BIRMINGHAM MUSEUMS AND ART GALLERY Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 3 - The J L Auden Collection of British Birds Phil Watson © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Version 1.0 December 2010 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 3 – The J L Auden Collection of British Birds Introduction John Lorimer Auden was born at Repton in Derbyshire on 23rd August 1894 and died on 30th March 1959 aged 64. He was the son of Thomas Edward Auden (1864-1936) who owned a local law firm. J.L. Auden served in the First World War with the 6th Batallion North Staffordshire regiment, first as a Lieutenant and later (after 1916) as a Major. He was awarded the Military Cross in the summer of 1916 for conspicuous gallantry. After the war he became a solicitor and partner in his father’s law firm and acted as the part time coroner for East Staffordshire. He had a keen interest in natural history from an early age and as a young boy he formed a collection of skeletons by catching small mammals and boiling them down to extract the bones which he set up himself. He went to school at Marlborough and spent all of his spare time in Savernake Forest where he caught his first pygmy shrew. He also kept a pet badger during this period. During his service in the first world war he collected snails on the front line. “He would take the chance of someone going on leave to send them home and many a cigarette box of very smelly snails would arrive for his family to cope with, and occasionally a bat or two for good measure.” [Notes from his brother, E.H. Auden] He maintained his interest in molluscs afterwards (“In Burton Woods near Petersfield he found a good many specimens of Ovulata under the beech trees”). His ornithology collection was started by his father, T.E. Auden, as stated in a letter to the museum from his brother, E. H. Auden. Closer analysis of the catalogue entries confirms this. T.E. Auden is recorded as having killed specimens in Morocco and Norfolk, respectively in 1891 and 1893 (before J.L. Auden was born) and in County Galway and Northumberland in 1895 and 1896 (when J.L. would have been an infant). He was also responsible for several local kills in the 1890s and early 1900s. The collection is made up of a mix of contemporary specimens which Auden killed himself (or were presented to him by associates) and older specimens purchased at sale rooms. At his death it comprised almost eight hundred specimens representing 278 species. Of his own kills, the earliest recorded in his catalogue is a blackbird killed locally at Newton Solney, Derbyshire on 18th December 1911 when he would have been aged 17. His last recorded kill is a Jack Snipe on 9th September 1933 at Egginton Sewage Farm. He collected locally throughout this period, his three favourite haunts being Newton Solney (kills in 1911-15, 1917-19, 1922-23, 1928 and 1931), Egginton Sewage Farm (kills in 1913, 1920, 1923, 1925, 1927-30, 1932 and 1933) and Repton itself (1913, 1916, 1918, 1924, 1925, 1928, 1931 and 1932). Between the wars he made several field trips (a tradition also started by his father) and/or holidays, sometimes twice a year, which took him further afield and which included collecting birds as well as observing seals and voles. His brother states that “After the War, he spent all his holidays observing animals, sometimes Great Grey seals off the Irish coast, another time to Orkney in search of the Orkney Vole, and before the Island of Skomer was a Sanctuary he camped there for some time, taking outstanding photographs of the puffins and shearwaters, and to his great joy finding the Skomer Vole, and bringing home several specimens.” From his catalogue the following visits can be intimated on the basis that he was killing specimens there himself: November 1912 – Norfolk September 1913 – Isle of Mull, Scotland October 1913 – Norfolk January 1916 – Isle of Gigha, Argyllshire, Scotland January 1917 - Isle of Gigha, Argyllshire, Scotland March 1919 – Swansea, Wales August 1919 – County Mayo, Ireland 1 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 3 – The J L Auden Collection of British Birds February 1920 – Norfolk May 1920 – Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales August-October 1920 – Strathcarron and narrows of Skye, Ross-shire, Scotland January 1921 – Norfolk September 1921 – Isle of Mull, Scotland February 1922 – Norfolk September 1922 – Norfolk November 1923 – Norfolk July 1924 – Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales June 1927 - Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, Wales June 1928 – Noss Island, Shetland, Scotland Collecting in his later years was very limited due to severe asthma which restricted his movements but he never lost his interest in wildlife. Despite his lifelong interest in natural history Auden belonged to no recognised scientific societies and apparently kept no notes or diaries other than the typed catalogue, which is based on an incomplete handwritten version. The element of the collection formed by purchases at Steven’s auction rooms includes specimens formerly in other collections such as those of Sir V.H. Crewe, J.B. Nichols and at least thirteen others (see list of associations below). Crewe’s collection included a lot of local (Derbyshire) specimens so one can understand Auden’s interest in it while that of Nichols contained a lot of (what at the time were believed to be) British rarities. Subsequent research in the 1960s (British Birds 55 (1962), 299-385) called many of these specimens into question as the majority were recorded in the period 1892-1930 from Kent and Sussex in an area centred around Hastings and in improbably large numbers. In many cases they had passed through the hands of a taxidermist and gunsmith at St. Leonards-on-Sea, George Bristow. It was alleged that many of these had probably been brought in from Continental Europe on ice and then passed off as having been caught on the British coast. On the basis of this re-examination some 595 records were rejected and sixteen species dropped from the official British List (many subsequently re-instated on the evidence of new sightings). Auden’s collection contains just over fifty of these so-called “Hastings Rarities”. While the scientific value of these examples may now be minimal they provide a fascinating social historical insight into the lengths (and expense) to which gentleman collectors would go to obtain rare specimens. It is known that inflated prices were charged for specimens of rare vagrants and first examples for a county. J.B. Nichols introduced an element of secrecy into his buying by recording the prices he paid using an alphabetic code on his labels. Auden’s typed catalogue has many of Nichols’ labels pasted into it. Auden’s catalogue rarely identifies the taxidermists he was using and the historic specimens come with varying amounts of data. Despite this, the work of at least sixteen different taxidermists is represented in the collection. Like most collectors of the time he tried his hand at taxidermy himself and he records some twenty eight specimens as being his own work, ranging in size from Long-tailed Tits to a Buzzard. Although recording very little in the way of scientific data other than place and date of collection the catalogue entries often preserve a detailed record of the variety of means by which early collectors acquired specimens. Thus we have examples of birds being shot with a punt gun, a .410 gun and an air gun; yet another was killed with a catapult. Some birds were caught alive in clap nets, in linnet nets or “snared with rabbit wire at the nest”. As with other collectors Auden was not averse to acquiring specimens which had succumbed to a natural death (in the broadest terms) such as those “killed against telegraph wires and picked up dead” or “found dead after a hard frost”. Equally it was not unusual for specimens to be taken alive such as that caught by Jack (probably 2 Birmingham Ornithology Collections Part 3 – The J L Auden Collection of British Birds Auden’s son) while cutting corn or “caught in a pigsty”. Some of these were killed and prepared immediately while others were kept alive for days or even months and one, which is recorded as “died in T.E. Auden’s aviary”, had presumably been there for some time. The bulk of the Auden collection was presented to Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in 1962 by Repton School, Derbyshire. A few cases were retained by the school, mainly the majority of the specimens of the Anatidae family. Originally the birds were clearly mounted in cases but almost all seem to have been taken out of the cases either on arrival at Birmingham or sometime thereafter. It seems likely that some of the poorer specimens were destroyed during this operation. A letter on file refers to there being “quite a lot of woodworm infestation in the cases and some degree of damage by moth and damp to some of the specimens”. A letter from Repton School also speaks of there being a need “for extensive re-housing of the birds” and “we shall have to do something about those which have been attacked by moth”. Provenances Out of a collection of almost eight hundred specimens Auden recorded provenance data (in at least some form) for all but 108 of them. The table below shows the distribution of these. England Shropshire 2 Wales Bedfordshire 2 Staffs 20 Brecon 3 Berkshire 1 Suffolk 6 Glamorgan 2 Bucks 1 Sussex 77 Pembroke 20 Cambs 4 Warks 2 S.