The RW Chase Collection of British Birds
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BIRMINGHAM MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERY Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 1 - The R W Chase Collection of British Birds Phil Watson © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Version 1.0 December 2010 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 1 - The R W Chase Collection of British Birds Introduction Robert William Chase (1852-1927) owned a brush making business based in Upper Dean Street, Birmingham and lived variously at Edgbaston, Poole Hall Wishaw, St. Brelade’s in King’s Norton and Bewdley. He was a philanthropist interested in children’s education and served as vice- chairman of the Blue Coat School board of governors and chairman of the Fentham Trust which supported some children attending the school. He was an extremely active member of the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society, both as a regular exhibitor and as an official (for example he was President for the years 1885-1886, 1899, 1905-1907 and Treasurer for 1892-1894). Typical of the enquiring Victorian naturalist, he amassed a large collection of British birds, numbering over 1300 specimens, representing 273 species, and several thousand eggs and nests. When the collection grew too big for his then current house parts of it were stored at his factory premises. Some of his collection was put on loan with Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1910 and these specimens were on show during the British Association meeting in Birmingham in 1913; Chase contributed the section on ornithology for the accompanying British Association Handbook. In June 1924 the whole collection was purchased by the Feeney Charitable Trust for just over £3,000 and presented to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Chase collected many specimens himself, especially in Norfolk, the Farne Isles and Pembrokeshire, often risking his own life and limb as well as brushes with the law to acquire specimens. He also received many gifts from friends and associates as well as purchasing specimens from dealers (for example Pratt & Sons, Brighton) and other contacts (such as G. Cooke, Shrewsbury and J. Evans of Bourne, Lincolnshire). He also made purchases at sales particularly from the mid 1880s to early 1890s leading to specimens from earlier collections entering his own (F. Raine, F. Bond, Edwin Bayliss, Cobourn and Vingoe for example). He employed the services of some of the best taxidermists available to mount or re-mount his specimens and over twenty are represented in his collection. These include well known Birmingham taxidermists such as Betteridge, Bloxham, Franklin and Spicer as well as those from further afield including Cullingford of Durham, Saville of Brighton and Jones in Bridlington. As with many late Victorian and Edwardian collectors Chase also had a go at mounting some specimens himself (usually larger species such as Eagle Owl, White-tailed Eagle and King Eider with the Little Auk, Ruff and Redshank being his smallest examples). Unfortunately many of his cases are neither signed nor have a comment in Chase’s catalogue so the taxidermist is unknown. Although a few study skins are present, the majority of his collection was mounted in cases. Small, plain cases were used mainly for small birds while larger plain cases often included branches. Among the best for detail are the semi-habitat cases although these also often only have a plain background. A large selection of fledglings were originally mounted under glass domes, many by Betteridge of Birmingham. Chase catalogued his collection in the order of the BOU List of British Birds for 1883, a practice which does not seem to have been followed by any of his contemporaries. This publication listed 452 species of which 76 were sufficiently rare to have been “included in square brackets, leaving 376 species as the ascertained number of British birds”. Chase selectively numbered the entries not in square brackets from 1 to 349, omitting some twenty seven species which he presumably felt were never likely to be obtained. He then entered these by hand into a hard bound book ready to add details of specimens as he acquired them rather like a train spotter’s list! Of this wish list of 349 species there were over seventy which Chase never managed to acquire. Some of these were obvious scarce, occasional visitors to Britain while others were common birds such as shags and cormorants. In other instances he had several varieties of common birds but no normal forms, for 1 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 1 - The R W Chase Collection of British Birds example the Song Thrush where his catalogue lists six varieties and is then annotated “normal forms wanted”. Rare Vagrants in his collection included the Hooded Merganser, Gull-billed Tern, Great Bustard, Little Bustard, Hen Harrier, Long-tailed duck and King Eider. His collection contained the only British example of Brandt’s (East) Siberian Meadow Bunting (Emberiza cioïdes) which he numbered 350 and which was admitted to the British List in 1948 on the basis of Chase’s specimen but removed again in the 1960s. As with many other contemporary collectors his aim seems to have been to acquire examples of males, females, juveniles, nestlings and varieties wherever possible. Provenances Out of a collection of over thirteen hundred specimens Chase recorded provenances for all but 89 of them, a mere 6.7%. The table below shows the distribution of these. England Notts 3 St Kilda 5 Bedfordshire 1 Shropshire 44 Wales Berkshire 13 Staffs 22 Anglesey 1 Cambs 6 Suffolk 12 Brecon 2 Cheshire 1 Sussex 49 Caernarvon 1 Cornwall 5 Warks 158 Cardigan 5 Cumberland 9 Worcs 69 Denbigh 22 Derbyshire 7 Yorks 55 Glamorgan 1 Devon 2 Scotland Merioneth 3 Dorset 1 Angus 1 Pembroke 26 Durham 43 Argyll 1 S. Wales 1 Essex 12 Caithness 15 Ireland Gloucs 6 East Lothian 4 Co Donegal 1 Hampshire 14 Inverness 10 Co Galway 2 Hereford 1 Isle of Lewis 19 Co Kerry 1 Huntingdon 1 Isle of Mull 1 Co Wicklow 7 Kent 9 Orkney 5 Ireland 1 Lancs 11 Perthshire 11 Misc Lincs 59 Ross 5 Guernsey 1 Norfolk 284 Scotland 1 Lundy 1 Northants 2 Selkirk 2 N. Britain 3 Northumb 173 Shetland 13 No data 89 The broad geographical spread of provenances, covering most of the British Isles, shows the wide range of contacts which Chase and other early collectors formed as well as the national scale of the trade in taxidermy specimens. The highest number of specimens comes from Norfolk, a hive of both early taxidermy and a good place for encountering waders and rare vagrants, as it remains today. The second highest total is from Northumberland and this, together with higher than average numbers from south Wales, equally reflect particularly active natural bird locations, obviously as big a draw to early collectors and traders in birds as they are to modern twitchers. On the other hand, birds from Sussex and Kent are fewer than one might expect and Chase does not seem to have fallen prey to the Hastings Rarities affair. The high concentrations from Warwickshire, Worcestershire and, to a lesser extent, Staffordshire reflect Chase’s local interest as does that from Shropshire although the latter may have been inflated by his relationship with Cooke of Shrewsbury. Also probably influenced by personal contact is another concentration from Durham 2 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 1 - The R W Chase Collection of British Birds where the taxidermist Cullingford was based, known to have been employed extensively by Chase, especially for what might be termed remedial work on his specimens. Date of Specimens Chase’s catalogue records the date when some 83% of the specimens were collected in the field (not necessarily the same as the date when Chase acquired them). If one excludes the kestrel, recorded as being “very old”, the oldest piece in his collection dates from 1837/38. Over half (55%) of the collection was collected during the fourteen year period 1878 to 1891. A breakdown of dates is given in the table below. Very old 1 1872 1 1891 32 1910 19 1837/38 1 1873 5 1892 3 1911 6 1840 1 1874 4 1893 6 1912 7 1841 2 1875 15 1894 32 1913 12 1843 1 1876 18 1895 4 1914 5 1851 1 1877 12 1896 3 1915 5 1852 4 1878 23 1897 12 1916 10 1853 1 1879 31 1898 11 1917 7 1854 4 1880 85 1899 18 1918 2 1856 5 1881 70 1900 21 1919 5 1857 1 1882 58 1901 13 1920 5 1858 5 1883 49 1902 3 1921 1 1860 2 1884 45 1903 4 1922 1 1861 1 1885 41 1904 2 1923 3 1862 2 1886 65 1905 4 1924 4 1864 2 1887 70 1906 10 1925 7 1865 2 1888 53 1907 11 1926 1 1867 1 1889 55 1908 8 No date 230 1870 3 1890 53 1909 18 Associations The following list of almost two hundred names illustrates the wide range of contacts which Chase formed in building his collection. It ranges from gentry through traders to gardeners. Some were professional dealers such as the taxidermists, others no doubt personal friends while yet more were probably just casual acquaintances with gunners and the like. Some are well known figures from the then ornithological world while others are merely names about whom we may never know any more than that. In the list below the nature of the association is given in brackets; where this is unknown it is indicated with a question mark. Known taxidermists are marked with * and previous collectors with +. Angel, Ben (shot by) Ashmore, W. (?) Aylward, K. (?) *Bailey, Matthew, Bridlington (mounted by) Bailey, Mr. (shot by) Baker, Robert (killed on his farm) 3 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 1 - The R W Chase Collection of British Birds Baker, Miss (found by) Ballenger, Mr.