Jonathan Couch

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Jonathan Couch
Born(1789-03-15)15 March 1789
Polperro, Cornwall, England
Died13 April 1870(1870-04-13) (aged 81)
Polperro, Cornwall, England
Scientific career
FieldsIchthyology

Jonathan Couch (15 March 1789 – 13 April 1870) was a British

naturalist, the only child of Richard and Philippa Couch, of a family long resident at Polperro, a small fishing village between Looe and Fowey, on the south coast of Cornwall.[1] A blue plaque on the wall of Warren cottage commemorates his birthplace.[2]

Biography

After receiving a sound classical education in Cornish schools, and some years' pupillage with two local medical men, he entered the united hospitals of Guy's and St. Thomas's in 1808, and in 1809 or early in 1810 returned to Polperro, which he was rarely to leave, dying on 13 April 1870, aged 81. For sixty years he was the doctor and trusted adviser of the village and neighbourhood, and used with remarkable shrewdness and perseverance the great opportunities afforded to a naturalist at Polperro.

Natural history

He trained in succession a large number of fishermen to aid him in his pursuits, and the observations made at and near Polperro during his lifetime and since his death have not been equalled in value at any British station. He was in correspondence with many of the foremost naturalists, and especially rendered aid to

C. W. Peach, Matthias Dunn (of Mevagissey, Cornwall, 1830-1901), and William Loughrin.[1]

Couch's principal work was done in

pilchard, printed in the third report of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and also separately. He had before this given much assistance to Bewick in his British Quadrupeds, as well as in relation to his projected Natural History of British Fishes, and Yarrell was still more indebted to him in his British Fishes, to all three editions of which (1836, 1841, and 1859) Couch was a copious contributor.[1]

His Cornish Fauna, (part i. 1838, part ii. 1841), completed by his son

British Association, Annals of Natural History, the Transactions of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society, the Zoologist, the Intellectual Observer, &c., which are recorded in Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, (i. 89–92, and iii. 1138), and in the History of Polperro (a less complete list). He also contributed to Land and Water, under the signature 'Video.'[1]

His Illustrations of Instinct, deduced from the Habits of British Animals, (1847), is a very interesting book. He translated

John Rylands Library,[4] and the Natural History Museum[5] As a local naturalist whose conscientious and loving observation of nature has made a lasting impression on science, he deserves to rank beside Gilbert White.[1]

Personal life and antiquarian research

Couch was a

Louisa Sarah Ann Parr in her successful novel about smuggling titled Adam and Eve.[6]

Couch left three sons by his second wife: Richard Quiller, Thomas Quiller (father of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch), and John Quiller, who all became surgeons (Quiller being their mother's maiden name and Quiller's House the family residence). Thomas practised successfully at Bodmin, and died on 23 October 1884, aged 58. He was a constant contributor to Notes and Queries, two series of his articles, The Folklore of a Cornish Village, 1855 and 1857, being incorporated in the History of Polperro to which he contributed a sketch of his father's life. The welfare of the fishermen and the prosperity of the fisheries were equally his care. He also published lists of local words in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall (1864 and 1870), afterwards expanded and included in a Glossary of Words in Use in Cornwall, issued by the English Dialect Society in 1880. He did some useful preparatory work in Cornish bibliography, afterwards incorporated in the Bibliotheca Cornubiensis (Academy, 1 Nov. 1884, p. 289).[1]

Honoria

  • The goby fish
    Gobius couchi is named after him.[7]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Bettany, G. T. (1887). "Couch, Jonathan (1789–1870), naturalist, by G. T. Bettany". Dictionary of National Biography Vol. XXII. Smith, Elder & Co. Retrieved 15 December 2007.
  2. ^ Photographed opposite "old Watch House" 25 March 2012
  3. ^ Smiles, Samuel (1877) Life of a Scotch Naturalist, Thomas Edward; 3rd ed. London: John Murray; pp. 333-39
  4. ^ Original drawings mostly of fishes and cetaceans; a few of the drawings are probably by William Rashleigh of Menabilly (see Couch, B. Life of Jonathan Couch, pp. 114-117); 112 leaves, large fol.
  5. ^ Preliminary drawings for A History of the Fishes of the British Islands; 45 leaves in 1 vol.; another album of sketches of marine life.
  6. ^ Elizabeth Lee, 'Parr , Louisa Sarah Ann (1848?–1903)’, rev. Katharine Chubbuck, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 retrieved 17 March 2015
  7. ^ Christopher Scharpf; Kenneth J. Lazara (29 May 2018). "Order GOBIIFORMES: Family GOBIIDAE (d-h)". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 1 September 2018.

References

  • Couch, Bertha. 1891. Life of Jonathan Couch, F.L.S., Etc., of Polperro, The Cornish Ichthyologist. Liskeard: John Philp. 160 pp.
Attribution

External links

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