Winter 2016/2017 Glowing from giving

I have always loved museums and natural history so I was very happy when I began volunteering at the Museum in the invertebrate section nearly nine years ago. I see volunteering as a chance to help take care of a wonderful collection and work alongside people who share my interests; I also work part-time as a secretary for my local museum, Reigate Priory Museum in Surrey. One of the Museum’s major priorities is to provide free open access to its incredible collections for global scientific research and recently I have been working on a project to improve the documentation of the historical Porifera (sponges) collection in readiness for making this information and data available worldwide.

The Museum has an important sponge collection with a wide geographical range, comprising both saltwater and freshwater species. In appearance the sponges range from small, unassuming encrustations to beautiful stovepipes and the famous Venus flower baskets.

In 2016, some of the Museum’s sponges appeared in the exhibition Coral Reefs – Secret Cities of the Sea, to illustrate to the visiting public the fundamental role that sponges play in reef ecosystems. Behind the scenes, the collection is regularly consulted by researchers from across the world.

Improving documentation helps to make the collection more accessible to those researchers by ensuring that key specimen data (e.g. species name, locality, habitat, collection date and collector) is visible on the museum’s electronic catalogue. Working with these specimens has given me an opportunity to find out a lot more about the scientists who have collected and studied the sponges and I wanted to share some of their stories and secrets with you.

Spongologists – the great, the lesser-known and the tragic Dried sponges are a long-established collection at the Museum, catalogued from at least the 1840s, as they are traditionally fairly easy to preserve and not too difficult to collect. Many specimens were simply found washed up on beaches, or were dredged by early scientific vessels.

In 1841 the Victorian naturalist James Scott Bowerbank (1797-1877) discovered many sponges at Brighton after a storm at sea had thrown them onto the beach. It was his first opportunity to study fresh Porifera specimens and they sparked a passion that would stay with Bowerbank for the rest of his life.

Bowerbank’s research and writing on sponges led to him amassing a huge private collection over the next 35 years. The Bowerbank collection contains many Type specimens (a specimen to which the scientific name of that organism is first formally attached). Bowerbank formed an impressive

Helping Hands from the Past The Museum’s early Sponge Collectors and Taxonomists

by Louise Berridge

Hyattella bowerbanki collected by Wallace. Harry Taylor, NHM Photo Unit.

worldwide collecting network that included many friends and colleagues. With funds from a successful family distilling business, Bowerbank could even advertise for collectors. The Porifera Library in the Darwin Centre conserves a pamphlet, with very detailed instructions on sponge collecting and preservation, circulated by Bowerbank to encourage travellers to find him specimens: ‘any expense incurred in thus obliging him will be gratefully repaid.’

By Bowerbank’s death in 1877, his personal collection was deemed so important that it was purchased in its entirety by the British Museum and it remains a treasured foundation of the sponge collection here at the Museum.

During my volunteering I have been able to find two sponges in the collection that were part of a parcel sent to Bowerbank by Charles Darwin, sponges originally collected on Darwin’s Beagle voyage:

‘on the same principle that I like to look at all old rubbishy barnacles, you may like to look at and have any rubbishy sponges...’ Charles Darwin to James Bowerbank on sending him a parcel of sponges in February 1850

Darwin may have been a bit disparaging about his specimens at the time, but wonderfully they still have his handwritten labels and are certainly not considered ‘rubbishy’ today!

I also rediscovered four Bowerbank specimens labelled ‘Moluccas, Wallace’ and wondered if they could have anything to do with Alfred Russel Wallace? It has since been confirmed that Wallace certainly did collect sponges from the Moluccas for Bowerbank (sent via the London natural history dealer Samuel Stevens, whom Wallace worked for to support himself). These sponges (two of which are pictured and held at the Museum) are the only ones Wallace is known to have collected.

Whilst not all the collectors are as famous as perhaps Wallace and Darwin, their work is no less valuable. A large and varied range of sponges from Western Australia were collected for Bowerbank by his friend George Clifton (1823-1913), a seaweed scientist who worked as Superintendent of Water Police at Fremantle – a happy marriage of career and hobbies!

Amelia Warren Griffiths (1768-1858), another seaweed scientist, collected sponges for Bowerbank from Torquay. They are rare, but I am always pleased to find Mrs Griffiths’

specimens as she is one of the few female scientists represented in the historical sponge collection. Griffiths was widowed young and pursued scientific work while looking after her family, a rarity for a woman of her time.

More tragically, Bowerbank specimens labelled ‘Barrett Jamaica’ are presumed to have been collected by Lucas Barrett (1837-1862), a Bowerbank family friend and Director of the Geological Survey of the West Indies, who died in an accident at Kingston Harbour at the age of only 25 when his diving apparatus failed (worse still, Barrett’s wife Alice Maria was pregnant with their son at the time of the accident). Early underwater exploration was extremely dangerous and this case demonstrates just how seriously surveying and collecting specimens was taken by these scientists. The Museum’s sponges also show how some of the historical specimens were collected from countries in the former British Empire and the historical context is important. However, most scientists were working from the desire to understand rather than to dominate the natural world - in Barrett’s case; he sadly paid very dearly for it.

Identifying and caring for the collection The Bowerbank specimens have been well looked-after for nearly 150 years, but many were not registered or catalogued for the simple reason that it would have been a mammoth undertaking. The collection originally comprised about 18000 items, but only around 2000 specimens were registered by the Museum in 1877, with hundreds of items being entirely left out of the catalogue.

The specimens had arrived at a difficult time, during the tumult of the natural history collections being moved from the British Museum to their new home here in South Kensington. The register entries for the specimens that were actually catalogued are quite brief, and the material was never completely documented, with collector names and dates omitted leaving a somewhat sketchy record.

Fully cataloguing Bowerbank’s specimens is a belated task that I have been very happy to work on and I have benefitted greatly from the careful work carried out in the past by the spongologist Henry John Carter (1813-1895).

Phyllospongia papyracea collected by Wallace. Harry Taylor, NHM Photo Unit.

Deciphering the collection Carter was employed by the Museum in 1877 to sort through Bowerbank’s collection, identify Bowerbank’s Types and discard scientifically unusable specimens. This was a task which took Carter about five months.

Carter was a retired army surgeon who had worked in Yemen and India, but unlike Bowerbank he did not have great financial resources and often had to do his natural history work in his spare time, sometimes borrowing a microscope from friends. Carter still has a fine reputation as a taxonomist because he was meticulous and careful, and I can see this first-hand in his surviving work with handwritten species determinations and references to publications.

In 1890, after he became unwell, Carter additionally gifted his own sponge collection to the Museum. I have been able to add to the Carter catalogue records by consulting his original labels. Whilst Bowerbank labelled his material in a manner that largely suited himself, Carter was clearly thinking of people who might work on his specimens in the future and wanted to make things clear for them.

Taxonomic disasters… Not every taxonomist was as careful as Carter however – many of the Museum’s earliest sponges collected between the 1840s and 1880s were originally registered by the Museum’s Mollusca department, and most specimens are listed under the name ‘Spongia’ (analogous to ‘Porifera’ or ‘sponge’ today).

Hundreds of our early specimens have since been determined to different genera and species by taxonomists working in the collection but even when a new species was named the register books were not updated meaning that the catalogue entries are no longer accurate.

Specimen boxes can sometimes contain several labels with updated determinations, so I undertook a bit of detective work to identify the label authors and work out the current accepted taxonomic name. Helpfully the Porifera Library has an archive file compiled by former sponge curator (and current Life Sciences Head) Clare Valentine, containing handwriting samples of scientists who have worked in the collection, so with a bit of practice I was able to identify the label-writers and add the most recent determinations to the catalogue.

One of the chief culprits for not updating the register books was Robert J Lendlmayer von Lendenfeld (1858-1913),

who worked on the collection in the 1880s. Lendenfeld’s handwriting is on dozens of specimen redetermination labels. One specimen box contains a label which says ‘contents of this box examined by Dr V. Lendenfeld & [said] to have been arranged by him’ but there is also a rather dry despairing note added by a former Keeper: ‘that explains the taxonomic disaster then.’ Perhaps this is not entirely fair, as the World Porifera Database indicates that many of Lendenfeld’s species determinations are still accepted – but it would have been very helpful if he had also updated the catalogue!

Not all of the Mollusca registers have been digitised yet, but I have compiled a spreadsheet of all the re-determined specimens I could find alongside an alphabetical look up guide, which can be consulted until it is possible to update the electronic catalogue.

It has been a privilege to be able to volunteer on this project and work with this collection to uncover some of its hidden histories. It represents the hard work of so many collectors and scientists and the documentation enriches the catalogue records and highlights the scientific and historical value of the specimens.

My next project will continue with Invertebrates, to enhance the catalogue data for the Megascolecidae earthworm collection, one of the most consulted Oligochaeta families.

With thanks to Emma Sherlock as my volunteer manager and Senior Curator, Annelida and Porifera

Would you like to know more? Darwin writes to Bowerbank at the Darwin Correspondence Project: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1305AWallace writes to Samuel Stevens (sending sponges for Mr Bowerbank) - Wallace Letters Online: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1703/1585/T/details.html World Porifera Database: http://www.marinespecies.org/porifera/http:// www.marinespecies.org/porifera/ Book about Carter: The Scientist in the Cottage: Henry John Carter FRS (1813-1895) by Michael Downes. Primrose Publications, 2013

© Francois Cornu 2004 Aplysina archeri in the Museum store

Making a Difference in Kensington and Chelsea: some highlights Thursday 24 November saw an evening of celebration and grandeur at the Victoria and Albert Museum for volunteers and volunteering across the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Volunteer managers nominated ten volunteers in five different categories from across the Museum including the Wildlife Garden, Life Sciences and the Angela Marmont Centre.

Congratulations to all award winners as listed and thank you to volunteer managers for nominating:

Nominated in the Wildlife GardenTom Thomas, Noreen Musikant, Rhiannon Dowling, Elza Blakenburg and Frances Dismore

Nominated in Life Science Clare Foote, Richard Allen, Merryl Wallace and Denise Hauser

Nominated in the Angela Marmont CentreBen Dixon

Dates for your diaryYou are invited to attend the Big Welcome (Museum induction) and Discover Tring (Tring induction)

This one-day experience involves a series of informative presentations and interactive tours, including a welcome from the Director. Lunch and refreshments are provided throughout the day.

Next available Big Welcome dates:• 7 June

• 5 July

• 6 September

• 4 October

• 8 November

Discover Tring dates:• 21 June

• 7 September

• 6 December

To book your place please get in touch with Sophie.Binder@nhm.ac.uk

For more information on anything in this newsletter, please contact Ali Thomas, Museum Volunteer Engagement Manager at a.thomas@nhm.ac.uk or on 020 7942 6048.Contact

Our thanks to all who contributed to this newsletter especially Louise Berridge, Emma Sherlock and Harry Taylor.

PublicationsThe new issues of evolve, WILD WORLD and Waterhouse Times are out now. Please help yourself to a copy outside of the Staff restaurant.

Issue 19 £3.50

Front cover main image © Gideon Knight. Chicken and polar bear images © istockphoto.com.

WINNING SHOT

ANIMAL PHRASES CURIOUS

COLLECTIONSTOP 10 THE DODO1 Issue 82 Autumn 2016

ISSUE 30 | WINTER 2017 | £4

T H E M A R AThe wild home of Africa’s big game

C O N S E R VAT I O N I N A C T I O NHistoric specimens revealed

T R E A S U R E S O F T H E N AT U R A L W O R L DBest of London’s Natural History Museum

M E M B E R S ’ AND PATRONS’ ROOMS