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| Skylark - its song brought cheer to many serving in the trenches on the Front Line |
GROWING up in Scotland at the start of the twentieth century, close
pals Arthur Landsborough Thomson, Arthur Davidson and Lewis
Ramsay were ardent birdwatchers.
All three lived in Aberdeen, and Thomson and Davidson both
attended the Grammar School, while Ramsay met up with them on
holiday when he returned from Merchiston School in Edinburgh.
As boys they explored, on foot or cycle, the wildlife-rich countryside
of the Ythan Estuary and Royal Deeside.
Landsborough Thomson went on to become an undergraduate at the
University of Aberdeen where he established Britain’s first co-
ordinated bird-ringing scheme.
Davidson and Ramsay were only too keen to become involved, and,
on May 8, 1909, the first birds to be ringed by the trio were six
young lapwings at the Sands of Forvie in Aberdeenshire, plus a
starling at Inverurie by an older associate, Thomas Tait.
Herring gulls became of particular interest, and the teenagers would
use their acetylene cycle-lamps to dazzle and trap them.
One bird, ringed on October 3, 1910, was caught, on May 20 the
following year, by a farmer working in a turnip field on the Orkney
island of Burray.
The incident was deemed sufficiently newsworthy
to be reported in the Aberdeen Free Press in its edition of May 26,
1911.
When war broke out on July 28, 1914, Davidson and Ramsey were
24 while Thomson was only 23.
According to Alan Knox who, much later, wrote an article about the
trio for the journal British Birds, they had had six other friends who
studied wildlife in and around Aberdeen.
Of the nine who signed up to fight for King and Country in 1914,
only Landsborough Thomson was to survive the war.
There must have been hundreds more similar instances all over
Europe - on both sides of the conflict - of friends who grew up
together and who had watched and recorded birds and their
behaviour.
Tragically, many never returned from the battlefield.
In some cemeteries, Germans and Allied soldiers rest close together,
united again in death as they might have been in life had it not been
for the dislocation caused by the war.
Among those that fell are doubtless hundreds of scientists, spare-time
naturalists and literary or artistic figures who had been forced on to
opposing sides, thence to have had their plans and careers - and all
too often their lives - destroyed by the conflict.
How cruel the irony that those who fell were fighting in an
environment which, in peacetime, would have provided the very
habitats for them to pursue their enjoyment of birdwatching.
Remembered below are 21 of these gallant soldiers.
All apart from one were officers.
Some were members of the peerage, and one had served in a front-
bench role in government
It is a reflection of what was then a far more hierarchical and class-
divided society that, unfairly, the lives off those lower on the social
ladder have, with few exceptions, gone unrecorded.
Several of those listed must have been men of significant financial
means because, before the war, they had participated in wide-
ranging voyages of exploration and discovery.
The list includes the writer, Edward Thomas, who was
commemorated by his friend and fellow-poet, William “W.H.”
Davies, in this extract from Killed In Action (Edward Thomas):
Happy the man whose home is still
In Nature's green and peaceful ways;
To wake and hear the birds so loud,
That scream for joy to see the sun
Is shouldering past a sullen cloud.
But thou, my friend, art lying dead:
War, with its hell-born childishness,
Has claimed thy life, with many more:
The man that loved this England well,
And never left it once before.
***
Sydney Edward Brock
Captain, 10th Cyclist Battalion, Royal Scots
Aged 34. On November 11,1918.
A tenant farmer, of Kirkliston, Linlithgowshire, he was awarded the
Military Cross for most conspicuous gallantry at the bridgehead at
Cuerne on October 17, 1918.
According to the London Gazette, he had led part of his company
over the bridge, under heavy enemy fire, displaying great coolness
and setting a most inspiring example to his men.
Alas, he was severely wounded and died in a military hospital in
Aberdeen, from the effects of his wounds, on November 11, the day
on which hostilities ceased.
Although chiefly interested in birdlife, he had acquired considerable
knowledge of some of the lesser known groups of insects. Most of
his contributions to science appeared in the Annals of Scottish
Natural History from 1906 onward, but he also wrote for the
Zoologist, and the volume for 1910 contains his observations on the
fledging periods of birds plus an article entitled The Willow-Wrens
of a Lothian Wood. While in France, he recorded the birds of the
Peronne.
Place of rest: Kirkliston Burial Ground, Lothian, Scotland.
***
George Wyman Bury
Lieutenant, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
Aged 46. On September 23, 1920.
Bury was educated firstly at the grammar school in Atherstone,
Warwickshire, then by tutors ("Army crammers") who specialised in
preparing students for the examinations that were part of Army
Officer Selection.
As a naturalist and explorer of Arabia, Bury took part in zoological
expeditions to Somaliland, to the southern Arabian peninsular and to
the Yemen highlands.
He was in special service in Egypt in 1914 and
served on the intelligence staff on the Suez Canal front in 1915.
He became an officer in the Red Sea Northern Patrol and, in 1915,
was given the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.
In the first half of 1916, he participated in naval operations along the
Arabian coast.
He met his future wife, Florence Ann Marshall, in 1911, when he
was a tuberculosis patient in Westminster Hospital and she was his
nurse.
On 19 June, 1913, they married in Hodeida, Yemen.
In July, 1916, he was sent on convalescent leave to live in Cairo
under the care of his wife.
At the end of World War I, Bury and his wife went to live in
Helwan, Egypt, where he died in 1920 from TB
As a result of his pioneering work as an ornithologist, Bury gave his
name to the Yemen warbler (Sylvia buryi), southern grey shrike
(Lanius meridionalis buryi), streaked scrub warbler (Scotocera
buryi), buff-spotted flufftail (Sarothrura elegans buryi) and a reptile,
Bury’s worm snake (Leptotyphlops buryi).
Place of rest: Cairo New British Protestant Cemetery.
***
Hugh Vaughn Charlton
2nd Lieutenant, 7th Battalion, Northumberland
Fusiliers.
Aged 32. On June 24, 2016.
Educated at Armstrong College in Newcastle, it was here that he
joined the Officer Training Corps. He enlisted in August,1915, and
left for France on March 13,1916.
He was killed by a bomb from a trench mortar near Wytschaete,
Belgium, just a week before the death of his younger brother,
Captain John McFarlan Charlton.
Hugh was born in London in 1884 and moved to the North-east in
1901 with his family where he followed in his father’s footsteps by
becoming a skilled naturalist and artist, focusing on birds.
In 1912 his work was exhibited in the Royal Academy.
Place of rest: La Laiterie Military Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium.
***
John MacFarlan Charlton
Captain, 21st Northumberland Fusiliers
Aged 25. On July 1, 1916
Charlton was killed by a shot through the head near La Boiselle on
the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
John had enlisted in October 1914, and, following training, he and
the rest of his battalion left for France in early 1916.
The Northumberland Fusiliers aided the attack on La Boiselle, a
village near Amiens which became a crucial backdrop as part of the
Battle of the Somme.
He successfully assisted in the capture of the 1st and 2nd lines of
German trenches and was soon to lead the advance on the 3rd line at
7.30am on July 1,1916.
After leading his men over the top in the face of heavy fire from the
Bavarian Infantry Regiment, his party became temporarily stuck in a
crater which provided cover.
When they resumed the advance later, Charlton and many of his
battalion lost their lives.
His final words to a colleague were: "For God’s sake, push on, I’m
done."
On November 13, 1917 John was Mentioned in Dispatches
acknowledging his sacrifice at the Somme.
There is a Charlton family grave/headstone in St Cuthbert’s
churchyard in Cleveland, plus memorials to John and his brother,
Hugh, at Lanercost Priory, Cumbria, and at Old Jesmond Cemetery
in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Born in London in 1891, John had relocated to the North-east of
England in 1901 with his family. Aged 12, he was awarded a special
commendation in the Natural History Society of Northumberland,
Durham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Hancock Prize competition for
his essay entitled A Trip to The Farnes in 1903.
He went on to become both an excellent ornithologist and a skilled
taxidermist.
As well as contributing to the journal, British Birds, he was author of
a pamphlet, Birds of South-east Northumberland, published in 1912,
and an article, Notes on Norwegian Birds, which was published in 1913.
Place of commemoration: Thiepval Memorial, northern France.
***
Arthur Gerrard Davidson
Lieutenant, Royal Flying Corps
Aged 27. On September 9,1917.
At the start of war, Davidson went to France as a private in the
Gordon Highlanders and rose to sergeant before gaining a
commission.
After fresh training, he returned to France in April 1917 as a pilot in
the Royal Flying Corps, losing his life, as did his observer, when
their open-cockpit aeroplane was shot down in a dogfight with four
German planes.
Davidson was the son of an Aberdeen master clothier who, after
attending the city’s grammar school, worked for several years in his
father’s shop before transferring to a similar establishment in
London.
He was a less academically-minded birdwatching pal of Arthur
Landsborough Thomson and Lewis Ramsay, contributing to their
pioneering ringing activities in Aberdeenshire.
Place of rest: Zuydcoote Military Cemetery near Dunkirk.
***
Eric B. Dunlop
2nd Lieutenant, 5th Battalion Border Regiment
Aged 30. On May 19, 1917.
A native of Troutbeck, near Windermere in the Lake District,
Dunlop enlisted in the 78th Canadian Grenadiers in 1915 while in
Canada, but, on arrival in England in 1917, he transferred to the
Border Regiment.
He had been in France barely a month before his death.
Educated at schools in Rugby and Carlisle, he became a boyhood
expert on the distribution and behaviour within Cumbria of the
buzzard, peregrine falcon and raven.
He also made a study of the roosting habits of corvidae which
indicated that all the British members of this avian group
congregated for roosting at certain seasons.
At the outbreak of the war, he had been engaged
upon a study of the nesting habits of the birds of
northern Manitoba in Canada.
Place of commemoration: Arras Memorial, France.
***
John ‘Jack’ Dighton Grafton-Wignall
Captain, 82nd Punjabis
Aged 29. Killed in action in the historic region of South-western
Asia, then known as Mesopotamia (now Iraq), on January 26, 1917.
After having been educated at Clifton College, Bristol, he entered
Sandhurst and served in India before being transferred to
Mesopotamia (now Iraq).
A fine boxer and mountaineer, he had been interested in birds since
boyhood, and, even by the age of 19, had expertise on certain
species, among them being buzzard, peregrine, raven, chough,
woodlark, Dartford warbler and water rail.
In his 20s, the list grew to include Kentish plover, stone curlew,
short-eared owl and more.
Fellow-ornithologists were astonished at his ability to detect a
camouflaged woodcock on a nest or a clutch of eggs on a shingle
beach.
Place of commemoration: Basra Memorial, Iraq.
***
Leonard Gray
Captain, 5th Battalion Essex Regiment
Aged 45. On July 31,1917, while on active service
at Alexandria in Egypt.
The member of a prominent family of Chelmsford in Essex, he was
educated at Eastbourne in Sussex, then at Oxford University after
which he pursued a career as a solicitor.
He gained an officer’s commission in October 1915 and, a year later,
arrived in Gallipoli to join his battalion in their struggle against the
Turks.
He suffered ill-health from November, 1915, and eventually died in
Egypt, in July 1917, having survived the first two Battles of Gaza.
An occasional contributor to British Birds, he was particularly
interested in birds’ nests, and, at a time when the activity was still
legal, he collected eggs, frequently visiting Scotland to add to his
collection.
From time to time, he contributed news items - for instance, on the
nesting behaviour of lesser redpolls and crossbills.
Gray bequeathed his collection of eggs and the cabinets containing
them to the corporation museum at Chelmsford, though it is not
clear from the records whether they were of sufficient interest
to have been accepted.
He practised as a solicitor in his hometown, Chelmsford, and the
practice that bears his name still flourishes as a law firm and estate
agents.
Place of commemoration: Alexandria/Hadra Memorial Cemetery,
Egypt
***
Herbert Hastings Harington
Lieutenant-Colonel, 62nd Punjabis
Aged 48. On March 8, 1916, in Mesopotamia while leading
his regiment into action.
Born at Lucknow in northern India and educated at Malvern,
he served in Burma for more than 20 years, for five of which he
was attached to the Burmese Police.
In February, 1916, he was posted to the command of the
62nd Punjabis, and it was while leading this regiment into action
that he was killed.
It had been while in Burma that Harington really took up
ornithology seriously, and his first bird articles, written for the
Rangoon Gazette, were subsequently to provide much of the text for
his book, Birds of Burma, which was published in 1909.
Species named after him include Indian sport-billed duck (Anas
poecilorhyncha haringtoni); dark grey bush-chat (Oreicola ferrea
haringtoni) and rusty-cheeked scimitar babbler (Pomatorhinus
erythrogenys haringtoni).
Place of commemoration: Basra Memorial, Iraq.
***
Auberon Thomas Herbert, 9th Baron Lucas and 5th Lord
Dingwall
Captain, Royal Flying Corps
Aged 40. On 3 November, 1916, after having been wounded in
the head by bullets from a German fighter aircraft during a flight
over enemy lines.
Educated at Bedford School and Balliol College, Oxford, he became
a Liberal politician and served in 1914-15, as President of the Board
of Agriculture, in Asquith’s Cabinet.
He had previously lost a leg after having been wounded while
working as a war correspondent during the South African War, 1899-
1902.
A member of the British Ornithologists' Union and a keen bird
ringer, his early interest in wildlife had doubtless been encouraged
by his father, also a politician, who had been at the forefront of the
passing of the 1872 Protection of Wild Birds Act.
Place of commemoration: H.A.C. (Honourable Artillery Company)
Cemetery, Ecoust-Saint-Mein, France.
***
Boyd Horsbrugh
Lieutenant-Colonel, Armed Service Corps.
Aged 45. On July 11, 1916. Wounded during the Battle of Loos in
November, 2015, he was invalided home that month and underwent
an operation from which he never recovered.
Educated at Wellington College and Sandhurst, he joined the
Warwickshire Regiment in 1893 and served for two years in Ceylon,
subsequently transferring to the Army Service Corps.
He saw active service during the Sierra Leone Rebellion, 1898-99,
and in the South African War, 1899-1902.
He wrote Game Birds and Waterfowl of South Africa and gave his
name to the red-necked falcon (Falco chicquera horsbrughi).
An aviculturalist as well as an ornithologist, the ponds at
his Tandridge Priory home in Oxted, Surrey, contained ducks and
geese including some rarer species from America. species.
His aviaries accommodated exotic foreign species, including
minivets and sunbirds, imported from India and other countries.
Place of rest: Tandridge Churchyard, Surrey.
***
Wyndham Knatchbull-Hugessen, 3rd Baron Brabourne
Lieutenant, Special Reserve, attached to 1st Battalion Grenadier
Guards.
Aged 30. On March 12, 1915, he was killed in action at Neuve
Chapelle in France.
Co-author of Birds of South America with Charles Hubb, Henrik
Gronvold and H. Kirke Swann, he gave his name to a species of
hummingbird, Brabourne’s emerald (Agyrtrina versicolor brabourni)
Place of commemoration: Le Touret Memorial, France
***
The Hon Gerald Legge, Earl of Dartmouth
7th Battalion, South Staffs Regiment
Aged 33. On September 9,1915, he was fatally wounded at Suvla
Bay on the Aegean coast of Gallipoli peninsula.
In an appreciation in The Field magazine, his friend and fellow-
naturalist, John Millais wrote: "He was last seen lying mortally
wounded on the ground, and cheering on the men of whom he was
so proud."
As well as being an ornithologist, Legge was an aviculturist, his
special interest being in wildfowl of which he had a collection at
Patshull, his father's seat in Staffordshire.
Another friend, J. R. B Masefield, wrote: "As an instance of his
keenness in studying ducks, I may relate that one day when I met
him at Patshull, he had just arrived from Northumberland, whence
he had brought a nest of teal just hatching out.
"By telegraphing forward to several railway stations en route he had
secured a relay of hot-water bottles by means of which he had
succeeded in keeping the ducklings warm."
Legge was a member of the British Museum expedition under
Richard Woosnam (see below) which explored with much success
the Ruwenzori in 1906,while, in 1909, he again went to Africa with
Woosnam to explore the Kalahari Desert.
During both expeditions, valuable collections of birds were made.
He gave his name to the short-tailed pipit (Anthus brachyurus
leggei).
***
Alfred Stanley Marsh
Captain, 8th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry
Aged 24. On January 5, 1916, when he was shot through the heart
by a sniper’s bullet in the trenches of Armentieres.
Brought up in Blacknell, near Crewkerne, in Somerset, he was
author of an article, Maritime Ecology of Holme-next-Sea, Norfolk,
that had been published in a 1915 edition of the Journal of Ecology.
His map-reading and landscape survey skills, particularly in relation
to saltmarsh and sand dune surveys, proved highly useful in
his wartime work as an infantry officer.
Place of rest: Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, France.
***
Francis Algernon Monckton
Lieutenant, Ist Battalion, Scots Guards
Aged 24. Killed in action on November 8, 1914.
The eldest son of Francis Monckton, of Stretton Hall, Stafford, he
was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.
Around his rural home, he made the most of opportunities to study
the local birds, especially the wildfowl on the lake in Stretton Park,
on the River Penk and a large sheet of water known as Bellfield's
reservoir, now known as Belvide’s reservoir.
The area was noted for lying on a significant flightline of wintering
migrants coming in from the East Coast to the South-west.
From the age of 16, Monckton annually contributed valuable notes
on the birds of Staffordshire which appeared in the Transactions of
the North Staffordshire Field Club.
In a letter dated October 22, 1914, from St. Nazaire, at the mouth of
the Loire, where he was quartered before going to the Front, he
wrote to a friend: "Both pied and white wagtails are common here
now, while grey wagtails are scattered about in small numbers.
"Rooks, jackdaws and starlings are rare here, but have been coming
over in small flocks during the last few days.
"Stonechats seem to be sparsely distributed. Chiffchaffs are
swarming everywhere, and often sing in the early morning, but I
have been struck by the absence of other warblers.
"When I was here in August, I saw a few whitethroats, but this
month I have not seen one, nor any blackcaps.
"Robins, hedge sparrows, and wrens are common, and the robins
seem to have increased in numbers recently.
"Thrushes are mostly conspicuous by their absence.
"Blackbirds were uncommon until October 17 after which date they
have become more and more numerous in the gardens along the
cliffs.
"On several nights, I have heard them passing over.
"Chaffinches struck me as being very uncommon up till the 17th,
since when they have arrived in great numbers.
"On that date, there was a great rush of birds. I was out about
7.15am, and the migration seemed to reach its height about 8am, but
had practically stopped by 10.30 a.m.
"It was a cold, overcast, hazy morning, with a fresh north-easterly.
"The birds were flying up the river along the shore. They mostly
passed straight on, but some dropped out here and there.
"The vast majority seemed to be chaffinches, linnets, skylarks and
goldfinches, with a certain number of meadow pipits.
"There were also a few rooks, jackdaws, swallows, martins and
wagtails.
"As the birds were mostly passing overhead and in dull light, it was
difficult to distinguish species.
"On the 18th, I had not much opportunity of watching, but I think
there was a slight migration because I saw parties of blue tits,
starlings and swallows.
"Skylarks and thrushes of some sort were passing over during the
night, 17th-18th.
"On the 19th, the east wind still continued, and there was a
remarkable rush of birds in the morning, dying away about 9 am,
though birds were still coming in at 10.30 am.
"The vast majority of birds seemed to be chaffinches, linnets,
skylarks and meadow pipits.
"Many flocks of blue tits were also coming in, but I saw only one
great tit arriving though both these species seem common about
here.
"Many goldfinches, wagtails and starlings were coming in along
with three flocks of rooks, 12 jackdaws, five stock doves, and a very
few swallows and martins.
"On the 20th there was another strong migration, though hardly so
many birds as on the day before.
"Mostly they were chaffinches, linnets, skylarks and goldfinches, but
not so many meadow pipits, plus a few rooks, starlings, swallows,
martins and mistle thrushes, plus one redwing (or possibly a song
thrush), a wheatear, a merlin and a good many blue tits.
"On Wednesday the 21st, I saw a wheatear, and I think there was a
slight migration, but it was difficult to tell owing to the fog.
"Today (22nd), all migration seems to have stopped."
Place of commemoration: Menin Gate Memorial in Begium
***
Henry Edward Otto Murray Dixon
2nd Lieutenant, 4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders
Aged 32. On April 10,1917 in Vimy, France the day after having
been wounded during an attack on Vimy Ridge.
Born in Swithland, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, he was a
keen naturalist and artist whose work had been influenced Archibald
Thorburn. However, his colours tended to be stronger.
He was one of four artists who contributed plates to J.G. Millais'
British Diving Ducks, published in 1913.
Place of rest: Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension, France.
***
Lewis Neil Griffith Ramsay
2nd Lieutenant, 3rd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders
Aged 25. On March 21, 1915, he fell to a sniper’s bullet while
repairing a trench on territory taken from the Germans.
Ramsay had fought through the 1914-15 winter in France, surviving
the short battle of Neuve Chapelle on March 10-12, the first set-
piece offensive from static trenches.
The second son of Prof Sir William M. Ramsay, he was born in
Aberdeen and educated at Merchiston School, Edinburgh, afterwards
studying at Aberdeen University and later at Christ's College,
Cambridge, then at the Imperial College of Science.
A birdwatcher from an early age, Ramsay had travelled extensively,
notably to Asia Minor in summer,1907, making collections not only
of birds but also of mammals, insects and wild flowers.
He also wrote up the research of the birdlife encountered on William
Speirs Bruce’s Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-04).
In an obituary written for British Birds, his friend and fellow-
naturalist, Arthur Landsborough Thomson, wrote: "He was
conspicuous for the enthusiasm which he displayed in everything he
took up, whether scientific work, hill-climbing, or athletics."
His scientific papers on birds in his native Aberdeenshire included
studies of garganey, gadwall, blue-headed wagtail, spotted redshank,
mealy redpoll, grasshopper warbler and herring gull (with particular
reference to its moult).
He also wrote Observations on Bird-Life on the Anatolian Plateau
during the Summer of 1907.
Place of rest: Estaires Communal Cemetery, northern France.
***
George Stout
Private, 93rd Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps
Aged 28. On November 3, 1916.
Born in Dunrossness, Shetland, and the son of a crofter, Stout was a
taxidermist as well as an ornithologist.
During a spell working at Fair Isle Bird Observatory, he is credited
with having added two species to the list of British avifauna - red-
rumped swallow (1905) and Eastern short-toed lark (1904).
Place of rest: Coiuin British Cemetery, France
***
Philip Edward Thomas
2nd Lieutenant, Royal Garrison Artillery
Aged 39. Killed in Action in the Battle of Arras in April, 1917, soon
after he arrived in France.
To spare the feelings of his widow Helen, by whom he had a son and
two daughters, it was said that Thomas had been killed by the
concussive blast wave of a shell fired as he stood to light his pipe
and that there had been no mark on his body.
However, a letter from his commanding officer Franklin Lushington,
written in 1936, states that in reality the cause of Thomas' death was
due to being "shot clean through the chest".
The son of civil service clerk, Thomas was born of Welsh descent in
Lambeth, South London and educated at Battersea Grammar School
and St Paul’s School, both in London, then Lincoln College, Oxford,
where History was his degree subject.
In June, 1899, he married Helen while still an undergraduate, and
determined to live his life by the pen. He worked as a literary critic,
reviewing up to 15 books every week, but subsequently made his
name as a poet, initially publishing under the name Edward
Eastaway.
His observations on birds featured in several works, including the
famous, Adlestrop and The|Thrush and The Owl which includes the
lines:
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
Place of rest: Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, Agny, France.
***
C.H.T Whitehead
Major, 56th Punjab Rifles
Aged 34. on September 26,1915. Killed in Action in France.
Whitehead fell leading his men in a charge, being shot
dead on the very parapet of an enemy's trench which
had been taken.
At the time of his death, he was attached
to the Highland Light Infantry, but his own regiment was the 56th
Punjab Rifles.
One of seven sons, of Deighton Grove, York, Whitehead had served
in the 1899-1902 South African War.
Prior to the 19114-18 war, he had explored the birds North-west
India and was author of a book, Birds of Kohat and Kurram,
Northern India, which was published in 1909.
The western Alpine thrush (Zoothera mollissima whiteheadi), which
he discovered, was named after him.
In a tribute, published in British Birds, his friend and fellow-
naturalist, Stuart Baker wrote: “Whitehead was a
singularly charming character, intensely earnest in everything he
did, persevering and thorough in all his work.
"Among other interesting discoveries he made were the breeding-
haunts in the Himalayas of the Chinese reed warbler."
Place of commemoration: Neuve Chappelle Memorial, France.
***
Richard Bowen Woosnam
Second-Lieutenant, 6th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment
Aged 35. On June 4, 915. Killed while leading his men in an attack on the Turkish trenches in Gallipoli.
The only son of the late Mr and Mrs Bowen R. Woosnam, of Tyn-y-
graig, near Builth Wells, Woosnam had fought throughout the South
African War (1899-1902) but resigned his commission in order to
pursue his interest in natural history.
A collecting trip in Cape Colony in 1903 was followed, in 1905, by
an extensive journey through-western Persia and Armenia where he
collected both birds and mammals.
In the following year, he led an expedition to Ruwenzori, then again
to Persia, this time to the Elburz Mountains.
In 1909, he returned to Africa to explore the Kalahari Desert with
one of his Ruwenzori companions, Gerald Legge (see above).
In 1910, Woosnam was appointed game-warden in British East
Africa, but, following the outbreak of war, returned to England in
order to rejoin his old regiment, the Worcesters.
All the collections he had made were donated to the British
Museum, and accounts of the birds with his field-notes have
appeared in various volumes of the journal, Ibis.
Following his death, three newspapers - the Brecon Radnor Express,
Carmarthen and Swansea Valley Gazette and Brynmawr District
Advertiser - published his obituary, under the heading Gallant Builth
Soldier Dies for Country’s Honour.
Woosnam gave his name to various birds including trilling cisticola
(Cisticola woosnami), fire-crested slete (Alethe castanea woosnami)
and red-tailed bristlerbill (Bleda syndactylus woosnami).
A fish (Synodontis woosnami), commonly known as the bubblebarb
squeaker, is also named after him.
Place of commemoration: Helles Memorial, Turkey.
 |
| Lives cut short - many birdwatchers were among those who fell in battle |
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