scientifically explored. He gave his medical library to the Medical Society and his surgical equipment to Wills Eye Hospital . He had bought both during his time in Europe. Instead of devoting himself to medicine, he preferred to roam the surrounding streams, fields, groves and forests with his botanical container, insect net and geologist's hammer. Here he laid the foundation stone for his approximately 20,000 entomological specimens, which later went to the American Entomological Society . His main area of ​​interest remained geology, although he never published his research results. It is known that he traveled to western Virginia , Kentucky , Tennessee and all states north to the Ohio River and on the Mississippi River to the Saint Anthony Falls . In Canada he was up to the Saguenay River .

From the spring of 1842 he traveled with his brother Charles in England, France, Switzerland and Italy and returned shortly before his father's death in December 1843. In 1844 he returned to England again, this time accompanied by his brother William. Here he bought a large amount of mineralogical exhibits and fossils. His last trip to Europe was in 1851 when he visited the great international exhibition in England. Here he traveled on to Belgium, Holland, Germany and France. He stayed in Paris for a month, where his brother William settled for a few years. After his three trips to Europe, he moved his residence together with his brother Rathnell in the spring of 1841 from New London Township to near Newark . In spite of this, he kept a place to stay in Philadelphia, which he also frequented.

According to the motto do not talk , he did not document his travels. Shaped by his preference for geology, he saw the natural sciences as a complex complete work in which the individual research directions contribute to the understanding of the formation of our planet. That is why he put all of his talent, time and income into science. So he tirelessly and generously took care of the establishment of new institutions, collections in the libraries and natural history objects. His generous donations helped many young scientists in their careers. The main institutions Wilson founded were the Academy of Natural Sciences and Entomological Society of Philadelphia . The former was founded in 1812 by a handful of men. The buildings, the scientific libraries and the magnificent natural history collections came predominantly from William Maclure (1763-1840) and Wilson.

When the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, founded by Maclure in 1817, was incorporated into Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1841 , it was Wilson, William Sansom Vaux (1811-1882), Walter Rogers Johnson (1794-1852), Samuel Ashmead and William Gambel , who from 1847 published a second series of the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . Wilson contributed more than 12,000 publications to the library, and his brother Edward another 3,662 copies. The library, built through Maclure's initiative and donations, was expanded with Wilson's donations in 1847 and 1853. The Academy Museum was built largely from the gifts of Wilson with the assistance of his brother Edward. His bird collection was initially only accessible to members of the Academy until it was open to the public on March 20, 1860. Together with John Cassin he presented in 1863 with Primalia a third category at the highest level of classification Reich , which previously only contained the categories Animalia and Plantae .

In the period from April 25 to May 14, 1839, the auction house of Louis Catherine Silvestre (1792–1867) sold his book collection. In 1846 a catalog was published by the auctioneer Émile Maciet, who announced the sale of the bird collection of François Victor Masséna (1799–1863) in his gallery at 98 rue de Lille from June 8th to 25th. The entire collection was bought by Wilson for the Academy of Natural Sciences. During the auction, Wilson visited his brother Edward in London and through his agency came into contact with well-known taxidermists in the city. So Wilson asked John Edward Gray about worthwhile objects. This recommended him u. a. the Massénas collection. Since Gray was traveling to Paris anyway, he agreed to negotiate with Massena. The deal was closed within a day without major negotiations and Gray bought the entire Vogel collection for 50,000 francs. Since Gray still had some time, he then visited his old friend Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville . Here he learned that the French government was planning to buy the valuable collection that had been on the market for some time. By then it was too late. Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal on the business on November 21, 1854, on a visit to the Academy:

"... was bought by a Yankee ... past all crowned heads of Europe."

In his documentation of the collections of the Academy in Philadelphia, William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger (1813–1869) shows how many exhibits were donated by Wilson and his brothers Edward, William Savory and Charles. Adolphe Delattre's bird collection may have been bought for his brother by William Savory, who was then living in Paris. About a hundred mammals that Bonaparte in his work Iconografia della fauna italica: per le quattro classi degli animali vertebrati ended up in the museum of the Academy through Wilson. Wilson also donated an albino of the white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ). Furthermore, the collection of the Australian birds of John Gould , a collection of parrots and tangerines by Jules Bourcier , the North American collections of Cassin and William Gambel (1823-1849) were bought by Wilson. Finally, through his brother Edward's agency, he acquired other bellows collections from Coenraad Jacob Temminck from Leiden and the Natural History Museum . 1851 bought 2000 bird exhibits from taxidermist John Krider (before 1838-ca. 1878). In December 1848, Marc Athanase bought the entire egg collection from Parfait Œillet Des Murs . He acquired an important collection of Indian birds from Captain William John Edward Boy (1809-1854). Naturally, natural produce dealers such as Verreaux and John Graham Bell (1812–1899) were also among his suppliers. In the field of crustaceans , he bought exhibits from Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville in 1851 . He carried his paleontological collection a. a. by Richard Cowling Taylor (1789-1851), Timothy Abbott Conrad (1803-1877), Samuel George Morton (1799-1851), by Édouard Verreaux and Charles T. Budd .

In 1860 he gave up his post on the Academy committee in a letter, since he had already had two arsenic poisonings , a chemical that was popular at the time for preparing bellows, and mentions an African collection by Paul Belloni Du Chaillu (1835-1903), which initially included a few Things need to be clarified.

On February 14, 1859 it was James Ridings (1803-1880), George Newman , Ezra Townsend Cresson (1838-1926) who invited to the founding meeting of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia . Wilson was among the 15 members who met on February 22 for this reason.

On March 18, 1865, he was buried in South Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Dedication names

In 1847 John Cassin (1813–1869) honored him when he gave the name to the Kuba-Langschnabelweih , which he described as Cymindis Wilsonii and which is now in the genus Chondrohierax . The name of the brown Andean hummingbird ( Coeligena wilsoni ) was also dedicated to it in 1847 by Adolphe Delattre and Jules Bourcier. Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte (1803-1857) named the gray-ragged bird Callaeas wilsoni in 1850 , because the type specimen came from Wilson's Museum. Even James Asbury Ogden (1848-1879) honored him in 1875 in Ptiloris wilsonii . The type specimen came from the collection of Masséna and had legs of a different species, so that Ogden revised his original analysis and considered the name as a synonym for the sickle-tailed bird of paradise ( Cicinnurus magnificus ).

Augustus Radcliffe Grote (1841–1903) described in 1867 a butterfly called Xerociris wilsonii which he dedicated to Wilson.

Robert Wilson Gibbes (1809–1866) named a shark fossil Oxyrhina Wilsonii in 1849 , a name that is now synonymous with Cosmopolitodus wilsonii . Timothy Abbott Conrad (1809–1866) honored him in 1847 in the fossil snail species Turbinella wilsoni .

Fonts (selection)

• with John Cassin: On a Third Kingdom of Organized Beings . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 15 , 1863, p. 113-121 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).

literature

• Jacob Ennis, James HB Bland, J. Frank Knight: A memoir of Thomas Bellerby Wilson, MD, Prepared in pursuance of a resolution of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia . The Entomological Society, Philadelphia 1865 ( online ).
• Witmer Stone: Thomas B. Wilson, MD In: Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club.- 'Cassinia' . No. 13 , 1909, pp. 1–6 ( online (PDF; 2.1 MB)).
• Witmer Stone: Some Philadelphia ornithological collections and collectors, 1784-1850 . In: The Auk . tape 16 , no. 2 , 1899, pp. 166–177 ( online (PDF; 539 kB)).
• Edward James Nolan: Report of the Librarian . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 53 , no. 3 , 1901, pp. 752-765 ( online ).
• John Cassin: Description of a new rapacious Bird in the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 3 , no. 3 , 1847, p. 199-200 ( online ).
• Pierre Adolphe Delattre, Jules Bourcier: Description de quinze espèce nouvelle de Trochilidèe, faisant partie de collections rapportées par M. Ad. De Lattre dont le précédentes excursions ont déjà enrichi plusieurs branches de L'histoire naturelle, et provenant de L'intérieur de Pérou, de républiques de l'Équateur, de la Nouvelle-Grenade et del'isthme de Panama . In: Revue Zoologique par La Société Cuvierienne . tape 6 , 1846, pp. 305-312 (on- line ).
• Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte: Conspectus generum avium . tape 1 . EJ Brill, Leiden 1850 ( online ).
• James Asbury Ogden: Description of a new species of bird of paradise of the genus Ptiloris, in the collection of the Academy . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 27 , 1875, p. 451, plate 25 ( online ).
• James Asbury Ogden: Remarks on Ptiloris Wilsonii . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 28 , 1876, p. 182 ( online ).
• Robert Wilson Gibbes: Monograph of the Fossil Squalida of the United States . In: Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 1 , no. 3 , 1849, p. 191-203 ( online ).
• Timothy Abbott Conrad: The Committee on Mr. Conrad's paer, read 12th inst, reported in favor of publication in the Proceedings . In: Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . tape 3 , 1847, p. 280-299 ( online ).
• Augustus Radcliffe Grote: Asdditions to the Catlogue of US Lepidoptera . In: Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia . tape 2 , 1863, p. 64-68 ( online ).
• Regnard: Catalog des livres rares de la bibliothèque de M. le P. d'Essling, Don la vente se fera le jeudi 25 avril 1839, et les dix-neuf jours suivant, à six heures de relevée. rue des Bons-Enfants, n. 30, maison Silvestre, salle du premier. Silvestre, Paris 1839 ( online ).
• Émile Maciet: Catalog de la magnifique collection d'oiseaux de M. le Prince d'Essling, duc de Rivoli: dont la vente aura lieu aux enchères publiques dans sa galerie, rue de Lille 98, le 8 Juin 1846 jusqu'au 25 du même mois et jours suivants, s'il ya lieu, a midi précis . Imprimerie Schneider et Langrand, Paris 1846 ( online ).
• Henry David Thoreau: November, 1854 . In: The Journal . tape 7 , no. 3 , 1854, p. 68-77 ( online (PDF; 449 kB)).
• William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger: A notice of the origin, progress, and present condition of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia . TK and PG Collins, Philadelphia 1852 ( online ).
• Frédéric de Lafresnaye: Quelques oiseaux nouveaux ou rares rapportés par M. Delatre, de Bolivie, de la Nouvelle-Grenade, et de Panama, par M. de Lafresnaye . In: Revue zoologique par la Société cuviérienne . tape 10 , 1847, p. 67-79 ( online ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Jacob Ennis u. a., p. 1.
2. ↑ A Cheltenham Childhood: 1872-1891 ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2016 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. 
3. ^ Wilson Family Papers
4. ^ Edward James Nolan, p. 759.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Jacob Ennis u. a., p. 2.
6. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 3.
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Jacob Ennis u. a., p. 4.
8. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 5.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Jacob Ennis u. a., p. 6.
10. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 7.
11. ^ Publication Committee in Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
12. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 9.
13. ↑ John Cassin et al. a. (1863), pp. 113-121.
14. ^ Regnard (1839)
15. ↑ Emile Maciet (1846)
16. ^ Witmer Stone (1899), pp. 174ff.
17. ^ Witmer Stone, p. 175.
18. ^ Henry David Thoreau, p. 74.
19. ↑ Frédéric de Lafresnaye, p. 67
20. ^ William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, p. 18.
21. ^ William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, p. 20.
22. ^ William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, p. 21.
23. ^ Witmer Stone (1909), p. 5.
24. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 10.
25. ^ William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, p. 27.
26. ^ William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger, p. 38.
27. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 11.
28. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 14.
29. ^ Jacob Ennis et al. a., p. 37.
30. ^ John Cassin, p. 200.
31. ↑ Adolphe Delattre et al., P. 306.
32. ^ Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, p. 368.
33. ↑ James Asbury Ogden (1875), p. 451.
34. ↑ James Asbury Ogden (1876), p. 182.
35. ^ Augustus Radcliffe Grote, p. 66.
36. ^ Robert Wilson Gibbes, p. 203.
37. ↑ Timothy Abbott Conrad, p. 290.