Nelson Annandale

Nelson Annandale.

Thomas Nelson Annandale CIE (15 June 1876, Edinburgh - 10 April 1924, Calcutta) was a Scottish zoologist, entomologist and anthropologist.

The eldest son of Thomas Annandale, the regius professor of clinical surgery at the University of Edinburgh, Nelson was educated at Rugby School, Balliol College, Oxford, and the University of Edinburgh.^[1]

Annandale went to India in 1904 as Deputy Superintendent of the Natural History Section of the Indian Museum. He was a deputy director at the Indian Museum and in 1907 he became its director, succeeding John Anderson (1833–1900). He had travelled widely before his career in India and with H. C. Robinson he had undertaken the Skeat Expedition to the northern part of the Malay Peninsula in 1899.^[2]

He started the Records and Memoirs of the Indian Museum journals and in 1916, he became the first director of the Zoological Survey of India that he helped found. He was associated with many scientists of his time. This change placed an official equality with botany and geology and made more funds available for expeditions to various parts of India. He was interested in aspects beyond systematics including ecology. His suggestion of a problem in anthropology to P. C. Mahalanobis led to the latters discovery of a technique that developed into the multivariate statistical techniques of today. He held the position of director until 1924 and was succeeded by Robert Beresford Seymour Sewell (1880–1964). He was president of the 1924 session of the Indian Science Congress.

The Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, with which he was closely associated during his service in India as Anthropological Secretary, Vice-President and as its President in 1923 instituted a triennial an Annandale Memorial Medal for contributions to anthropology in Asia. The first award was made to Dr Fritz Sarasin in 1928.

His insect and spider collection is in the Indian Museum , Calcutta.

He was also noted for his work on the biology and anthropology of the Faroe Islands and Iceland.^[3]

Bibliography

(incomplete)

• Annandale N. & Robinson H. C. (1903). Fasciculi Malayenses: Anthropological and Zoological Results of an Expedition to Perak and the Siamese Malay States. Liverpool.
• Annandale N. (1905).The Faroes and Iceland: studies in island life. Oxford:Clarendon Press.
• Annandale N. & Gravely F. H. (1914). "The limestone caves of Burma and the Malay Peninsula, Part II: The fauna of the caves". Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (ns)9(10) for 1913: 402-423.
• Annandale N., Prashad B. & Amin-ud-Din (1921). "The Aquatic and Amphibious Molluscs of Manipur". Records of the Indian Museum 22(4): 528-632.

References

1. ^ Dover, Cedric (26 April 1924). "Obituary - Dr. Nelson Annandale, C.I.E.". Nature 113 (2843): 615–615. doi:10.1038/113615a0. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v113/n2843/abs/113615a0.html. 
2. ^ Smith, M. A. 1941. Fauna of British India. Reptilia and Amphibia.
3. ^ Annandale TN (1905) The Faroes and Iceland : studies in island life Scan

• Hora, Sunder Lal (1949) In memoriam Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Science, Section A 8:157
• Anon. 1925: [Annandale, T. N.] J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 30 213-214.
• Calvert, P. P. 1924 [Annandale, T. N.] Ent. News 35:264.
• Evenhuis, N. L. 1997 *Litteratura taxonomica dipterorum (1758-1930). Volume 1 (A-K); Volume 2 (L-Z). Leiden, Backhuys Publishers.
• Kemp, S. W. 1925 [Annandale, T. N.] Rec. Indian Mus. , Calcutta. 27:1-28

External links

• books by Nelson Annandale at Internet Archive

Persondata
Name	Annandale, Nelson
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	15 June 1876
Place of birth
Date of death	10 April 1924
Place of death