CHARLES CHILTON ZOOLOGIST

Awards

• Charles Chilton was a clever New Zealand zoologist, he was the first rector to be given in Australasia, and the first person to be awarded a D.Sc. degree in New Zealand.

• In recognition of his worldwide renown Charles Chilton was made a fellow of the Linnean Society of London and a corresponding or honorary member of several other scientific bodies.

• He was an original member of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and received its Mueller Memorial Medal in 1921.

• His personal publications, numbering about 130, were largely on Amphipoda, Isopoda and higher Crustacea, especially from New Zealand and the subantarctic, and from subterranean waters.

Facts

• Thomas Chilton is Charles Chilton's father

• In 1915, Frank Chilton, their only child, a second-year medical student and a lieutenant in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, was killed in the Battle of Gallipoli.

• At a very young age Charles was troubled by his hips and had his left leg , using an artificial leg and a crutch thereafter.

• Charles Chilton was born on 27 September 1865 and grew up in Little Marstone, Pencombe near Leominster, Herefordshire, England.

• In 1862 Charles emigrated with his family to New . They all settled on a large farm at East of Eyreton, North of Canterbury.

School

• After going to Eyreton and Papanui schools, he was sent to Christchurch West School where he won the dux medal.

• Charles entered Canterbury College in 1875 as an un matriculated student, and matriculated three years later.

• In 1881, he gained a Master of Art with first class honors, having been taught by Frederick Wollaston Hutton, who inspired him to take up biology, especially the study of crustaceans, which had been little studied in New Zealand up to that time from 1875 to 1878 where he won a Junior Scholarship in 1878 and a Senior Scholarship in mathematics in 1879. .

School 2

• On completing his BA in 1880 he became senior scholar in English, physics and natural science and exhibition scholar in natural science.

• When he was working under Professor F. W. Hutton he completed his MA with first-class honors in 1881, studying the then the poorly known and understanding southern hemisphere Crustacea. This was to provide him with the impetus for his major life work, lots of it in help with the Dunedin scientist George Malcolm Thomson

Discoveries in collage

• Charles first scientific publication was when he described the three new species of crustacean (two crabs and one isopod) from Littleton Harbor and Lake Pupuke.

• Then later that year he describe four species of amphipod and isopod from groundwaters at the family farm in Eyreton.

• He went on to discover the isopod Phreatoicus typicus in the same location, the first example ever described of the suborder Phreatoicidea, the "earliest derived isopod".

Zoology

• Zoology studies (animals living and extinct) the animal kingdom including the structure, evolution, classification the habits. Zoologist make animal discoveries like how Charles Darwin discovered animal evolution.