Page 75 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

The

great

collector

We should celebrate the generous British eccentric, born 150
years ago, who gifted the world’s biggest zoological collection

to the nation. Ed Hutchings introduces Walter Rothschild.

Cad
Cadphises moorei,
to be a sickly child and so was schooled one of the two million qu
uickly attached himself to Günther,
at home. He still managed to accum lulate insect specimens in m aking him a mentor and writing him
Rothschild’s collection.
Carr age & butterfly: The Natural H story Museum/A amy menagerie at Tring Park, the family homme. famil ly were expecting the boy to become
animals voraciously, however, particuularly
hun
ndreds of letters throughout his teens.
nther was cautious in encouraging
e
butterflies and insects, but there were also
Gün
ter, though, aware that his powerful
Walt
tropical birds and kangaroos among hiis
Aged seven, he announced that he woould
a bank
ker rather than a naturalist.
Nevert
theless, his parents provided funds
one day run a zoological museum. Six
for Wal
lter to set up a private zoological
years later, a chance meeting with Albert
m at Tring and paid for collecting
Günther, head of the zoology department
museum
at the Natural History Museum in London,
expeditio
ons around the globe.
went on to study zoology at the
expanded his interest in butterflies and
Walter
es of Bonn and Cambridge,
birds from merely collecting them to
scientifically classifying them. Rothschild
before drop
BBC Wildlife
Spring 2018 universitie pping out of the latter in 1889. 75