Charles Waterton
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and explorer.
Heritage and Life
"Squire" Waterton was born at Walton HallWalton Hall, West Yorkshire
Walton Hall is a stately home in the county of West Yorkshire, England, near Wakefield. It was built in the Palladian style around 1767 on an island within a 26 acre lake, on the site of a former moated medieval hall. It was the ancestral home of the naturalist and traveller Charles Waterton, who...
, Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
to Thomas Waterton and Anne Bedingfield. He was of a Roman Catholic landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
family descended from Reiner de Waterton
Waterton, Lincolnshire
Waterton is a Deserted Medieval Village on the River Trent near Garthorpe and Luddington in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, England. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Before the Norman Conquest it was held by one Fulcric who held one carucate of land with a hall.At the time of the Domesday...
. His ancestry is alleged to include eight saints: Vladimir the Great, Saint Anna of Russia, the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb
Boris and Gleb
Boris and Gleb , Christian names Roman and David, respectively, were the first saints canonized in Kievan Rus' after the Christianization of the country....
, Saint Stephen of Hungary, Saint Margaret of Scotland
Saint Margaret of Scotland
Saint Margaret of Scotland , also known as Margaret of Wessex and Queen Margaret of Scotland, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England...
and Saint Mathilde together with Saint Thomas More, Humbert III of Savoy
Humbert III of Savoy
Umberto III , surnamed the Blessed, was Count of Savoy from 1148 to 1189. His parents were Amadeus III of Savoy and Mahaut of Albon, the sister of Guy IV of Dauphinois. His memorial day is March 4.According to CopeHis first wife died young; his second marriage ended in divorce...
and several European royal families.
He was also a descendant of the Old English Chieftain Ailric, Kings Thane to Edward the Confessor, who held Cawthorne and much of South Yorkshire before the Conquest. The heiress Sara le Neville inherited a vast estate from her grandfather Adam FitzSwain (the grandson of Ailric) and it passed to the De Burghes, then they to the Watertons in 1435. The Watertons were one of the few aristocratic families who refused to convert to the new Protestant religion during the reign of Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, and consequently the vast bulk of their estates were confiscated. Charles Waterton was a devout, ascetic Catholic and maintained strong links with the Vatican.
Natural history
He was educated at Stonyhurst CollegeStonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...
in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
where his interest in exploration and wildlife were already evident. On one occasion Waterton was caught by the school's Jesuit Superior scaling the towers at the front of the building; almost at the top, the Superior ordered him to come down the way he had gone up. Whilst at the school, he records in his autobiography that "by a mutual understanding, I was considered rat-catcher to the establishment, and also fox-taker, foumart-killer, and cross-bow charger at the time when the young rooks were fledged. . . I followed up my calling with great success. The vermin disappeared by the dozen; the books were moderately well thumbed; and according to my notion of things, all went on perfectly right."
South America
In 1804 he travelled to British GuianaBritish Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
to take charge of his uncle's estates near Georgetown
Georgetown, Guyana
Georgetown, estimated population 239,227 , is the capital and largest city of Guyana, located in the Demerara-Mahaica region. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed 'Garden City of the Caribbean.' Georgetown is located at . The city serves...
. In 1812, he started to explore the hinterland of Guiana, making four journeys between then and 1824, and reaching Brasil on foot — barefoot — in the rainy season. He later described his discoveries in his book Waterton's Wanderings in South Americahttp://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/etext05/7wnsa10.htm which inspired young British schoolboys like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace. He was a highly skilled taxidermist and preserved many of the animals he encountered on his expeditions. However, he employed a unique method of taxidermy, soaking the specimens in what he called "sublimate of mercury." Unlike many preserved ("stuffed") animals, his specimens are hollow — and are surprisingly lifelike, even today. He also displayed his anarchic sense of humour in some of his taxidermy: a famous tableau he created (now lost) consisted of reptiles dressed as famous Englishmen and entitled "The English Reformation Zoologically Demonstrated." Another specimen was the upper half of a howler monkey contorted to look like an Amazonian Abominable Snowman and simply labelled "The Nondescript." This specimen is still on display at the Wakefield Museum
Wakefield Museum
Wakefield Museum is a local museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, north England, covering the history of the city of Wakefield and the local area from preistoric times onwards.- Overview :...
, along with other items of Waterton's collection.
Whilst in Guiana he taught one of his uncle's slaves, John Edmonstone
John Edmonstone
John Edmonstone was originally a black slave probably born in Demarara . He learned taxidermy from Charles Waterton, whose father in law, Charles Edmonstone had a plantation in Demarara.After he was freed, John came to Glasgow with his former master, Charles Edmonstone...
his skills. Edmonstone, by then freed and practising taxidermy in Edinburgh, in turn taught the teenage Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
. Waterton is credited with bringing the anaesthetic agent curare
Curare
Curare is a common name for various arrow poisons originating from South America. The three main types of curare are:* tubocurare...
to Europe.
In the 1820s he returned to Walton Hall and built a nine-foot-high wall around three miles (5 km) of his estate, turning it into the world's first wildfowl and nature reserve
Nature reserve
A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...
, making him one of the western world's first environmentalists. He also invented the bird nesting box
Nest box
A nest box, also spelled nestbox is a man-made box provided for animals to nest in. Nest boxes are most frequently utilized for wild and domesticated birds, in which case they are also called birdhouses, but some mammalian species may also use them. Birdhouses are the most common types of nest...
. The Waterton Collection, on display at Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...
until 1966 is now in Wakefield Museum
Wakefield Museum
Wakefield Museum is a local museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, north England, covering the history of the city of Wakefield and the local area from preistoric times onwards.- Overview :...
.
Waterton died after fracturing his ribs and injuring his liver in a fall on his estate. His body is interred near the spot where the accident happened. His coffin was taken from the hall to his chosen resting place by barge, in a funeral cortege led by the Bishop of Beverley, and followed at the lakeside by many local people. The grave was between two oak trees which have now disappeared. It is said that a flock of birds followed the barge, and a linnet
Linnet
The Linnet is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae.The Linnet derives its scientific name from its fondness for hemp and its English name from its liking for seeds of flax, from which linen is made.- Description :...
sang as the coffin was being lowered.
Family
On May 11, 1829 at the age of 47 he married 17 year old Anne Edmonstone. Anne was the granddaughter of an Arawak Indian and Scottish royalty. "His wife died shortly after giving birth to their son, EdmundEdmund Waterton
Edmund Waterton, Knight of the Supreme Order of Christ; Knight of Malta; Papal Privy Chamberlain; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries was a British antiquary. Born at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire, the only child of Charles Waterton, he was a lifelong Catholic and was educated at Stonyhurst...
. She was only 18. After her death he slept on the floor, with a block of wood for a pillow."
Alleged Eccentricities
A range of colourful stories have been handed down about Charles Waterton, not all of which are verifiable, but which add up to a popular portrait of an archetypal aristocraticAristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
:
- Waterton had his hair cut in a crew cutCrew cutA crew cut is a type of haircut in which the hair on the top of the head is cut relatively short, graduated in length from the longest hair at the front hairline to the shortest at the back of the crown. The hair on the sides and back of the head is usually tapered short, semi-short or medium. A...
at a time when a full head of hair piled up or brushed forward was in style. - In 1817, he climbed St. Peter'sSt. Peter's BasilicaThe Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as ' and commonly known as Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within the Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world...
in RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and left his gloves on top of the lightning conductor. Pope Pius VIIPope Pius VIIPope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...
asked him to remove the gloves, which he did. - Waterton sometimes enjoyed biting the legs of his guests from under the dinner table, imitating a dog.
- He tried to fly by jumping from the top of an outhouse on his estate, calling the exercise "Navigating the atmosphere".
- He devised his own methods for preserving animal skins and used them to create unusual caricatures of his enemies. He also utilised his taxidermy skills to create models critiquing political events of the day.
- He believed in the medical remedy of blood-letting, which was largely an abandoned practice at that point in time. When ill he bled himself heavily.
Passions
Waterton was an early opponent of pollutionPollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...
. He fought a long-running court case against the owners of a soapworks which had been set up near his estate in 1839, and sent out poisonous chemicals which severely damaged the trees in the park and polluted the lake. He was eventually successful in having the soapworks moved.
Legacy
- Walton Hall, approached only by a pedestrian bridge to its own island. is now the main building of a hotel. There is a golf course in the vicinity and various public footpaths, some leading to a nature reserve.
- Waterton LakeWaterton LakeWaterton Lake is a mountain lake in southern Alberta, Canada and northern Montana, USA. The lake is composed of two bodies of water, connected by a shallow channel known locally as the Bosphorus. The two parts are referred to as Lower Wateron Lake, and Upper Waterton Lake, the latter of which is...
s, now a national parkWaterton Lakes National ParkWaterton Lakes National Park is a national park located in the southwest corner of Alberta, Canada, and borders Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. Waterton was Canada's fourth national park, formed in 1895 and named after Waterton Lake, in turn after the Victorian naturalist and conservationist...
in AlbertaAlbertaAlberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, was named for Charles Waterton by Thomas BlakistonThomas BlakistonThomas Wright Blakiston was an English explorer and naturalist.Born in Lymington, Hampshire, England, Blakiston was the son of Major John Blakiston, second son of Sir Matthew Blakiston, 2nd Baronet...
in 1858. - Charles Waterton also has a Wakefield road and a school named after him (Waterton Junior and Infant school) in the estate of Lupset, Wakefield.
- He introduced several foreign types of animals to England.
External links
- Charles Waterton's book Wanderings in South America Free version
- Works by Charles Waterton at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Waterton and Wouralia
- Charles Waterton, a naturalist