Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club

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The Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club (or simply the Woolhope Club) is a society devoted to the natural history, geology, archaeology, and history of Herefordshire, England. Founded in 1851, it has had many notable members and played an important early role in the history of mycology in Britain.

Foundation

Hereford Museum and Art Gallery

The Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club was founded in 1851 "for the practical study, in all its branches, of the Natural History of Herefordshire and the districts immediately adjacent". The club was and still is based in the city of Hereford, but took its name from the Woolhope Dome, an outcrop of Silurian rocks around the village of Woolhope to the south-east of the city. The club's first field meeting was held in the Woolhope area.[1]

The club's Transactions have been published regularly since 1856, and early issues suggest that the membership took an interest not only in geology, but in

fossils, botany, meteorology, ichthyology, and entomology. In 1856, the botanist George Bentham (who lived at Pontrilas) was an honorary member, as were the geologists the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, William Henry Fitton, Leonard Horner, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick Murchison, Prof. John Phillips, and the Rev. Prof. Adam Sedgwick, the botanist John Lindley, the naturalist Sir William Jardine, and the zoologist Prof. Robert E. Grant. The geologist the Rev. William Samuel Symonds was a founder member and president of the club in 1855.[1]

In 1871,

gargoyles on its frontage and a purpose-built meeting room for the club, was duly erected in Hereford in 1873.[2] It remains the city's main public library, Hereford Museum and Art Gallery
and the club's headquarters.

The club did not permit women to become members until 1954.[3]

The Herefordshire Pomona

Since Herefordshire was and is renowned for its

lithographs.[4]

The Herefordshire Pomona was an expensive work – and is now even more so, a copy being offered for $19,500 in 2009.[5] Since the club wished the book to be of practical use, a revised but inexpensive version of the text, called The Apple and Pear as Vintage Fruits, was published in 1886. The Pomona itself is now available on CD.[4]

"A foray among the funguses"

Dr Henry Graves Bull also had an enthusiasm for fungi and in 1867 read a paper at a club meeting on some local, edible species.[6] This seems to have stimulated the interest of the club and in 1868, the October field meeting – announced as "a foray among the funguses" – was devoted to collecting fungi. The foray, led by the noted mycologist Worthington G. Smith and local expert Edwin Lees, was followed by a special fungus dinner.[7] The event proved popular and the "foray" was repeated annually till 1892.

These Woolhope fungus events became so well known that the word "foray" was widely adopted for mycological field meetings and remains the standard term today, not only in Britain but in North America and elsewhere. For a time, the club functioned as a precursor to the

William Phillips, C. B. Plowright, Worthington G. Smith, and Rev. J. E. Vize. Ordinary members included Rev. W. L. W. Eyre.[8]

The Old Straight Track

An attendee at the 1891 fungus foray was

ley lines gained followers and a resurgence of interest in the 1970s, when it acquired a mystic dimension which would have surprised Watkins himself.[9]

Current activities

The Woolhope Club still organises a series of field meetings each year, with special interest groups for archaeological research, geology, and natural history. To mark the 150th anniversary of the club a book, A Herefordshire Miscellany, was published in 2000.[10]

External links

References

  1. ^ a b Anon. (1856). Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 1.
  2. ^ Collins, W. (1900). A Short History of Hereford, p. 105.
  3. ^ "Emma Hutchinson (1820-1906)". conscicom.web.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
  4. ^ a b "The Herefordshire Pomona: A Brief History". Marcher Apple Network Rhwydwaith Afalau'r Gororau. Marcher Apple Network. Archived from the original on 26 October 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  5. ^ "The Herefordshire Pomona, Robert & Bull Hogg, Henry Graves – Botany, Gardening, Color Plate, Herbals, Science, Exploration, Mathematics, Medicine". Antiquariat Botanicum. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  6. ^ Bull, H. G. (1868). "Illustrations of the edible funguses of Herefordshire". Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club. 44 (3): 149–169.
  7. ^ Anon (1868). "A foray among the funguses". Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club: 184–192.
  8. ^ Anon. (1888). Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 1881–82: ix–xii.
  9. ISBN 978-0-9510242-7-0
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-899290-08-6
    .
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