James Cosmo Melvill (naturalist)

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For British administrator who served as the last secretary of the East India Company, see James Cosmo Melvill.

James Cosmo Melvill
James Cosmo Melvill
Born(1845-07-01)1 July 1845
Hampstead, London
Died4 November 1929(1929-11-04) (aged 84)
Meole Brace, Shrewsbury
NationalityBritish
EducationHarrow School
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge (MA)
Occupations
SpouseBertha Dewhurst
Children6
RelativesJames Cosmo Melvill (grandfather)

James Cosmo Melvill

FZS (1 July 1845 – 4 November 1929) was a British botanist and malacologist who collected plants in Europe and North America.[1][2][3]

Family

Melvill was born at Hampstead, London, on 1 July 1845.[4] He was a grandson of British administrator in India, Sir James Cosmo Melvill (1792–1861), his father being the latter's second son, also James Cosmo Melvill (1821–1880), onetime assistant Under-Secretary of state for India.[5][4] His mother was Eliza Jane, daughter of Alfred Hardcastle of Hatcham House, Surrey.[4]

Melvill married on 30 July 1874, Bertha, daughter of George C. Dewhurst of Lymm, Cheshire and Aberuchill Castle, Perthshire, Scotland. The couple had two sons and four daughters.[4]

Education and career

Melvill was educated at

Manchester University in 1908.[6]

His natural history interests were never professional. He went into business in the

First World War.[7]

Mevill also became a governor of Manchester University and Manchester Grammar School.[4] He was President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1897 to 1899.[1] Politically he was a supporter of the Conservative Party[4][8] but despite posthumous claims he was onetime Member of Parliament for Salford South[9][10] he neither served in Parliament nor contested the Salford seats as a parliamentary candidate at general elections.

By 1904 he settled in

Royal Salop Infirmary, an honorary curator of Shrewsbury Museum and president of the Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club.[8]

Natural history activities

Melvill collected shells from the age of eight and ultimately possessed a collection representing 25,500 species of mollusc, including a thousand new species from the Persian Gulf and South Africa.[8]

His botanical collection, which included specimens assembled by other botanists, was one of the largest private herbaria in the country and was kept in a special building in his garden at Meole Hall.[9] It was said to amount to three-quarters of the known plants in the world, especially grasses and ferns, most of which he gave to Manchester University. He presented that of British ferns and grasses to Harrow School,[8][10] a collection later transferred to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.[10] The Manchester Herbarium contains contributions from James Cosmo Melvill among other botanists.[12][13]

He also had an extensive entomological collection of British butterflies, wasps, flies, and dragonflies.[8]

While at school he was joint author, with the Honourable F. Bridgeman,

Conchological Society of Great Britain,[8] as well as president of the Manchester Conchological Society in 1889 and 1895–96.[17] From 1904 to 1914 he was President of the Shrewsbury-based Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club and in 1908 was appointed chairman of its committee to publish a Flora of Shropshire, a project which was shelved due to lack of sufficient financial support in 1913.[18]

The World Register of Marine Species mentions 881 marine taxa described by J.C. Melvill, many of which together with Robert Standen (1854–1925).[19] Many of these have become synonyms.

The standard author abbreviation Melvill is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[20]

The rein orchid variety "Habenaria melvillii" was botanically named for him.[9]

Death

Towards the end of his life Melvill was incapacitated by a fall which dislocated his shoulder.[7] He died at Meole Hall on 4 November 1929[6] and was buried on 7 November in Shrewsbury General Cemetery in Longden Road.[8]

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.mollus.a064010
    .
  2. ISBN 978-0-85066-843-8
    .
  3. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.1931.tb01466.x
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Mate, C.H. (1907). Shropshire: Historical, Descriptive, Biographical, Part II. Mate. p. 68.
  5. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18541. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  6. ^ a b Venn, J.A. (1951). Athenae Cantabrigienses, Part II 1752–1900, Volume IV. Cambridge University Press. p. 389.
  7. ^ a b c Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club Transactions for 1930, Volume VIII, No 4, page 172.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h "Death of Mr. J. Cosmo Melvill. Distinguished Botanist. Compiler of Notable Collections". Shrewsbury Chronicle. 8 November 1929. p. 7.
  9. ^
    ISBN 0-9508637-0-X
    .section History of Botanical Recording.
  10. ^ a b c "Unknown".[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ Paddock, E.A. (1994). Meole Brace through the Centuries. Parochial Church Council of Holy Trinity Church, Meole Brace. pp. 25, 26.
  12. ^ Manchester Museum. "The Herbarium". Archived from the original on 20 January 2021. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
  13. ^ The Manchester Museum. Derby: English Life, 1985; pp. 6–8
  14. ^ Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club Transactions for 1930, page 166.
  15. ISBN 9781000162868
    .
  16. ^ "List of Fellows". A Record of the Progress of the Zoological Society of London During the Nineteenth Century. William Clowes & Sons. 1901. p. 90.
  17. ^ Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club Transactions for 1930, page 170.
  18. JSTOR 2260293
    .
  19. ^ WoRMS: J.C. Melvill
  20. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Melvill.

External links

Media related to James Cosmo Melvill at Wikimedia Commons

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
1897–99 		Succeeded by
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