Proc. Hampsh. Field Club Archaeol. Soc. 41, 1985, 37-44

ERNEST WESTLAKE (1855-1922) FOUNDER MEMBER OF THE FIELD CLUB By J B DELAIR

ABSTRACT Ernest Westlake (1855-1922) was a prolific field naturalist and one of the founding members of the Hampshire Field Club. A short biographical sketch is presented which concentrates on his geological and archaeological activities. Much of this account is based on Westlake's recently discovered field notebooks and memoranda, preserved at his home at Godshill, near .

It is appropriate that in its centenary year the Born on November 16th, 1855, at Ford­ Hampshire Field Club should recall the five ingbridge, Ernest was the son of Thomas naturalists who, on March 28th, 1885, Westlake (1826-1892) - Quaker proprietor of a launched it firmly on the course it still follows. successful sail-cloth manufacturing firm in These were T W Shore, W Whitaker, E that town - and Hannah Sophia Neave (died Westlake, the Rev W L W Eyre, and the Rev T 1857). His uncles were William Colston Woodhouse (Colenutt 1944). Westlake (died 1893) and Richard Westlake Of these, Westlake is, or until recently has (died 1915). been,' the least well known, for unlike Shore Thomas Westlake's commercial who became intimately associated with the commitments were such that he could never Hartley Institute in and indulge his very considerable scientific inter­ Whitaker who rose to eminence in the Geo­ ests to his satisfaction, even though he built a logical Society, he was of an essentially small observatory to accommodate an equa- retiring disposition and spent much of his life torially-mounted 122 inch reflecting telescope (at Fordingbridge) engaged in extensive pri­ (made by Calver), and for many years kept vate field studies, of which most have never exact records of local daily temperatures, been published. Indeed, except for various rainfall, etc, the majority of which were duly brief references to him in the scattered printed in the local press (Westlake 1892). It publications. of certain contemporaries, was with considerable encouragement, Westlake has remained an almost forgotten therefore, that Thomas advised Ernest to figure of Hampshire's Victorian past, and it pursue the scientific career denied to himself was not until the present writer's fortuitous upon admitting that, after a year or so in the discovery in 1980 of the survival of Westlake's family business, Ernest apparently possessed field notebooks and memoranda at Godshill no aptitude for commerce at all. near Fordingbridge 'that the true scope of this Thus it was that Ernest entered University extraordinary Hampshire naturalist's College, London, to study, among other endeavours became apparent. Subsequently, a subjects, geology and mineralogy under general review of Westlake's geological and Thomas Huxley and John Tyndall. Westlake's archaeological activities was produced in a surviving student's notes show that he met or specialist journal (Delair 1981). At the time, attended lectures by such eminent Victorian however, it was not possible to do more than geologists as John - Morris and Joseph hint at the extent of Westlake's other interests. Prestwich, and developed a keen interest in In order to remedy this situation, there follows botony through the enthusiasm of Prof Ralph a short and perhaps long overdue biographical Meldola. Ernest did not proceed to a degree sketch of this ill-known founder member of the but, as his later activities reveal, left London Hampshire Field Club - Ernest Westlake, with a keenly developed sense of the naturalist and prehistorian extraordinary. importance of fieldwork and of the methods 38 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

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Fig 1. Krnest Wcstlake, about 1910. DELAIR: ERNEST WESTLAKE, FOUNDER MEMBER 39 necessary for pursuing it effectively. Indeed, in today. Through remarkable energy and all that he subsequently undertook, it is clear diligence, Westlake visited all the British that Ernest was pre-eminently a field scientist Chalk exposures he could reach, even those as who preferred facts to theories. distant from Fordingbridge as Beer (Devon) Returning to live at the family home Flamborough (Yorkshire), Eastbourne (Kent), (Oaklands House) in Fordingbridge, geology Norwich (Norfolk), and Ireland. He also made became one of Ernest's ruling passions; and, trips to France to study the Chalk at Le Havre being released through his father from the and other French localities. Improvements problem of actually having to earn a living, he made to the railway network during those was able to devote virtually all his time to the years, especially the Meon valley line, that subject. In 1877 he became a member of the from Andover to Stockbridge and , Geologists' Association (Anon 1923) and, two that from Alderbury () to West years later, was elected a Fellow of the Geo­ Moors near Wimbourne (), and others logical Society of London (Sollas 1923). From at Micheldever and around , the late 1870s onwards, Westlake made innum­ entailed extensive cutting through Chalk and erable visits to • museums, private fossil Tertiary deposits, and provided splendid collections elsewhere, and to coastal and opportunities for fieldwork. That Westlake inland geological sites all over southern wasted none of these is clear from his notes Britain (and also some abroad), undertaking in and the suites of fossils obtained from these the process the detailed measuring and exposures. drawing of cliff, quarry, and well exposures, Westlake's investigations were often most and road and railway cuttings. This work thorough, arid included such details as the dip embraced the collecting of suites of fossils and strike of strata and their relative from the many horizons and sites examined. In elevations above mean sea-level. The huge due course, Ernest's observations filled many numbers of fossils collected enabled him to notebooks (still extant) while, concurrently, an prove the existence of certain Chalk horizons enormous collection of fossils (now divided at particular localities for the first time and between the Geology Department of permitted the correlation of specific zones in Southampton University and the the Chalk exposed at many widely sundered and South Wilts Museum) was amassed - both lcoations. Many of these were Hampshire by personal collecting and acquisitions from sites. One such was Stoke Hill near St Mary others. Bourne; Westlake's observations there were Several of these records are of more than published by Joseph Stevens in the late 1880s passing interest. Measurements and careful (Stevens 1888), their accuracy being confirmed drawings of chalk stacks at Studland Bay, in 1906 by H Osborne White. Westlake also Dorset, for example, constitute valuable corrected certain of Prof Barrois's earlier information about their precise proportions statements about British Chalk zones at spe­ during a period before subsequent erosion cific localities. These corrections, which were altered and, in one instance, demolished them. later confirmed by Jukes Browne (Jukes The detailed sequences of deposits in quarries, Browne 1908), had been mostly embodied in a brickpits, and cliffs - often measured to the remarkable tabular summary of Upper nearest inch - also represent irreplaceable Cretaceous fossils from and Ireland records of exposures either no longer issued by Westlake (Westlake 1888) just one accessible or now greatly altered. Large num­ year after the publication of his paper on an bers of Hampshire sites figure in these records. unusual Chalk terebratulid in C J Read's Early in the 1880s, Westlake became espe­ collection at Salisbury (Westlake 1887a). cially interested in the zones and fossils of the The significance of Westlake's Hampshire Chalk Formation, which, at that time, had not and Wiltshire Chalk researches was acknow­ been worked out in the detail familiar to us ledged by several contemporary professionals 40 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

(including Reid 1903; Jukes Browne 1904, from different periods of prehistory. Thus, the 1908). Indeed, many lists of Chalk fossils Fisherton finds were correlated with others recorded from particular Hampshire and from Menchcourt in France, and those from Wiltshire exposures by these authors were Milford Hill with those from St Acheul, also in based largely upon Westlake's previous field France (Codrington 1870). All the implements work at those localities. were assigned to the Old Stone (Palaeolithic) But Westlake's enquiring mind ranged far Age, which, geologically speaking, largely falls beyond the problems of the Chalk Formation, within the Pleistocene period. x and as early as 1882 we find him, jointly with T Between 1879 and 1889, Benjamin.Harrison W Shore, presenting an account to the British of Ightham, Kent, discovered many crudely Association of a then recently sunk artesian chipped flints in high Plateau Gravels. He well at Southampton (Shore and Westlake urged that the chipping had been effected 1883; Reid 1902b). His notebooks for this and artificially, a view supported by Sir Joseph subsequent years contain details of numerous Prestwich who later described Harrison's finds other well sections inspected in Hampshire, (Prestwich 1889, 1891). Accordingly, an earlier Dorset, Wiltshire, and elsewhere. The (pre-Pleistocene) Eolithic Age was advocated following year saw Westlake publish a very as having preceded the Palaeolithic, and the able summary of geological phenomena in the alleged antiquity of Man was extended vicinity of Fordingbridge (Westlake 1883), an backwards into the Pliocene period. During account amplified in 1887 (Westlake 1887b) 1890 and 1894, Blackmore discovered several and again in 1908 (Westlake 1908). Another 'eoliths', as these crudely chipped flints were version of the same account, in which the called, at Alderbury in gravels 180 feet above different gravel terraces of the Avon valley the level of the Avon (Westlake 1902), and the were identified for the first time, was printed possibility that evidence could be found in the privately in 1889 (Westlake 1889; Reid and Avon valley for the existence of Pliocene Man Dixon 1899). who made eoliths was then obviously thought Westlake began investigating the gravels to be very real. and other post-Tertiary deposits of the Avon Westlake, perhaps encouraged by valley, especially with respect to the Blackmore, enthusiastically took up the search occurrence in them of flint implements, at for palaeoliths and eoliths from about 1882 j least as early as 1879. It is not clear who or onwards, radiating out in his quest from Ford- \ what stimulated Westlake's interest in this ingbridge in all directions. Many of his field, although perhaps it was the knowledge excursions to likely implementiferous that, as early as 1864, John Evans had reported localities are recorded in his field notebooks, the existence of flint tools in Westlake's home one of which is devoted solely to finds of flint town (Evans 1864), and that Humphrey P implements. Westlake prosecuted these Blackmore, a well known antiquarian and the searches no less vigorously- than his purely then curator of Salisbury Museum, had geological investigations, and he rapidly recorded similar finds at Milford Hill east of amassed a very large assemblage of chipped Salisbury just one year later, even though the flints of all shapes and sizes, including actual discoveries had been made in 1856 numerous examples from and Wood (Blackmore 1865). The Milford Hill imple­ Green, two localities rendered ments proved to be dissimilar from others archaeologically famous by his efforts (Reid previously obtained from fossiliferous 1902a; Ashington Bullen 1903). Some of these brickearth at Fisherton, west of Salisbury discoveries were discussed in 1903 in a general (Blackmore 1865), and a general realization review of the antiquity of Man in Hampshire was not long in emerging that ancient stone (Westlake 1903). Many specimens came from tools exhibited not only different characters sites apparently never recorded in the litera­ but were representative of different cultures ture, and certainly omitted from Rowe's gazet- DELAIR: ERNEST WESTLAKE, FOUNDER MEMBER 41

teer of British Palaeolithic localities (Rowe undertaken by the late Prof Reid-Moir just 1968). Westlake's palaeoliths falling into this before World War II, was destroyed by enemy category are currently being catalogued and bombing before it could be published. Among studied at Southampton University. the items so lost was an unpublished geo­ Westlake's eoliths - including between four logical memorandum by Westlake detailing and five thousand flints from Aurillac in the his field work at Aurillac. Reid-Moir died Cantal, France - are still undescribed and before he could rewrite his findings, or realise remain little known, at his late home at Sandy his intention to monograph Westlake's Balls, Godshill. The French examples were material (Reid-Moir 1941). An undated draft collected in 1904 when Westlake visited the of Reid-Moir's intended monograph has, Cantal expressly to obtain evidence of Tertiary however, fortunately survived and is now (pre-Pleistocene) Man. His excavations there preserved at Godshill. Reid-Moir evidently occupied almost an entire year (Sollas 1923). agreed with earlier assessments of the spe­ These flints lay in deposits usually considered cimens by Capitan, who travelled from France • to be of Miocene (ie, pre-Pliocene) age, and specially to examine them (Westlake were thus roughly coeval with chipped flints miscellaneous memoranda), and by Sollas, previously discovered in supposed Miocene who concluded that they were genuine, if strata near Pontlery, France (Bourgeois 1869, crude, human artefacts (Sollas 1924). As late 1877), and with others from a ferruginous as 1955, D F Baden-Powell entertained similar conglomerate in Burma thought to be of late opinions (Baden-Powell- 1955). Miocene or early Pliocene age (Noetling 1894). By way of further effort to establish that Later still, eoliths were reported from yet primitive man chipped flints resembling earlier (Oligocene and Eocene) horizons eoliths, Westlake spent two years (1908-1910) (Rutot 1907, 1908; Breuil 1910), and generally in Tasmania collecting numerous examples of appeared to resemble Westlake's Cantallian extinct Tasmanian handwork (Sollas 1923). specimens. These discoveries called the valid­ His collection went to the Pitt-Rivers ity of eoliths as genuine human artefacts into Museum, Oxford, but was not generally question, and it was not long before their reviewed until 1924 (Balfour 1925). natural origins were advocated (Warren 1905). On the occasion of the founding of the The status of eoliths as rude human handi­ Hampshire Field Club, Westlake was therefore work remains unsettled. It is unquestionably not only familiar with the geology of an exaggeration to claim, as in 1965 (Morley- Hampshire and the adjacent counties, and had Hewitt 1965), that Westlake was 'Largely already published some of his observations, responsible for the recognition of eoliths, the but was firmly involved with researches earliest stone tools used by man in the Eocene concerning ancient stone tools and their period of geology'; Harrison, Blackmore, implications for the antiquity of Man. He was Prestwich, and others before him claimed to evidently well known to many contemporary recognize them as artificial objects, while, naturalists and antiquarians, not only in and conversely, there are - and were even in around Hampshire but also further afield. Westlake's day — many who regard eoliths as Thus, from every point of view he seems to natural productions. There is, of course, no have been well-suited to help found the doubt that Westlake did collect thousands of Hampshire Field Club; yet, although for a few well documented chipped flint eoliths: the months he served as one of its joint secretaries specimens still exist. It is not their, physical and then (until 1898) as local secretary for the occurrence but the agency responsible for their Fordingbridge district, and remained on the present chipped condition that is the real committee until 1890, he apparently controversy. contributed very little towards the expansion It was a great loss to the subject when a and development of the Club. Indeed, his sole major study of Westlake's Cantallian finds, recorded action concerned the distribution 42 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY among members of a drawn section of the Aubrey Thomas born in 1893, and Margaret Chalk of the Winchester area in May 1885 Agnes born in 1896. In later years he became (Anon 1890). deeply interested in child education, one of the Nevertheless, as one of Hampshire's leading outcomes of this being his acquisition in 1919 Victorian naturalists, Westlake was still much of his final home - the woodland estate of consulted (he received numerous letters which Sandy Balls near Godshill, east of For- are still preserved at Godshill), while his ever­ dingbridge, and overlooking the River Avon he growing fossil and mineral collections were loved so much (Westlake 1956). considered sufficiently important to be Westlake died tragically in a road accident included by William Dale in a list of in Holborn, London, on November 29th, 1922, Hampshire's most noteworthy collections scarcely a fortnight after his 67th birthday, (Dale 1888). and was buried on Woodling Point in the heart Westlake's interests were very varied. His of his Godshill estate. Several obituaries of notebooks contain many entries concerning him appeared at the time, including one in the plants and insects, and he made large Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club (Anon collections of these, many of his specimens 1924). None of them, however, conveyed the coming from the and Cranborne true extent of his interests, activities, or Chase areas. He also made an extensive accomplishments. collection of marine shells (Dale 1888). Most It is transparently clear that Ernest of these biological collections, however, were Westlake was pre-eminently a collector of accidentally destroyed by fire at Oaklands factual data in each of the fields he chose to House shortly before World War I. Westlake's study. He collected on a grand scale. No scrap notebooks also contain entries on psychical of information was too small to overlook, and phenomena and dowsing, his interest in the judging from the minute size of many of his latter being, perhaps, related to his interest in fossils he must have possessed remarkable wells and water-tables. Scattered notes and eyesight. Thus we yet possess identifiable spe­ observations suggest that he related water- cimens or fragments of specimens of fossil tables to plant distribution, growth patterns, creatures from exposures not represented in and insect populations. other collections, or which, in many instances, In 1891, he spent long hours at the British are actually unnoticed in the literature. One of Museum compiling a 'Bibliography of the these, a Chalk echinoid (sea-urchin), has Divining Rod, circa 1100 to 1900 A D', for recently been made the type of a new species which he perused numerous references in the named in his honour - Micraster westlakei English, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Spanish, (Stokes 1977). Elsewhere, enormous suites of German, Italian, Latin, Norse, Swedish, fossils from particular sites afford valuable Danish and Bohemian languages. Together faunal data and excellent morphological with his large library, this massive and original material. One can only guess at the character manuscript (unpublished) is still preserved at of the destroyed insect and botanical Godshill, and is a remarkable piece of work. It collections. Both, however, are alleged to have was probably through his involvement with been similarly extensive and comparably rich. dowsing that Westlake shortly afterwards Westlake worked, of course, during an contributed an appendix to a paper on the 'ideal' period, when quarrying of all kinds was divining-rod by W F Barrett (Barrett 1900), in full spate and when railway networks were which ably demonstrated his familiarity with being extended at a great pace. In those days, that subject. excavation work was still carried out by hand, On May 1st, 1891, Westlake married fellow with opportunities for noticing specimens Quaker Lucy Ann Rutter of Mere, Wiltshire, being correspondingly greater than with the and went to live for a while in Hampstead, mechanised methods of our own era. His London. By her, Westlake had two children - botanical and entomological investigations, DELAIR : ERNKST WESTI.AKE, FOUNDER MEMBER 43

however, must have been motivated by other and knew enough to record all that they saw. ideals, for these enquiries do not concern That Westlake was an unusually fitting person static things like strata or fossils but longer to be a founder of the Hampshire Field Club is term factors and, sometimes, geographically self evident. mobile subjects. That Westlake was in his own special way an exceptional man is undeniable; that he accu­ A cknowledgements mulated such a wealth of data is continuously The writer is grateful to Dr Aubrey Westlake of astonishing; and that he deliberately recorded Sandy Balls House, Godshill, for access to his so much information for posterity is something father's notebooks and miscellaneous memoranda for which all present and future naturalists and for supplying much useful information and historians should be grateful. He was one concerning his father's career, to Prof R Nesbitt of Southampton University (Dept of Geology) for of a once common breed — the all-round access to the Westlake geological and palaeolith naturalist - who, although individually spe­ material in his department, and to Prof F Hodson cialising in particular fields of enquiry, were for helpful discussion and encouragement. peculiarly adept at integrating wide-ranging facets of Nature into an harmonious whole,

REFERENCES

Anonymous 1890 Proc 1 (1885-1889), pt 1, 3-9 Reid, C 1902a the Geology of the Country (committee and membership lists). Around , Mem Geol Sum Engl and 1923 Proc Geol Ass 34 143. Wales. 1924 Proc 9 (1920-1924), pt 3, xiv. 1902b The Geology of the Country Around Ashington Bullen, R 1903 Geol Mag ns, dec 4, 10 Southampton, Mem Geol Sum Engl and Wales.' 102-109. 1903 the Geology of the Country Around Baden-Powell, D F VV 1955 Trans Suff Nat Soc 9 Salisbury, Mem Geol Sum Engl and Wales. pt iii, 5. Reid, C and Dixon, E E L 1899 Summ Progr Geol Sum Balfour, H 1925 Proc Prehist Soc E Anglia 5 pt 1, 1-15. UK (1900, Tertiary Field Work). Barrett, W F 1900 Proc Soc Psych Res 38 129-383. Reid-Moir, J 1941 Nature 148 220-221. Blackmore, H P 1865 QJl Geol Soc bond 21 250-252. Rowe, D A 1968 A Gazetteer of British Lower and Middle Bourgeois, L-A 1869 Mater Hist prim Homm 297-299. Palaeolithic Sites, Oxford. 1877 Rev Quest Sci 2 561-575. Rutot, A 1907 Bull Soc Belg Geol 20 Mem, 43-82. Breuil, H 1910 L'Anthrop 21 385-408. 1908 Congr prehist de France, 4e sess (Chambery: Codrington, T 1870 QJl Geol Soc Lond 26 545. 1910), 90-104. Colenutt, G W 1944 Proc 16 pt 1, 3-4. Shore, T W and Westlake, E 1883 Rep Brit Ass Ado Sci Dale, W 1888 Proc 1 pt 2, 25. for 1882. Delair, J B 1981 Geological Curator 3 133-152. Sollas W J 1923 QJl Geol Soc Lond 79 lxii. Evans, J 1864 QJl Geol Soc Lond 20 188 et seq. 1924 Ancient Hunters, and their modern repre­ Jukes Browne, A J 1904 The Cretaceous Rocks of sentatives, London. Britain: III - The Upper Chalk of England, Stevens, J 1888 A Parochial History of St Mary Bourne, Mem Geol Sum UK. with an account of the manor of Hurstbourne ; 1908 The Geology of the Country Around Priors, Hants, London. A second edition of Andover, Mem Geol Survey Engl and Wales. this work appeared in 1895. Morley-Hewitt, A T 1965 The Story of Fordingbridge inStokes , R B 1977 Palaeontology 20 805-821. Fact and Fancy, Fordingbridge. Warren, S H 1905,// Anthrop Inst 35 ns viii 337-364. Noetling, F 1894 Rec Geol Sum India 27 101-103. Westlake, A T 1956 Woodcraft Way Series 24 1-15. Prestwich, J 1889 QJl Geol Soc Lond 44. Westlake, E 1883 The Early History of the 1891 QJl Geol Soc Lond 46. Neighbourhood as written in its Rocks. 44 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

41-55 in Mitchell Fordingbridge Almanac for Neighbourhood, including the Valley of the Avon, 1884. Fordingbridge. 1887a Geol Mag ns, Dec 3, 312. 1902 Note on Recent Discoveries of Palaeolithic and 1887b The Early History of the Eolithic Implements in the Valley of the Avon, Neighbourhood as written in its Rocks, Fordingbridge. 41-55 in Mitchell Fordingbridge Almanac for 1903 Antiquity of Man in Hampshire in King 1888. Fordingbridge Almanac for 1903. 1888 Tabular Index to the Upper Cretaceous Fossils of 1908 The Early History of the Neighbourhood England and Ireland, Fordingbridge. as written in its Rocks 41-55 in King 1889 Outlines of the Geology of Fordingbridge and Fordingbridge Almanac for 1909. Westlake, R 1892 Friends' Quarterly Examiner 6.

Author. J B Delair (Hon Curator, palaeontological collections), Dept of Geology, University of Southampton, Southampton.

© Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society.